What is the evidence that the church's teachings are backed by God?

[GaryTaylor]

Yes I realize that, well Hopefull Mary may of helped a bit wth Fatima and all , as the Quran as a whole book entitled Mary, and the RCC and Muslims do share some commons things, but I guess at this point the Pope needs to eat crow, as the Islam pop is growing faster than the RCC"s pop and even thought there are many good Muslims, they will submit to the Radical Islamist when the time comes.

What do you suggest?

Prayer comes to mind. I’m not seeing a world Islam in my mind. Such is the faithful endurance of Gods Holy people though, if bondage is the path they must go, they will go, historical, Biblical fact. Muslims have been martyred for standing up for Christians, though not many, I suppose most submit to a deviation of what they already believe to be the objective truth, half truths and all that ya know. Or they develope their own truth from the Quran for eveyone else’s doesn’t suit them.

Dialogue with those who are capable will continue though. What do you say to those who do not believe in the Trinity such as the Jews and Islam etc? Age old question often anwered with ignorance. Many would point to Christianity to be just as responsible as Islam for the historic violence in Gods name.

 

[Perplexity]

You don’t exist. You’re just a webbot. Prove to me that you exist and are not just a bot pretending to be a real person.

Foundationalists have been arguing for over a millennium now that the process of justifying beliefs must come to an end at some point, namely, the foundations upon which all the justifications themselves rest. These foundational beliefs are called properly basic beliefs: basic because they’re not inferred from other beliefs, and proper because they’re reasonable despite that.

That I am a real person and not a webbot is a properly basic belief, and will remain as such unless and until someone provides good reason to the contrary. But, any such proposed reasons will be less obvious than my real person-hood. So, I’m not worried.

Aside from that, what does this have to do with my posts?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Oh excuse me Simon Magnus, [sic] yes was considered a God in 1st century rome, even built a stature of him upon is death, and since Peter was never in Rome or can’t be proved, and according to Paul, who never mentions Peter in his book to the Romans when he mentions over 20 names at the end, but not Peter, then its hard to believe Peter was in Rome. So yes I think they thought Simon M. may very well of been mistaken for Peter.

Well can’t write anymore now…

Simon Magus? :frighten:

The evidence is clear that Peter was in Rome. Read this article:

catholic.com/tracts/was-peter-in-rome#.UHbwX5G9KSM

William A. Jurgens, in The Faith of the Early Fathers, has thirty references to Peter’s presence in Rome, clearly holding that “Peter came to Rome and died there” and that “Peter established his See at Rome and made the bishop of Rome his successor in the primacy.”

Prime sources from Tertullian, Irenaeus, Ignatius, Clement and Lactantius and many more support the claim.

Saints Peter (and Paul) are explicitly mentioned by Irenaeus as FOUNDERS of the Church at Rome, “the greatest and most ancient Church known to all…[and] because of its superior origin, all Churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world…” (St. Irenaeus 180-99 AD, from Jurgens, Faith of the Early Fathers, volume 1, page 90).
From philvaz.com/apologetics/num13.htm

This is a very detailed article that presents evidence from both sides and makes a fair “ruling” at the end. This is not a document written by a Catholic, but a scholar who is fair minded in considering the evidence.

Ironically, the fact that the Gospels and Paul’s letters do not mention Peter in Rome is evidence for their early authorship, I.e., that, for the most part, they were written before Peter went to Rome.

In Peter’s first epistle, (5:13) he sends greetings from ‘she who is in Babylon, chosen together with you’. This appears to be a reference to the church in Babylon, but by Peter’s time Babylon was in virtual ruin, there is no evidence and no reason for Peter having gone there, and in Rev 16:19 and 17:5, ‘Babylon’ is used as a coded reference to Rome.

As I said, there is stronger evidence to refute your claim than to support it.

 

[prodigalson2011]

Here you just say that there is a good bit of historical support for thinking the darkening of the sun didn’t refer to an eclipse, but don’t even name sources to support the claim. So, even if you’re right, you’ve given us no reason to think so.

The 1st Century pagan writer Thallus references this event, chalking it up to an eclipse; an assertion which a later commentator took issue with, for one.

And you must not have thoroughly read all the quotes in that site you linked, because, in your analysis, you erroneously state that Tertullian attributed the event to an eclipse. What he actually says is, “Those who were not aware that this had been predicted about Christ, no doubt thought it an eclipse.”

