Replies

>> Meaning you disgrace yourself, since you do not even cite what you are responding to, <<

Do you even read what you post, or do you simply copy and paste like an automaton?

You must be speaking to yourself since you are still unable to show where I charged Constantine with perverting the Church, introducing alien teachings as you say I did, versus what I expressed. Thousands of Christians were ready to die rather than pray to false gods, but no-one said “boo” about substantive heresies?

Which argument of "no martyrs = no dissent = no new doctrine" is a logical fallacy, since it is based upon anachronistic presuppositions, mainly that the teachings at issue I referred to were uniformly understood, and subject to Scriptural scrutiny, and dissent was articulated and that martyrdom would be a consequence for denying them, as if they lived in the age of the Inquisitions (which usually required investigation, and often compelled testimonies).

Yet these distinctive teaching are not things as you listed as supported by Damasus 1, while even the papacy was a matter of development, and as even within the relatively little (it is estimated) that we have from even so-called church fathers shows we see variant beliefs (which is why Rome says she judges them more than they judge her) all beliefs were not all uniformly held, nor extensive conformity enforced.

Your cousins themselves have substantial disagreements even while being based upon Tradition.

The Orthodox Church opposes the Roman doctrines of universal papal jurisdiction, papal infallibility, purgatory, and the Immaculate Conception precisely because they are untraditional." - Orthodox apologist and author Clark Carlton: THE WAY: What Every Protestant Should Know About the Orthodox Church, 1997, p 135.

Roman Catholicism, unable to show a continuity of faith and in order to justify new doctrine, erected in the last century, a theory of "doctrinal development." Following the philosophical spirit of the time (and the lead of Cardinal Henry Newman), ... On this basis, theories such as the dogmas of "papal infallibility" and "the immaculate conception" of the Virgin Mary (about which we will say more) are justifiably presented to the Faithful as necessary to their salvation. - http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/ortho_cath.html

My point here is not to affirm the EO as the true church, but to illustrate that the idea that if there was dissent on what I called distinctive (Roman) teachings, then it would be an expressed problem and dealt with by the sword, is upon more than one presupposition that is not a reality.

Even as regards the papacy, as Klaus Schatz [Jesuit Father theologian, professor of church history at the St. George’s Philosophical and Theological School in Frankfurt] in his work, “Papal Primacy ,” pp. 1-4, finds:

If we ask in addition whether the primitive church was aware, after Peter’s death, that his authority had passed to the next bishop of Rome, or in other words that the head of the community at Rome was now the successor of Peter, the Church’s rock and hence the subject of the promise in Matthew 16:18-19, the question, put in those terms, must certainly be given a negative answer.” (page 1-2)

If one had asked a Christian in the year 100, 200, or even 300 whether the bishop of Rome was the head of all Christians, or whether there was a supreme bishop over all the other bishops and having the last word in questions affecting the whole Church, he or she would certainly have said no." (page 3, top)

Schatz additionally states,

Cyprian regarded every bishop as the successor of Peter, holder of the keys to the kingdom of heaven and possessor of the power to bind and loose. For him, Peter embodied the original unity of the Church and the episcopal office, but in principle these were also present in every bishop. For Cyprian, responsibility for the whole Church and the solidarity of all bishops could also, if necessary, be turned against Rome." — Papal Primacy [Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1996], p. 20)

It is also ignorant to imagine that Rome's use of the power of the sword against what is considered to be heretics was also a rapid development.

And by the way, it is also ignorant to imagine that Rome's doctrine as established and uniformly believed before Trent as it was afterwards. Jaroslav Pelikan, in The Riddle of Roman Catholicism (New York: Abingdon Press, 1959), states,

“If we keep in mind how variegated medieval catholicism was, the legitimacy of the reformers' claim to catholicity becomes clear. .. "Substantiation for this [reformers] understanding of the gospel came principally from the Scriptures, but whenever they could, the reformers also quoted the fathers of the catholic church. There was more to quote than their Roman opponents found comfortable" (Pelikan 46-49).

“In the end, the Council of Trent ended up (in true Roman fashion) condemning the true heritage, and canonizing its own path. In its decrees, Trent "selected and elevated to official status the notion of justification by faith plus works, which was only one of the doctrines of justification [found] in the medieval theologians and ancient fathers. When the reformers attacked this notion in the name of the doctrine of justification by faith alone -- a doctrine also attested to by some medieval theologians and ancient fathers-- Rome reacted by canonizing one trend [the wrong one] in preference to all the others. What had previously been permitted (justification by faith and works), now became required. What had been previously been permitted also (justification by faith alone), now became forbidden. In condemning the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent condemned [the better part of] its own catholic tradition" (Pelikan 51-52).

However, your "no martyrs = no dissent = no new doctrine" is a diversion, for the fact remains that even if this was a valid argument, yet it in no way refutes the fact that distinctive Catholic teachings are not manifest in the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed (which is Scripture, in particular Acts through Revelation, which best shows how the NT church understood the gospels).

However, as I was even as a weekly mass-going RC, CCD teacher and lector after becoming truly regenerated by penitent, heart-purifying, regenerating effectual faith in the Divine Son of God,, there have always been a relatively remnant regenerated souls within the labyrinth of Catholicism, of simply, pious faith who lay hold of Christ to save them on His account, by His sinless shed blood, despite Rome's diversions.

And while I become more evangelical in certain beliefs thru reading Scripture and hearing radio, yet relative to the ignorance I would have in the 4th century, I could have lived a life of faith then as one preoccupied with just earning a living in the 4th century in a church preoccupied with a major rift.

And thus the only one true church has continued, which is the body of Christ (Colossians 1:18) to which He is married, (Ephesians 5:25) being the "household of faith," (Galatians 6:10) for it uniquely only and always consists 100% of true believers, and which spiritual body of Christ is what the Spirit baptizes every believer into, (1Co. 12:13) as "living stones" in this "spiritual house," (1 Peter 2:5) while organic fellowships in which they express their faith inevitably become admixtures of wheat and tares, with Catholicism and liberal Protestantism being mostly the latter.

>> What Constantine’s alleged “innovations?” <<

You referred to the Church after Constantine as “adulterated” and linked to an article about how deformed the Church was.

Thus the challenge to produce my assertion that Constantine perverted the Church of Christ..introduced...alien to the Church,

For as said, "I did not even say Constantine himself perverted the Church of Christ, but that when Christianity become his favored religion then it was an answered prayer, yet it was also a test, which [meaning consequently, progressively]] resulted in an already adulterated became increasingly Romanized."

They fought violently over which Pope to impose, but not at all over the notion of imposing ANY Pope? What sense is that? “We reject the notion of a pope, but you picked the wrong pope”?

Yes? And so? That does not mean all Catholic religonists saw the pope as he later became (the EO's evidence that), nor that your other presuppositions are valid. But regardless, it utterly fails to solve your real problem, which is that of not being the NT church as revealed in the the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed.

`you ignore the much more central issue of whether those who acclaimed him by making him a saint believed those accusations,

Who cares? Many did not, yet your cardinals elected Francis! How many Democrats believe negative things about their heroes? And you think you have an argument?

You ignore the much more central issue that renders infatuation with any pope to irrelevant to the incontrovertible fact expressed above.

Which I am sure has been addressed, by the grace of God, amid the many posts to you over the last 10 years!: Which is getting old (as I am, praise God).

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