What is the Catholic response to this?

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A reformed evangelical apologist gave the following justification as to why evangelicals do not accept Catholic claims regarding church history:

"It’s important to note that Evangelicals hold a different view of church history than Roman Catholicism does. We don’t claim a succession of doctrine from the first apostles passed down orally from generation to generation. It would be more appropriate to see passages like 2 Kings 22:8-13 as representative of history, where God’s people are given a revelation to follow, and sometimes it’s possible for His people to completely fall away from that material, or, as in the case with 2 Kings 22:8-13, physically lose the law of God.

In other words, the type of succession Evangelicals hold to is doctrinal, not generational. The principles that Evangelicals hold to don’t need to be found in the early church fathers, but rather in the Scriptures. Since the early church never had to formally deal with the issue of, for example, justification in such a defined manner, it’s not unreasonable to see such a formal understanding being largely absent from the fathers."
 
4 marks:
A reformed evangelical apologist gave the following justification as to why evangelicals do not accept Catholic claims regarding church history:

"It’s important to note that Evangelicals hold a different view of church history than Roman Catholicism does. We don’t claim a succession of doctrine from the first apostles passed down orally from generation to generation. It would be more appropriate to see passages like 2 Kings 22:8-13 as representative of history, where God’s people are given a revelation to follow, and sometimes it’s possible for His people to completely fall away from that material, or, as in the case with 2 Kings 22:8-13, physically lose the law of God.

In other words, the type of succession Evangelicals hold to is doctrinal, not generational. The principles that Evangelicals hold to don’t need to be found in the early church fathers, but rather in the Scriptures. Since the early church never had to formally deal with the issue of, for example, justification in such a defined manner, it’s not unreasonable to see such a formal understanding being largely absent from the fathers."
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So how do the evangelicals explain the period of time AFTER Christ’s death and BEFORE the canon of the New Testament was agreed upon?
 
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In other words, the type of succession Evangelicals hold to is doctrinal, not generational. The principles that Evangelicals hold to don’t need to be found in the early church fathers, but rather in the Scriptures.
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And yet, Evangelicals persistently refuse to address the Biblical support for Catholic teaching that has been offered to them since the Council of Trent. In regard to the Early Church, it is probably best to use their teachings simply to point out what those taught by the Apostles themselves, and their immediate followers, believed. The question then becomes, "Which is more likely, that those taught by the Apostles and their immediate followers - who were martyred in horrific persecutions rather than deny even one aspect of the Faith of Christ - misinterpret the Scriptures, or that we - living 20 centuries later - do?

I address Biblical and Early Church teachings regarding the nature of the Church herself in posts 37 through 60 of this thread.

forum.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=17067

I discuss the Biblical basis for Catholicism’s teachings on Justification in post 90-95 of this thread.

forum.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=5393
 
4 marks:
A reformed evangelical apologist gave the following justification as to why evangelicals do not accept Catholic claims regarding church history:

"It’s important to note that Evangelicals hold a different view of church history than Roman Catholicism does. We don’t claim a succession of doctrine from the first apostles passed down orally from generation to generation. It would be more appropriate to see passages like 2 Kings 22:8-13 as representative of history, where God’s people are given a revelation to follow, and sometimes it’s possible for His people to completely fall away from that material, or, as in the case with 2 Kings 22:8-13, physically lose the law of God.

In other words, the type of succession Evangelicals hold to is doctrinal, not generational. The principles that Evangelicals hold to don’t need to be found in the early church fathers, but rather in the Scriptures. Since the early church never had to formally deal with the issue of, for example, justification in such a defined manner, it’s not unreasonable to see such a formal understanding being largely absent from the fathers."
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So how were these doctrines handed down through the ages? Surely some of the christian writers documented them, if these are, in fact, the original doctrines. Otherwise, we must assume, in the absence of any previous record, that they fabricated them in the 16th century.
 
4 marks:
A reformed evangelical apologist gave the following justification as to why evangelicals do not accept Catholic claims regarding church history:

"It’s important to note that Evangelicals hold a different view of church history than Roman Catholicism does. We don’t claim a succession of doctrine from the first apostles passed down orally from generation to generation. It would be more appropriate to see passages like 2 Kings 22:8-13 as representative of history, where God’s people are given a revelation to follow, and sometimes it’s possible for His people to completely fall away from that material, or, as in the case with 2 Kings 22:8-13, physically lose the law of God.

In other words, the type of succession Evangelicals hold to is doctrinal, not generational. The principles that Evangelicals hold to don’t need to be found in the early church fathers, but rather in the Scriptures. Since the early church never had to formally deal with the issue of, for example, justification in such a defined manner, it’s not unreasonable to see such a formal understanding being largely absent from the fathers."
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There are some good answers here, as well:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=48214
 
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Ignatius:
There are some good answers here, as well:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=48214
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What I think the apologist fails to get is that doctrine and apostolic succession are inter-related. He seems to isolate doctrine apart from the tradition in which it, once revealed, was developed.

The scriptures emerge from their respective traditions, and must be interpreted and understood with these traditions firmly in mind in order to be interpreted correctly.

It is just another attempt to deny apostolic succession and the particular ministerial authority that is associated with it.
 
This is one of the easier ones, actually. Simply point out to these Protestants that Israel never received the same promises to the Church in the New Covenant that Israel received in the Old Covenant. Was Israel promised that Christ would be with them till the end of time? Was Israel promised the Holy Spirit to be her guide in teaching, her Comforter in trials? Was Israel promised the keys to bind and lose? Did the representative leader of Israel ever receive the special solicitude of the God-man, “I have prayed for you Peter, that your faith will not fail. And when you return to me, you shall strengthen your brothers”? Unless these Protestant naysayers can answer an affirmative to all these questions, their complaints are for naught.

God bless
 
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