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adrift
Guest
I am not ignoring you. There is a lot in the post to consider. It isn’t short but I thought very interesting. I want to think about it and will make comments later after I have digested it when I have more time.
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AwGusTeen
Guest
Have you forgotten your confirmation, tweety?
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adrift
Guest
He is a lucky man. I hope you continue to go to Church.
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josie_L
Guest
You are arguing against the Catholic Church on a Catholic forum with other Catholics while claiming to be a Catholic (I’m not even sure what you mean by calling yourself such)?
p.s. You must hold yourself in high esteem (I choose, I believe . . .etc.) if you believe yourself to be more knowledgeable than the magisterium, scripture, and tradition put together?
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Javl
Guest
Tweety is a “Cafeteria Catholic”. She seems to pick and choose what she wants and what suits her fancy.
LIB: FYI…celibacy in the Western Church is a discipline, not a dogma or tenet. A married man in the Western Church may become a priest but a single man may not marry before or after becoming a priest.
I guess I also will never have my questions answered ( my post #60 ).
PAX DOMINI
Shalom Aleichem
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Javl
Guest
In addition to what you have stated, might I add that the Greek word for stone is lithos and not petra/petros. Petra/petros means a rock.
PAX DOMINI
Shalom Aleichem
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adrift
Guest
Acts is not using the Greek word petras but trachus which as you note is masculine.
I looked over your list and I looked up some but there were so many it would take longer than I have. It made sense that they were feminine for they refered to rock.
As interesting as it was, your conclusion that Jesus Christ is the Rock does not follow.
Diagram the sentence then tell me who the rock is.
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adrift
Guest
I believe that it is not just in the Western Church but a universal rule..
LIB: FYI…celibacy in the Western Church is a discipline, not a dogma or tenet. A married man in the Western Church may become a priest but a single man may not marry before or after becoming a priest.
I guess I also will never have my questions answered ( my post #60 ).
PAX DOMINI
Shalom Aleichem
When I asked the same question this was the answer
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Prodigal_Son1
Guest
I apologize, but I am an EMT on an ambulance and I’m at work today. Besides coming back and seeing you irritated that no one has responded to your post, I see lots of condescending and sniping going on.
Christ taught us to love our enemy and I assure you we are not enemies here. Do you think I ask a person’s religious affliation before helping them? Do you think me knowing someone is a Protestants causes me to offer a different treatment when I’m called?
Can we just discuss and produce documentation for what we believe?
Ok Janet, Christ is the rock, but does that make Him the only rock? Christ did not say, I am the rock and I will build my Church upon this rock. Christ did not say he was giving Himself keys to the kingdom of heaven and the authority to bind and loose.
The passage is fairly easy to read. I find it hard to believe people are twisting it, and some without giving any explanation except to say it’s what they believe.
C
Carlan
Guest
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onenow1
Guest
Hi,tweety in your understanding I don’t think anyone, suggesting Jesus is not our Rock.
Bear with me for a moment please . Matt 16 vs 13, where Jesus says who do people say I am.
Follow me now !
There is is no person in in recorded history that has ever asked this question> Who do people say that I Am ?<There were probably Thousands of people that followed Jesus,he did many signs and miricles, we know this to be fact it is recorded. So many opinions from the crowd and all were wrong !. I think its pretty amazing, God chose Peter to be witness for His Son. Only Peter received this charism initially.
The authority of the Church’s rockiness and reliability doesn’t come from aristocracy, or democratic consesus . Rather, it comes from God’s charismatic gift offered to Peter and his successors. In this respect Peter is rhe Rock God chose to move history along.
Fast forward : In 2000yrs can you name one instiution government or otherwise that has survived with its leader intact for 2000yrs does’nt it seem to you the gates of Hell have not prevailed against the CC ?
