What Catholics believe about Prostestants

[Arnobius]

It has always bothered me that when confronted by Protestants, so many Catholics go running to the Bible. It has always seemed to me that you would be better served by saying, simply, “I don’t care, the Pope says it, I believe it, that settles it.”

Given we are debating people who reject the authority of the Pope, what good would that do? We are not running to the scripture because we think the rest lacks, but because Protestants have an a priori rejection of what anything but the Bible says.

Moreover, your quote of what you think we should say is often a caricature Protestants use of Catholics, that we blindly follow the Pope.

 

[Steadfast]

Of course what you believe about the Church Fathers and what they actually believed are two different things.

Remember also, that the study of the Bible is not necessarily to be grounded in it… let us not forget those Scriptural Scholars who lost their faith on account of what they “discovered” (Bultmann, Ehrmann etc).

Remember Protestants like Karl Barth who recognized how far from Christianity Liberal Protestantism had become with their principles of scriptural study.

Finally, remember that these poor Church Fathers who were so “uneducated” were the ones who proclaimed the truths that Protestants assume today: Trinity, the Canon of Scripture, etc.

What you seem to be saying is basically since the Church Fathers did not agree with Protestantism, it is because they were uneducated in the Scriptures.

I didn’t say they were uneducated.

I said Biblical Theology as a discipline within Theology proper didn’t exist at the time many of them were writing and their approach to Scripture was practical rather than didactic.

I, actually, have not drawn any qualitative conclusions. I was just pointing out that Protestantism, theologically speaking, was forged during a period when biblical study was coming into its own and was very much a byproduct of this.

It may be that the Protestants overstated the case for the centrality of the Bible.

The only conclusion I’ve drawn is that the case for “material sufficiency” is overwrought.

Here’s the thing:

You can say that everything Catholics believe can be found in the Bible but it won’t be compelling to anyone who isn’t already half way across the Tiber since, as I’ve maintained, so much of what the Bible has to say is (or should be) a matter of study and, in many cases, liberty.

 

[Arnobius]

I see. Thank you for clarifying what you meant. I apologize for misinterpreting you.

The problem I am still seeing here though is that in some cases, Biblical criticism seems to try to figure out what the Bible meant while not acknowledging that the early Christians are a very strong testimony for the message taught by the apostles.

When the Biblical scholars use their methods to discover what the Bible really meant, we should see links to what the early Christians really believed. If we do not, is that not good testimony that they have not got it right? Or is there a preexisting belief that everything that matches beliefs held today must have been added later?

The Church Fathers have tended to be largely in step with those that went before them and those that did not wound up condemned.

Indeed we know the early heresies in the Church were condemned as being contradictory to the faith passed on from the Apostles… that it was new and the men who invented these heresies could be identified directly.

If something was invented from a misapplication of scripture, should we not be able to point to where it appeared and where the arguments of those who condemned the opinion are?

Also, would it not be correct to say it is possible that people like Luther were the ones to overemphasize certain parts of scripture for their own ideas (Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, etc)?

 

[jmcrae]

The only conclusion I’ve drawn is that the case for “material sufficiency” is overwrought.

I’m not sure I know what that means.

Here’s the thing:

You can say that everything Catholics believe can be found in the Bible but it won’t be compelling to anyone who isn’t already half way across the Tiber since, as I’ve maintained, so much of what the Bible has to say is (or should be) a matter of study and, in many cases, liberty.

Well, so far I don’t know of any Catholics who say that everything the Catholic Church teaches, or everything that is necessary for the life of faith, can be found in the Bible. Just reading the Bible isn’t going to save anybody - I don’t even think Protestants believe that, if they take a moment to think it through.

 

[vocatio]

Fr. Mitch Pakwa, SJ, said something I thought was great the other night on EWTN. He proposed that the bible says Mary is Blessed, might a requirement to be considered Christian be that we call Mary Blessed, since it’s in scripture, Luke 1?

Also, consider what Paul says in Hebrews 12, dealing with the cloud of witness, discipline and rejection:

1 Therefore, since **we are surrounded **by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us
2 while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God.

---

15 See to it that no one be deprived of the grace of God, that no bitter root spring up and cause trouble, through which many may become defiled,

16 that no one be an immoral or profane person like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.

17 For you know that later, when he wanted to inherit his father’s blessing, he was rejected because he found no opportunity to change his mind, even though he sought the blessing with tears.

18 You have not approached that which could be touched and a blazing fire and gloomy darkness and storm

19 and a trumpet blast and a voice speaking words such that those who heard begged that no message be further addressed to them,

20 for they could not bear to hear the command: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.”

21 Indeed, so fearful was the spectacle that Moses said, “I am terrified and trembling.”

22 No, you have approached Mount Zion and

the city of the living God,

the heavenly Jerusalem, and

countless angels in festal gathering,

23 and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and

God the judge of all, and

the spirits of the just made perfect,

24 and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and

the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.

Any got a better interpretation of that? These are the Saints. We can approach them to pray on our behalf.

I plan to dig deeper in this. Protestantism sterelizes the faith passed on to us. That’s why I’m so excited to be Home. But since most of my family is “Protestant” I find that reading a verses of said Hebrews to have w deeper meaning [particularly verse 14 and 15]:

12 So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees.
13 Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed.
14 Strive for peace with everyone, and for that holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
15 See to it that no one be deprived of the grace of God, that no bitter root spring up and cause trouble, through which many may become defiled,
16 that no one be an immoral or profane person like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.

I fixed formatting and added the following:

So then, we should pray to saints if we are truly Christians. We should not deprive seeking their intersessions on our behalf.

Just something to think about.

Jimmy Akin said once “would you leave Peter because of Judas?” Needless to say I pulled into my drive and wept in dispair for being such a fool. If God can have mercy on me, a fool, then he can have mercy on all of us. I’m happy now and my wife is happy now, though telling her family that we are now Catholic, which is beging in the “Fullness of Christ” and thus is the highest level of being Christian…not picking and choosing to fix that which God handed down to us. REALLY. Why do we think we have to “FIX” God? Catholic do this to, not just “Protestants”. So go out and Kiss a heretic…I mean a Protestant" I believe my “Protestant” Christian family made it to heaven. I wonder about the Catholics that didn’t do what they were supposed to do, but I extend that hope for them too and pray for them everyday, offering up penance for the repose of their souls.

PAX Christi tecum.
Pray for my son, he’s discerning the priesthood…and me for the diaconate.