Replies

>those to whom Scripture is entrusted are infallible, and must be obeyed.<

“Once again I must point out that seeing that you obviously have a totally flawed understanding of infallibility why would I even consider anything else that you say?”

How is that flawed?

“You just have to assent to it and obey. Get it? It is what we do before God, we say yes and we obey.”

I do get it (though this does not apply to all levels of RC teaching), and which confirms my prior statement.

“the Catholic Church not only claims that it is the ultimate earthly authority, it IS the ultimate earthly authority because it is led and protected by the Holy Spirit sent down at Pentacost.”

I obviously am familiar with that claim, and one of my responses was that “the Catholic doctrine of a perpetuated Petrine papacy [which is foundational to your claim] critically fails to possess the explicit and implicit substantiation that the Holy Spirit is faithful to provide for other major doctrines of like critical nature.”

“I had never heard the phrase either but this site was interesting. http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/a29.htm";

Thank you for providing a respectable Catholic source that confirms this is an accurate term. For all intents and purposes, what Rome is asserting is that those to whom the word of God comes have autocratic authority over it, and based upon her interpretation of Scripture, she has the sole authority to infallibly define what is Scripture and it’s meaning, as well as to effectively add to it by making church tradition of equal authority to it.

My brief response to this is that i fully agree that God established His enduring church (Mt. 16:18), and that it does have the powers from Christ the Scriptures ascribe to it (Mt. 18:18), and that He did establish ordination of Bishops/elders (same office) and deacons (Tts. 1:5-9; Heb. 6:2; Acts 6:2-6), but not a successor to Peter, and that the pastoral office functions as teachers and overseers to whom obedience is enjoined (1 Tim. 4; Heb. 13:17). And which is manifest in Bible believing churches,. And that God used holy men to penn His Scriptures (2 Pet. 2:21, 21). The differences are that the same class of revelation (the Scriptures) manifest that both those who give the word as well as it’s preservers are subject to it (Mk. 7:6-13), and that even the preaching of the very apostles had to be able to withstand Scriptural scrutiny by common men who were lovers of truth and the Scriptures, and who are commended by the Holy Spirit (Acts 17:11).

And that while there was an oral tradition, if it was wholly inspired then this would have been written down as was the Biblical manner (Ex. 17:14; Dt. 31:24; 1 Sa. 10:25; Jer. 30:2; 45:1; 51:60), and included as Scripture, which is the only class of revelation that is explicitly declared to be wholly inspired by God (2 Tim. 3:16). And the canon being closed, to make another stream of revelation equal to is essentially adding to the canon.

And while this does not mean we cannot not refer to history, or that God cannot speak to us today (which evangelicals believe), it means that such must be subject to the codified word of God, the Scriptures. And it here that the case for the foundational perpetuated Petrine papacy it wanting, as well as for doctrines such as the perpetual virginity of Mary (etc.).