But, by way of response, firstly it doesn’t matter if the darkening of the sun didn’t refer to an eclipse. As I argued, any darkening of the sun for three hours of the proportion Luke claims is extremely improbable, it’s just worse if he thinks it’s an eclipse.

For the sake of humoring you, I will continue to address the rest of this post, but again the event you’re subjecting to Bayes’ theorem here deals with inherently supernatural subject matter, so you’re barking up the wrong tree from the wrong end. The “probability” of these events happening ultimately rests on the subject’s belief in God or lack thereof. Honestly, I think this is a really silly undertaking on your part.

Finally, I offered good reasons for thinking Luke had an eclipse in mind including: (i) the Greek word he uses for ‘darkening’ usually referred to an eclipse, (ii) Thayer’s Greek dictionary says this is certainly what Luke meant, (iii) in general the earliest Christians interpreted Luke as meaning an eclipse as evinced by the Church father’s I linked to and (iv) in particular, Jerome translated the Greek as ‘obscuratus’ which not only usually meant ‘eclipse’, Jerome himself interpreted it to mean eclipse! So, Jerome understood the Greek to refer to an eclipse, and translated into Latin accordingly. You don’t address any of these lines of evidence.

Jerome, Origen and others also relied on the writings of Phlegon for his interpretation. The timeline Phlegon provides does not align with what we now know must have been the date of the crucifixion. None of the sources cited had any direct contact with the author of the Gospel, nor the astronomical and historical knowledge we now possess, and none of those writings are considered infallible interpretations.

The fact that only some translations use ‘eclipse’ here doesn’t diminish the evidence I put forward. You don’t even name these extra-Biblical, non-Christian sources so I’m not sure what to say to that either. I’d have to look at the Peter reference.

Again, Thallus wrote about them in the mid-first century and there are numerous references in documented early Christian correspondence with Roman authorities making reference to these events being available in Roman records. Some of those references are actually available in the link you provided.

The eclipse the Gospel authors describe takes place during the crucifixion, not after it. And it couldn’t have been a lunar eclipse since the moon was on the wrong side of the earth. Even if, against everything we know, it happened to be a lunar eclipse, it wouldn’t have lasted for three hours.

I am not saying that the lunar eclipse would have taken place during the crucifixion. Funnily enough, though, Kepler’s Laws dictate that at the very hour Christ expired, the moon went into eclipse, although it was yet under the horizon. The point is that Peter, in his speech in Acts, defending the truth of Christ’s divinity, makes reference to a prophecy of Joel that says “the sun will be darkened and the moon turned to blood” on the day of the Lord. Lunar eclipses were called blood moons in the ancient world, and we now know that on the only day the crucifixion could have possibly taken place based on the Biblical evidence, a lunar eclipse did indeed occur (and much more than that.)

For the full extent of the correlation between the Biblical and astronomical data, I strongly suggest watching the documentary “The Star of Bethlehem.” I would love to hear what you’d have to say about that. I think the evidence it provides far outweighs your “historical improbability.”

 

[Cristiano]

Here’s the final part.

Thanks for sharing your thinking. I see what your approach is and it really makes sense in a lot of scenarios, that can is a typical application for risk management in an industry. However, here it falls apart. Here we are in the condition of the black swan and all of your subjective probability assumptions must be based on the facts that all the swans are white and when you hear someone reporting that there is a black swan then must reject your trust in that person because it is completely unreasonable given of your biased probabilities. Nothing wrong with applying biased probabilities in a lot of scenarios, that is a very reasonable thing to do. However, when you start working with extreme value scenarios the approach breaks down because in order to be procedurally consistent it becomes an invalid tautology.
I truly wish that we will discuss more the philosophy of statistics, propositional and modal logic in the philosophy forum sometime in the near future.

 

[Luvtosew]

Prayer comes to mind. I’m not seeing a world Islam in my mind. Such is the faithful endurance of Gods Holy people though, if bondage is the path they must go, they will go, historical, Biblical fact. Muslims have been martyred for standing up for Christians, though not many, I suppose most submit to a deviation of what they already believe to be the objective truth, half truths and all that ya know. Or they develope their own truth from the Quran for eveyone else’s doesn’t suit them.

Dialogue with those who are capable will continue though. What do you say to those who do not believe in the Trinity such as the Jews and Islam etc? Age old question often anwered with ignorance. Many would point to Christianity to be just as responsible as Islam for the historic violence in Gods name.

