But you are saying there was a “Great Apostasy” after the death of the apostles, right?
I agree with you that “The scriptures were twisted, abused, and ignored in many places. But they never vanished, and the world was never without authentic followers of Christ.” I have no problem with that. I have always believed that, but the difference between what you say and what I say is the “priesthood” or the “authority to act in God’s name.” The Mormon and the Catholic Church are very pragmatic about the importance of a formal priesthood while the Protestant religion teaches the “priesthood of the people.” It seems to me that the Catholic Church teaches that they have the “true” priesthood, one that came down from Christ to the Apostles and from them to the modern day. I don’t ever recall ever hearing the Early Church Fathers ever talk about a “priesthood of the believer,” rather is was a very formal priesthood.
From what I understand, and I could be wrong, the concept of “priesthood of the believer” wasn’t discovered to be in the Bible until the Reformation.
These three principles were rediscovered to be in the Bible during the Reformation:
1. Sole authority of Scripture (Sola Scriptura)
2. Justification by faith alone (Sola Fide and Sola Gratia)
3. Priesthood of the believer.
These are massive changes within the Church during the Reformation. Is there any credible evidence that the Apostasy wasn’t total. Total apostasy doesn’t necessarily mean that all truth was lost and there were no authentic followers of Christ.
Protestants use the “gates of Hell” scripture to point out that the Church never went into apostasy, that God preserved and hid his chosen ones until the reformation, but the Catholic Church uses that same scripture to point out that they, being the true Church of God, because it still has the priesthood and they have a continuous line of Popes from Peter down to the present day.
As a Mormon, why should I accept the Protestant interpretation over the Roman Catholic interpretation or vice-versa? Honestly, if anything, I would have to accept the Catholic POV. Who chose which books were included in the Bible and who made the major decisions in what went into the creeds in the late 4th and early 5th centuries? It was people who very much believed in a hierarchical priesthood, that it was works and grace, and they also believed not only in scripture as the word of God, but also Tradition.
You’re likely right that the “priesthood of all believers” was “discovered” as a result of the reformation. As a Protestant, I would be inclined attribute this to the desire of the existing Roman Catholic church to not place any emphasis on the relevant scriptures as to do so would presumably undermine the authority of their earthly priesthood, an office that is not formally established for the church in the New Testament. The only formal priesthood cited is that which Christ holds as our new high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
If you read Hebrews, you’ll find that the Melchizedek priesthood of Christ (and him alone, which he holds forever) is not an addition to the Aaronic/Levitical priesthood. It supplants it. The scriptures describe a “change” in the priesthood. There is no more need for an earthly priesthood or the duties associated with the law that they performed. Christ fulfilled the law, and brought the new covenant, which the old ordinances had no part of. This was, of course, underscored by the tearing of the veil in the temple upon Christ’s death on the cross, and his words “It is finished.” The old covenant was done, finished. Man could now, through Christ, approach the Father. I would suggest you do a thorough reading of Hebrews with regard to the priesthood.
As for your challenge for evidence that the apostasy wasn’t total, I’m afraid the burden is on you to prove that it was. I think it’s much harder to prove such an apostasy given the growth of the church than to simply believe that it fell into correctable error. For that matter, if we agree that the Reformation brought about some appropriate corrections, it seems to me that the mere occurence of the Reformation, in and of itself would pretty well prove that the apostasy hadn’t been total. After all, a total apostasy would mean that no one would have had the ability to see the errors.
But you seem to have redefined the notion of total apostasy from that which the LDS has historically proposed, which is that there were no genuine followers of Christ for all those centuries. After all, how could there be if “all their practioners” were corrupt?
You raise valid questions regarding the selection of the canon and so forth, much more than I’m equipped to get into here, but let’s not let those distract us from some fundamental points.
None of your concerns about Catholic tradition vs. Protestant teaching really impact the bottom line issue of whether or not the Book of Mormon (and subsequent LDS theology) are valid. Certainly if you apply the same level of skepticism to LDS history/theology, you must abandon it far sooner than that of historic Christianity, as the weaknesses are so much more obvious and profound. Indeed, this is why there is such dependence on the “testimony,” because it takes off the table all those good, valid questions you have for historic Christianity when it comes to examining LDS teachings.
And just to clear the air (I hope), while I am a Protestant who believes that Roman Catholicism is in error on many teachings and is loaded with traditions that I think can potentially get in the way of genuine belief and even salvation; I nevertheless believe that, at its core, it is legitimately Christian because of its view of God and the atoning sacrifice of Christ. I can consider Roman Catholics to be my Christian brethren, even though I might pound the table with them over some specific elements of their beliefs.