Peace,and God Bless
onenow1
opcorn and 2 cents
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Javl
Guest
According to canon law, from what I understand, it is only the Western Church. In the Eastern Church a man may be married before entering the seminary. But if he is not married before, he cannot marry after entering the seminary or before or after ordination. Also he may not remarry if he is a widower. Bishops in Both Churches must be celibate.
As for the question, there is only one Protestant of whom I asked that answered truthfully that she did not know. All others either ignored it or made up some ridiculous story that made no sense. Everyone seems to put their own spin on it. For about 1500 years everyone believed that Peter was the rock and Jesus the cornerstone, then POOF!!!.. along comes Martin Luther that says everyone is wrong in the translation. I then ask why did it take 1500 years? ( This reminds me of Helen Baker Eddy, Charles Taze Russell,Joseph Smith, and all those others )
God Bless, and a very Happy 2010.
PAX DOMINI
Shalom Aleichem
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Randy_Carson
Guest
Yes, I have heard you say this previously.
Tweety, what exactly do you find so compelling about the Catholic Church if it is wrong on so many critical issues?
I mean, if the Catholic Church claims to be infallible and its actually not, then it is leading millions of souls astray.
Why do you support it?
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Randy_Carson
Guest
Janet-
Jesus is the rock in some passages, the apostles are called the foundation stones elsewhere. You have to keep your metaphors straight.
I’m afraid that Protestant scholars disagree with you regarding Matthew 16:18, however…and these are guys that you will find in the reference books at your local Christian bookstore:
Protestant Scholars Agree: Peter is the Rock
W.F. Albright and C.S. Mann
“[Peter] is not a name, but an appellation and a play on words. There is no evidence of Peter or Kephas as a name before Christian times….Peter as Rock will be the foundation of the future community. Jesus, not quoting the Old Testament, here uses Aramaic, not Hebrew, and so uses the only Aramaic word that would serve his purpose. In view of the background of v. 19…**one must dismiss as confessional interpretation any attempt to see this rock as meaning the faith, or the messianic confession, of Peter. **“To deny the pre-eminent position of Peter,” Albright says, “among the disciples or in the early Christian community is a denial of the evidence. The interest in Peter’s failures and vacillations does not detract from this pre-eminence, rather it emphasizes it. Had Peter been a lesser figure, his behavior would have been of far less consequence. Precisely because Peter is pre-eminent and is the foundation stone of the Church that his mistakes are in a sense so important, but his mistakes never correspond to his teachings as the Prince of the Apostles.” (The Anchor Bible; Matthew [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1971], 195)
Peter as the Rock will be the foundation of the future community, the church. Jesus here uses Aramaic and so only the Aramaic word which would serve His purpose. In view of the background in verse 19, one must dismiss as confessional interpretation any attempt to see this rock as the faith or the confession of Peter. (Ibid.)
Donald A. Carson (Baptist)
“On the basis of the distinction between ‘petros’ . . . and ‘petra’ . . . , many have attempted to avoid identifying Peter as the rock on which Jesus builds his church. Peter is a mere ‘stone,’ it is alleged; but Jesus himself is the ‘rock’ . . . Others adopt some other distinction . . . Yet if it were not for Protestant reactions against extremes of Roman Catholic interpretation, it is doubtful whether many would have taken ‘rock’ to be anything or anyone other than Peter . . . The Greek makes the distinction between ‘petros’ and ‘petra’ simply because it is trying to preserve the pun, and in Greek the feminine ‘petra’ could not very well serve as a masculine name . . . Had Matthew wanted to say no more than that Peter was a stone in contrast with Jesus the Rock, the more common word would have been ‘lithos’ (‘stone’ of almost any size). Then there would have been no pun - and that is just the point! . . . In this passage Jesus is the builder of the church and it would be a strange mixture of metaphors that also sees him within the same clauses as its foundation . . .” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary, [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984], vol. 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke (Matthew: D.A. Carson), 368)
Oscar Cullman (Protestant Scholar)
“But what does Jesus mean when He says: ‘On this rock I will build my church’? The idea of the Reformers that He is referring to the faith of Peter is quite inconceivable in vew of the probably different setting of the story. For there is no reference here to the faith of Peter. Rather, the parallelism of ‘thou art rock’ and ‘on this rock I will build’ shows that the second rock can only be the same as the first. It is thus evident that Jesus is referring to Peter, to whom he has given the name Rock. He appoints Peter, the impulsive, enthusiastic, but not persevering man in the circle, to be the foundation of His ecclesia [church]. To this extent Roman Catholic exegesis is right and all Protestant attempts to evade this interpretation are to be rejected.” (Oscar Cullman, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, (ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich), [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1968], 6:108).
