Posted on 08/30/2009 2:03:16 PM PDT by NYer
Of course to get around this Protestants who make the claim this article does - and not all do so let us be clear - state that the real church was underground for all these centuries until such and such re-founded the original church. That is why they tend to make heroes of Christian heretical movements and see them as proto-Protestants etc - even though doctrinally those earlier heretical movements don't match Protestantism much at all. I probably over simplified the response of mine but I think I got the gist of it out.
And the doctrine of the Catholic Church ALWAYS has been. The ONLY way that one can dispute this is to offer their OWN OPINION of Scripture.
If people choose to abide by interpretations of Scripture which have been in a state of perpetual change and dispute since the 16th century, that is certainly their choice. However, consider this, WHICH version of "sola scriptura" is the correct one? Is it that of the Lutherans or the Calvinists or the Baptists or the Dispensationalists? Which one?
Or people can choose to abide by the unambiguous teachings of the Catholic Church which have NEVER changed in two thousand years.
“That is why they tend to make heroes of Christian heretical movements and see them as proto-Protestants etc - even though doctrinally those earlier heretical movements don’t match Protestantism much at all.”
After you’ve spent some time on these FR Religion threads, you will see all sorts of ancient heresies embraced by our protestant friends, not just Waldensianism and Novatianism. One of the heresies most widely embraced is Nestorianism, which the author of this article apparently espouses.
No, they seem to believe that there were groups practicing YOPIOS and rejecting Church teaching from the very beginning. Unfortunately, they have never been able to produce a single shread of evidence that any such groups existed. It's actually a lot like Mormonism.
Yep, you see them embrace Nestorianism A LOT. One even admitted to it last week (though I doubt he had a clue what he was talking about. They usually try to change the subject when they are asked to cite the actual moment when the PURELY HUMAN Jesus Christ became God.
I simply don’t have the words.
Well, maybe I do...but it’s not the wisest use of my time at the moment...
Kyrie eleison.
Gospodi pomiluj.
Lord, have mercy.
Wrong.
John 6 wasn’t about the Eucharist - which wasn’t instituted until much later - nor would any plain reading of the chapter indicate transubstantiation. Those who turned away in John 6 were not denying transubstantiation, but the need to approach God via Jesus Christ.
1 Cor 11? You mean:
“For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.”
Compare that to the 1689 Baptist Confession:
“The outward elements in this ordinance, when correctly set apart for the use ordained by Christ, bear such a strong relation to the Lord crucified, that they are sometimes truly, but figuratively, called by the name of the things they represent, namely, the body and blood of Christ. ] However, in substance and nature, they still remain truly and only bread and wine as they were before...Worthy recipients, when outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this ordinance, also receive them inwardly by faith, truly and in fact, not as flesh and body but spiritually. In so doing they feed upon Christ crucified, and receive all the benefits of his death. The body and blood of Christ are not present physically, but spiritually by the faith of believers in the ordinance, just as the elements themselves are to their outward senses. All ignorant and ungodly people who are unfit to enjoy fellowship with Christ, are equally unworthy of the Lord’s table, and cannot, without great sin against him, partake of these holy mysteries, or be admitted to them while they remain as they are. Indeed, whoever participates unworthily is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, eating and drinking judgment on themselves.”
So...does real presence mean spiritually, or physically? You’ll find many church fathers supporting the former, as well as the latter. But since they were men, and their words were not ‘God-breathed’, why not just pay attention to the Gospels and Epistles?
“It DOES say that church doctrine must be in agreement with scripture.
And the doctrine of the Catholic Church ALWAYS has been. The ONLY way that one can dispute this is to offer their OWN OPINION of Scripture.”
If you define the correct interpretation of scripture as anything the Catholic Church proclaims, then your statement is both correct and superfluous - for if Rome alone can interpret scripture correctly, then scripture can never bind Rome.
And that is what we find. Rome claims sole authority to interpret, and then has no anchor against heresy. So it develops doctrine based on men living a thousand years after the Apostles, then distorts scripture in an attempt to justify the heresy, rather than expunge it.
While claiming Apostolic Succession, it engages in Apostolic denial.
The Protestants I know would reply, “ 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” and
“16For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”
No, no, and no. People like to see this issue confused because it suits their ideological position. But let me set this straight right here and right now vis a vis the Eucharist, because I don't have time to go through all your disputed doctrines.
There are passages that take a literal approach to the Eucharist, yes. There are passage that take a spiritual approach, yes. HOWEVER. There are NO passages, NOT ONE in all the Fathers, that *repudiate* the literal sense in favor of the spiritual.
