>Today's bishops are mere dust in the wind, fodder for the floors of hell. I realize to a Protestant who insists on personal revelation of all knowledge the idea that we rely upon anyone for help is difficult. But it is not just these present bishops who lead us, it is the bishops and thinkers of the past two millennia, in concert.<
I find it refreshing that you are not in total denial as exemplified by several of the other replies to my statement.My question is if the Bishops of today are corrupt how can you be sure they are not the product of a corrupt tree?How can you be sure the "revelation " that provided tradition is anymore reliable than God speaking to you through scripture? My point is their are 2 sides to that coin when you tar protestants with private interpretation.
My question is if the Bishops of today are corrupt how can you be sure they are not the product of a corrupt tree? Because it is not all of the bishops in the world. Not even all of the bishops in the US are buffoons.
The branch which is dying is the offshoot of hippy-dippy "progressivism." We've all seen it is a dead end. The Tree is tall and strong and, as I noted, exists not just in those alive today, but in history.
How can you be sure the "revelation " that provided tradition is anymore reliable than God speaking to you through scripture?
Because even Scripture attests to the Church. And of course, the New Testament itself is a product of this "Tradition."
My point is their are 2 sides to that coin when you tar protestants with private interpretation.
Yes, I must decide for myself whether to follow the Church or not. But beyond that, there is no belief in nor need for private revelation of everything. God has worked through men all these years to bring understanding and wisdom. To me, casting all of that aside as "tradition" and insisting that God reveal all understanding to me personally is to fully misunderstand how God has chosen to interact in the world.
And of course, one need only examine the fruits of this belief in private interpretation to realize it's an incorrect path.
SD
Blessed, Blessed, Blessed;
I must admit it is difficult to know how to respond to you when you describe the RCC as a "poison tree". The pre-suppositions in such a statement are overwhelming. Does the observation that "Catholics sin, but Catholicism is true" put me in denial? No more than the observation that "Apostles sinned, but Christianity is true". Logically they are equivalent. Logically they are true. If you ignore that then the denial is yours.
Are there corrupt Bishops and priests? Absolutely. Is the faith true? Absolutely. So how does one resolve an apparent dilemma? By knowing the faith.
Doctrinally, Catholicism moves at a snail's pace. It is well documented and reasoned. As SoothingDave points out, 2,000 years of history gives one an immense set of resources. The Church also does a very good job of summarizing it in the
Catechism of the Catholic Church. Start there.
What about corrupt Bishops and priests. While we wish they did not exist, they are a fact of life. Will they have a lasting effect? I think not. Why? Because we have suffered from corrupt bishops since the very beginning apparently. In a somewhat famous quote, attributed variously to either St. John Chrysostom or St. Athanasius: "The floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops." And yet the miracle that is the Catholic Church continues. So what do we do?
The CC has a mechanism for weeding out the corrupt. It too moves at a snail's pace, but it does move. There are mechanisms in Rome for making sure the faith is adhered to. Interestingly, the Inquisition still exists, but not in the same form of course. The Catholic Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, whose mission is to "to promote and safeguard the doctrine on the faith and morals throughout the Catholic world" has its roots in the old Inquisition (and if you only know the conventional wisdom about the Inquisition, let me assure you, it is false. There are several articles here on FreeRepublic that will demonstrate that.)
Are there corrupt bishops even now? Yes. Can they evade detection and removal? Yes, but not for long. The corrupt are the exceptions to the rule.
How do we know that Tradition is reliable? Amazingly, there is an enormous set of documents from the early church fathers, some going back to the very disciples of the Apostles. They lay out beautifully the beliefs of the early church. Not surprisingly, they describe Catholic doctrines. Their statements sound like the doctrinal statements that come from Rome today. Tradition is reliable because it can be traced all the way back. It has famously been said that "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant". As such, it is not so much the burden of Rome to prove that Tradition is reliable, but for Protestants to prove that it is unreliable. I have yet to see an argument against a particular Tradition that did not twist the plain meaning of words in order to come to some anti-Catholic conclusion. And there are plenty of Protestant historians that acknowledge the solid roots of Catholic Tradition. J.N.D. Kelly comes to mind, whom I quoted in separate comments above.
We do not believe that Rome (or more specifically, the Chair of Peter in concert with the Bishops) speaks with "private interpretation" about the Bible for several reasons. Two of immediate applicability are that (1) Jesus gave Peter and the Apostles the ability to set doctrine and (2) Catholics wrote the Bible and set the canon. I think it's fairly obvious that we know what is in the Bible and that our doctrines can be traced all the way back. Conversely, several foundational Protestant doctrines are novelties of the 16th century and later. They can not be traced back to early church. They arose whole cloth out of the Reformation. Sounds like a prima facia case of "private interpretation" and a "tradition of men" to me.