Donald Hagner (Contemporary Evangelical)
"The frequent attempts that have been made, largely in the past, to deny [that Peter is the rock] in favor of the view that the confession itself is the rock . . . seem to be largely motivated by Protestant prejudice against a passage that is used by the Roman Catholics to justify the papacy" (Word Biblical Commentary 33b:470).
David Hill (Presbyterian)
“It is on Peter himself, the confessor of his Messiahship, that Jesus will build the Church…Attempts to interpret the ‘rock’ as something other than Peter in person (e.g., his faith, the truth revealed to him) are due to Protestant bias, and introduce to the statement a degree of subtlety which is highly unlikely.” (The Gospel of Matthew, New Century Bible Commentary [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972], 261)
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Randy_Carson
Guest
ECF – Peter the Rock
**Tertullian **
“[T]he Lord said to Peter, ‘On this rock I will build my Church, I have given you the keys of the kingdom of heaven [and] whatever you shall have bound or loosed on earth will be bound or loosed in heaven’ [Matt. 16:18–19]. . . . Upon you, he says, I will build my Church; and I will give to *you *the keys, not to the Church; and whatever *you *shall have bound or *you *shall have loosed, not what they shall have bound or they shall have loosed” (Modesty 21:9–10 [A.D. 220]).
“Was anything hidden from Peter, who was called the Rock whereon the Church was to be built; who obtained the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the power of loosing and of binding in heaven and on earth?” (De Praescript Haeret, n.22, p. 209, in Colin Lindsay, The Evidence for the Papacy, (London: Longmans, 1870), 19, c.A.D. 200-220,)
Cyprian of Carthage (251 A.D.)
“The Lord says to Peter: ‘I say to you,’ He says, ‘that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. And to you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatever things you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth, they shall be loosed also in heaven.’ And again He says to him after His resurrection: ‘Feed my sheep.’ On him He builds the Church, and to him He gives the command to feed the sheep; and although He assigns a like power to all the Apostles, yet He founded a single chair, and He established by His own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were that also which Peter was; but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is made clear that there is but one Church and one chair. So too, all are shepherds, and the flock is shown to be one, fed by all the Apostles in single-minded accord. If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?” (*The Unity of the Catholic Church 4 *[A.D. 251]).
**Ambrose **
“[Christ] made answer: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church . . .’ Could he not, then, strengthen the faith of the man to whom, acting on his own authority, he gave the kingdom, whom he called the rock, thereby declaring him to be the foundation of the Church [Matt. 16:18]?” (The Faith 4:5 [A.D. 379]).
Augustine
“Let us not listen to those who deny that the Church of God is able to forgive all sins. They are wretched indeed, because they do not recognize in Peter the rock and they refuse to believe that the keys of heaven, lost from their own hands, have been given to the Church” (Christian Combat, 31:33(A.D. 397), in JUR,3:51).
“When, therefore, He had said to His disciples, ‘Will ye also go away?” Peter, that Rock, answered with the voice of all, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life’ “ (Homilies on John, Tract 11:5(A.D. 417), in NPNF1,VII:76).
“And the Lord, to him to whom a little before He had said, ‘Blessed thou art, and upon this Rock I will build my Church,’ saith, ‘Go back behind, Satan, an offence thou art to Me.’ Why therefore ‘Satan’ is he, that a little before was ‘blessed,’ and a ‘Rock’ ?” (In Psalms, 56[55]:14[PL 36, 656] (A.D. 418),in NPNF1,VIII:223).