The REPUDIATION is the problem. You find me a quotation from a Church Father that reflects the strong language of the Black Rubric of the Book of Common Prayer, where it flat out says that the worship of the host is idolatry, then we can talk. No Father says that.
But I've made a pretty thorough study of this issue, and I can tell you flat out that even the Fathers who said things like "The Eucharist is a symbol" nevertheless made clear that they believed it wasn't ONLY a symbol. So it's not just a matter of reading into it anything you want.
And I notice you did something a little cute there. You said "Why listen to someone from 350 AD"...deliberately skewing the date to one after Constantine. I cited absolutely no one that late. I cited ONLY people from about 90 to 200. Two of them, Ignatius and Clement, very likely sat at the feet of the Apostles themselves (John and Peter respectively).
Nearly two thousand years of Church teachings disagree with you.
Compare that to the 1689 Baptist Confession
Why should I care what the Baptists said sixteen and a half centuries later?
I'm not quite sure what Rome has to do with anything. But you would be correct, the Church CANNOT teach error unless Christ and Scripture both lied.
Yes, I agree that Christ is Eternal; however, I was talking about those who embrace Nestorianism. If you are unfamiliar with Nestorianism, the Wikipedia description is fairly accurate.
Exactly!!
In fact, let's even go farther. There were many apocryphal books floating around. And many copies of Scripture that were tampered with to reflect theological positions.
So in order to trust a copy of the Scripture you were looking at, you had to *trust the person who provided it to you*. That they were not in league with heretics and got bad copies of the thing. That they would read it to you correctly.
Of course the sola scriptura position is completely untenable in this situation. Even the person who adopts it today has to perforce trust a legion of folks from his ministers/publishers/translators on.
Exactly. The author needs to have a Trail-of-blood type explanation, or else he's confronted with the strange task of accusing the entire first centuries of the Church to be heterodox.
And they must also agree that God has CRUELLY DENIED this opportunity to billions of Christians throughout history, that God effectively said to billions, "You can read the Bible and be Saved OR you can have food, clothing and shelter, your choice."
I have a lifelong love of history and my favorite period is medieval Europe and the reality is that during the Middle Ages all of Europe was under feudalism and well over 90% of the population was impoverished and this didn't begin to change until the social upheaval brought on by the Black Death in the mid-14th century. Nearly every person had to work land that they didn't own in order to earn enough to eat and live in a hut that they also didn't own. Depending on the crops, starvation was a very real concern on a daily basis. It was IMPOSSIBLE for these people to own a Bible, because even if that was their choice, they would starve before they saved the money.
Right! I have a book on medieval manuscripts somewhere....it tried to calculate how much a full Bible would have cost in the High Middle Ages. I forget most of the details, but it basically came out to about as much as a house.
Yet they had the “catechism of the poor” in those beautiful paintings and stained glass windows.
Considering Catholicism’s negative attitude to the immemorial Sinaitic Tradition and the Rabbis who preserved it, to attack Protestants for not accepting the church fathers seems hypocritical.
“FundamentalistRepublic.com”?
I mean, whoever said Catholic-bashing is the last remaining prejudice that is still socially acceptable, knows what they’re talkin’ about.
First of all, this article was posted by a Catholic on order to ridicule Fundamentalists. It is they who are being bashed.
Second of all, you sit there and engage in the world's largest and most invisible prejudice, a contempt of Fundamentalist chr*stians, and have the temerity to complain about anti-Catholicism as the "last acceptable prejudice!"
Thirdly, what is is it about Fundamentalism that you object to? That it believes miracles actually occurred as described in the Bible? Does this offend you? You wish to subject G-d A-mighty to the tests of "science?" Then you have no business believing in guardian angels and transubstantiation. But if you object to the American Fundamentalist ethno-culture (which is what most "anti-fundamentalism" really is), then there is little that can be done but remark that Catholicism obviously isn't as "universal" as it claims to be or it would not condemn ethno-cultures. G-d obviously didn't intend everyone in the world to be Irish, Italian, or Hispanic or He would have made them such.
Jerome followed the false teaching of asceticism, believing the state of celibacy to be spiritually superior to that of marriage, and demanding that church leaders be unmarried.
Well, there was this guy named Paul that said it was superior but what did he know?
Considering that this guy named Paul said "let your women keep silent in church" but that hasn't stopped you from becoming a lector, it seems to me that you don't think he knew what he was talking about either.
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