So much of Catholic doctrine relies on one questionably interpreted scripture, and one that usually does not harmonize with other scripture. Jesus is the real rock.
So much of Catholic doctrine relies on one questionably interpreted scripture, and one that usually does not harmonize with other scripture. Jesus is the real rock.
Do you have any references to early Christians holding this position? Again, I really don't know either way, and your post interests me. Thank you.
I assume you're talking about tu es Petrus, and, yeah, that is a knuckle of the argument. But it's not all of the argument, from our POV.
It's interesting to try to find a mutually acceptable statement of the differences. Of course we don't think that Jesus is "First" and that that "firstness" includes a basic difference between Him and Mary. It's not just warmed over paganism to say that He is to her as Sun to moon: Without Him she is dead and cold, with Him and His light, with no other and certainly with none of her own, she lights up the night. And I say all that because to some of us it seems that you are saying we should take no joy in the Moon because it is not the Sun. While I would say that the joy I take in the Moon is finally nothing other than the joy I take in a great work of the Sun. I can praise the Sun without praising the Moon. I cannot praise the Moon, there would be nothing there worth praising, if it were not for what the Sun has done in her.
I mention this because it seems to me to be somehow emblematic of the difference not so much in theology but in the attitudes which our theology informs and represents.
Nevertheless, denying the clear meaning of Matt 16:18 is as fatuous as denying the uniqueness of Christ.