“Peter, who had confessed Him as the Son of God, and in that confession had been called the rock upon which the Church should be built.” (In Psalms, 69:4[PL 36, 869] (A.D. 418), in Butler, 251).
“And if a Jew asks us why we do that, we sound from the rock, we say, This Peter did, this Paul did: from the midst of the rocks we give our voice. But that rock, Peter himself, that great mountain, when he prayed and saw that vision, was watered from above” In Psalms, 104[103]:16(A.D. 418),in NPNF1,VIII:513).
**Pope Leo I **
“[T]he blessed Peter persevering in the strength of the rock, which he has received, has not abandoned the helm of the Church, which he understood. For he was ordained before the rest in such a way that, from his being called the rock, from his being pronounced the foundation, from his being constituted the doorkeeper of the kingdom of heaven, from his being set as the umpire to bind and loose, whose judgments shall retain their validity in heaven, from all these mystical titles we might know the nature of his association with Christ” (Sermons 3:2–3 [A.D. 450]).
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Randy_Carson
Guest
Well, you said your post #280 was being ignored, so I’ll answer it twice.
The meat of this was written by an anti-Catholic Protestant…that should make the argument even more compelling.
Matthew 16:18 – Peter the Rock
Understanding the Use of Metaphor in the New Testament
Matthew 16:18-20 (NIV)
18And I tell you that you are Peter,a] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." 20Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.
a] Peter means rock.
Many non-Catholics object to the idea that Peter was the rock upon which Jesus promised to build the Church, and they offer various alternative interpretations of the rock as being Jesus himself, Peter’s confession of faith, and the curious hybrid Peter and his confession. To support their denial of Jesus’ establishment of Peter as the head of the Church, non-Catholics frequently cite other scripture passages in which Jesus is called the “chief cornerstone” and the apostles collectively being described as foundation stones. These arguments are based upon a misunderstanding of the use of metaphors within the pages of scripture. Author Stephen Ray, himself a former Evangelical and convert to Catholicism, addressed this problem in his book, Upon This Rock:
“In this metaphorical description, Jesus himself could not be the foundation, because in this illustration he presents himself as the builder. The following is very important. In Scripture Jesus is variously depicted as the foundation (1 Cor. 3:11), the builder (Mt. 16:18), the cornerstone (Acts 4:11), and the temple itself (Rev. 21:22). We also see the apostles and/or believers as the foundation (Eph. 2:20, Rev. 21:14), the builders (1 Cor. 3:10), the stones, lithos, not petra (1 Pet. 2:5), the building (1 Cor. 3:9), and the temple (Eph. 2:21). Many illustrations are used to explain various aspects of the Church. One cannot simply substitute one descriptive figure of speech for another in any one illustration thereby mixing metaphors. It does great violence to the textual illustration itself and is a good example of roughshod “proof-texting”, wrongly “dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). The Bible does not set up a dichotomy—either Jesus or Peter; rather, it presents us with both Jesus and Peter as foundation stones. Jesus is establishing the man who will be the focal point of unity within the Church, the foundation. He who builds upon sand has a structure that crumbles (Mt. 7:24-27). Jesus builds his Church upon the rock of his choice, and, by his protection, the Church has stood the test of time. The powers of hell have failed to destroy or corrupt her” (Stephen Ray, Upon this Rock, [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999], 36.)