What do I say to Jews and Muslims about the trinity, nothing, I don’t know any that I’m aware of and as long as they are non violent I don’t care what they believe. I don’t think it necessary for them all to become Catholic to be saved. Same with non RC Christians,

Yes Christians did kill in the name of our God in the crusades, I believe that the Christians were told whoever fought would have all their sins forgiven and not all our fighting was in defense.

We have to admit we are the product of our upbringing, usually, whatever religion were born into thats what we stay. Not all but the majority.

 

[Luvtosew]

Simon Magus? :frighten:

The evidence is clear that Peter was in Rome. Read this article:

catholic.com/tracts/was-peter-in-rome#.UHbwX5G9KSM

William A. Jurgens, in The Faith of the Early Fathers, has thirty references to Peter’s presence in Rome, clearly holding that “Peter came to Rome and died there” and that “Peter established his See at Rome and made the bishop of Rome his successor in the primacy.”

Prime sources from Tertullian, Irenaeus, Ignatius, Clement and Lactantius and many more support the claim.

Saints Peter (and Paul) are explicitly mentioned by Irenaeus as FOUNDERS of the Church at Rome, “the greatest and most ancient Church known to all…[and] because of its superior origin, all Churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world…” (St. Irenaeus 180-99 AD, from Jurgens, Faith of the Early Fathers, volume 1, page 90).
From philvaz.com/apologetics/num13.htm

This is a very detailed article that presents evidence from both sides and makes a fair “ruling” at the end. This is not a document written by a Catholic, but a scholar who is fair minded in considering the evidence.

Ironically, the fact that the Gospels and Paul’s letters do not mention Peter in Rome is evidence for their early authorship, I.e., that, for the most part, they were written before Peter went to Rome.

In Peter’s first epistle, (5:13) he sends greetings from ‘she who is in Babylon, chosen together with you’. This appears to be a reference to the church in Babylon, but by Peter’s time Babylon was in virtual ruin, there is no evidence and no reason for Peter having gone there, and in Rev 16:19 and 17:5, ‘Babylon’ is used as a coded reference to Rome.

As I said, there is stronger evidence to refute your claim than to support it.

Read the article, babylon is Rome,why didn’t Paul say it was Babylon, probably because Peter was in Babylon, which existed at that time. The Bible can"t prove or disprove the article said if I remember right , I think Pauls writing in Romans proves he wasn’t there, and also Peter was to go after the circumcised. So its pretty much boils down to and falls under “sacred tradition”.

 

[neophyte]

This is a super vague question…

I notice that you completely ignore my earlier detailed formulation of the question, and in doing so merely prove my point: your analysis is dependent entirely on probabilities that you pull out of the air for no reason than that the numbers suit your preference, and on changing definitions in the middle of the argument. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an actual statistical analysis.

For you, the prior probability that I was born could very well be extraordinarily low, but the evidence of my existence effortlessly overcomes that initial improbability. Thus, for you-and everyone else that knows I exist-the posterior probability that I was born is >> 0.5.

The same could well be said of any other event, including the sky darkening. The posterior probability of an event that happened is always 1.0, regardless of how low the prior probability might have been.

This is just the law of non-contradiction.

Aside from all this, are you assuming that the event Luke described actually happened?

Not at all. I’ve concluded that it did based on the evidence.

 

[PRmerger]

I have been reading and sometimes (rarely) participating on this forum for well over a decade

Join date September 9, 2012.

The solution is simple, but you will have to use you reason. “Faith or revelation” do not help here (either )

This is not proof. You could merely have gone back over past threads and gleaned this information. The specificity of details do not confirm your claim. Still seeking faith, I see.

Interesting trail of discussions.

But here’s the kicker, Trurl, as the CAFs were not started until 2004, it is curious that you could claim to be lurking on a forum for 2 years before it even existed.

WELCOME TO OUR NEW FORUMS!

The Catholic Answers discussion forums went “live” on May 15. We’re glad you have found them.

Please be sure to read the FAQ and the other “sticky” messages regarding forum protocol. Then feel free to post new threads and to reply to existing ones–and to tell your friends about the forums.

Catholic Answers staff members will participate in the forums primarily on weekdays, as part of their regular office duties, so please do not be disappointed if you do not find them responding to questions or discussions over the weekend.

Karl Keating
President, Catholic Answers

 

[grannymh]

Most of the Catholics on here would say that the church’s teachings on faith and morals are backed by God. What is the evidence that supports this?

Tiny correction, please. The first sentence should read:
Catholics would say that the Church’s teaching on faith and morals come from God.