[JohnnyM]

I've always seen "binding and loosing" as follows: What God want's bound will not be bound until His Church does so, and what God want's loosed will not be loosed until His Church does so. The key being that the Church is doing the will of God, and not vice versa.

JM

[IMRight]

I've always seen "binding and loosing" as follows: What God want's bound will not be bound until His Church does so, and what God want's loosed will not be loosed until His Church does so. The key being that the Church is doing the will of God, and not vice versa.

Sounds about right to me. It's never correct to assume that "infallibility" has anything to do with the man. It (and binding/loosing, keys, etc), is nothing more than God communicating through His people, just like He always did OT or NT.

[SoothingDave]

I've always seen "binding and loosing" as follows: What God want's bound will not be bound until His Church does so, and what God want's loosed will not be loosed until His Church does so. The key being that the Church is doing the will of God, and not vice versa.

Exactly. I'm not sure why this is always a source of confusion for NC's. Bassman made a similar point about the tenses in the Greek and I still could not see the difference.

Nc's seem to have the conception that the Catholic Church thinks that it can inflict its will upon God and the power to bind and loose is the way it orders God around. Nothing could be further from the Truth.

The Church has been given the ability to declare things as they are in Heaven. This is not an arbitrary power, it is God binding the Church to the Truth of heaven not the Church binding God to its idea of the Truth.

SD