In this same book, Ray also cites Protestant George Salmon, author of The Infallibility of the Church which he wrote to undermine the teachings of the Catholic Church. On the matter of metaphorical usage, Salmon wrote at length:
“It is undoubtedly the doctrine of Scripture that Christ is the only foundation [of the Church]: “other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11). Yet we must remember that the same metaphor may be used to illustrate different truths, and so, according to circumstances, may have different significations. The same Paul who has called Christ the only foundation, tells his Ephesian converts (2:20):—“Ye are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.” And in like manner we read (Rev. 21:14):—“The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.” How is it that there can be no other foundation but Christ, and yet that the Apostles are spoken of as foundations? Plainly, because the metaphor is used with different applications. Christ alone is that foundation, from being joined to which the whole building of the Church derives its unity and stability, and gains strength to defy all the assaults of hell. But, in the same manner as any human institution is said to be founded by those men to whom it owes its origin, so we may call those men the foundation of the Church whom God honoured by using them as His instruments in the establishment of it; who were themselves laid as the first living stones in that holy temple, and on whom the other stones of that temple were laid; for it was on their testimony that others received the truth, so that our faith rests on theirs; and (humanly speaking) it is because they believed that we believe. So, again, in like manner, we are forbidden to call anyone on earth our Father, “for one is our Father which is in heaven.” And yet, in another sense, Paul did not scruple to call himself the spiritual father of those whom he had begotten in the Gospel. You see, then, that the fact that Christ is called the rock, and that on Him the Church is built, is no hindrance to Peter’s also being, in a different sense, called rock, and being said to be the foundation of the Church; so that I consider there is no ground for the fear entertained by some, in ancient and in modern times, that, by applying the words personally to Peter, we should infringe on the honour due to Christ alone.” (George Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church [London: John Murray, 1914], 338-339).
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Lib_Christian
Guest
If you insist she isn’t, could you please produce proof in the doctrine you adhere to fully to show that the Church says she is not a member of the Catholic Church? The Church says she’s a Catholic.
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graceandglory
Guest
Janet, there is nothing to respond to.
Forum rules state that when you cut and paste, you need to cite your sources.
Cut/Paste and run are the markings of a troll.
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Lib_Christian
Guest
I can’t speak for tweety. But my guess is she means she’s a Catholic according to the teachings of the Catholic Church. I don’t understand why that is so hard to grasp if you follow all the Church teaches.
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Randy_Carson
Guest
“Full Communion”?
Q: In a previous column you referred to a Church document which teaches that anyone who denies even one of the Church documents is no longer “in the full communion of the Catholic Church.” This seems quite drastic. Please explain.
A: The document in question is Pope John Paul II’s motu proprio (“on his own initiative”) Ad Tuendam Fidem (“To Protect the Faith”). It deals with certain additions to the Codes of Canon Law of the Catholic and Eastern Churches. In a commentary on certain portions of the document, the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith added the words quoted in your question. This does seem drastic, until we analyze the reason for the teaching.
Suppose a Catholic declares that he accepts everything the Church teaches except for her teaching on abortion. Three consequences necessarily follow. First, he has implicitly denied the Church’s ability to teach infallibly on matters of faith and morals. If she is wrong in even only one respect, she can lay no claim to speaking infallibly in the name of Christ.
Second, to speak metaphorically, that dissenter (as we call him) has taken a position at the top of a very slippery downhill slope. Seldom, if ever, does a dissenting Catholic stop with rejecting only one of the Church’s teachings. Inevitably, he will begin to question and even deny other teachings.
This fact can be demonstrated in the careers of notorious dissenters in this country. Most of them began by rejecting the Church’s teaching on artificial contraception. Soon they began to reject more and more of the Church’s teachings.
Third, by rejecting one of the Church’s teachings, our hypothetical Catholic has taken up a non-Catholic attitude toward all Church teachings. He has made himself the final authority in doctrinal matters. In this scenario, he decides what is authentic Catholicism. In truth, he has become a Protestant.
No dissenter can know the true joy of being Catholic. Iin one way or another he is always at odds with the Church. Only that person who completely submits to the Church’s magisterial authority; only that person who lives in the knowledge that Jesus Christ speaks to him through the Church; only that person can be a truly zestful, ardent Catholic. (The Catholic Answer, January/February 2010, Volume 23, No. 5, pp. 9-10).
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