Replies

"Do you think that MD's 'rebuttal' can be re-posted here?"

To: RnMomof7

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

The WORD priest evolved from the word presbyter. In the Catholic Church priests are often called presbyters, for example in some canons.

The Old Testament priesthood was fulfilled in Christ. I agree there.

However, you do not understand what we say about the priesthood, and so you speak of it as if it were essentially distinct from the eternal priesthood of Christ.

The false polemicists of your side love few things as much as they enjoy getting the vapors and twisted knicker syndrome over the idea of the Catholic presbyter being “another Christ.”

But their loud and cherished consternation looks as ridiculous and as false as most of their arguments and charges because they do not take the trouble to understand that with which they are disagreeing.

This is not mind-reading. It is a conclusion from the arguments made. As usual they are arguments not against what we hold but against what we do not hold.

You see, at least here on FR, the basic Protestant and anti-Catholic maneuver is to shift attack and shift defense. Argument is not used as a tool to find or uncover the truth. It is used rather as a kind of weapon to discomfit the other side. Since discomfiture rather than truth is the goal, when a refutation is made of some anti-catholic argument, the usual response is to change the subject. Thus, the anti-Catholics make the same arguments over and over again and never learn from them.

So, go ahead and cite Garry Wills. His iffy relationship with the Church makes sense in the context of his superficial understanding of her teaching. And the same for the other guy.

So when Jesus promised the 12 that they would be led into all truth, he left out the part about “in 1450 years give or take.” That's what we are expected to believe. And the people who expect us to believe it repeat the same arguments over and over again like machines, while rarely demonstrating a willingness, to say nothing of ability, to understand what it is they are arguing against.

WHATever.

The argument, however, is circular. The assumption implicit in citing them is that the ‘true’ church somehow ceased about a generation after the death of John. And this assumption requires that the promised gift of the spirit was kind of a dud. In the protestant view it took the Holy Spirit about 1500 years to get his act together enough to make a successful stand against those awful, stupid, and superstitious successors of the Apostles. The martyrs of Rome and of the various persecutions might be worthy of a little respect, but they were just SO wrong about what really mattered. So when Jesus promised the 12 that they would be led into all truth, he left out the part about “in 1450 years give or take.” That's what we are expected to believe. And the people who expect us to believe it repeat the same arguments over and over again like machines, while rarely demonstrating a willingness, to say nothing of ability, to understand what it is they are arguing against.

The odd thing is, NL, we haven't said this is the case but you have repeated it so many times, I think you must have started to believe your own hype. You have used this polemic on numerous occasions as if it were the truth and as if anyone here has ever stated such is the case. You are doing what you claim "Protestant and anti-Catholic" Freepers do to Catholics. You make a statement and then attack it as if it was the claim we have made. This is what is believed, contrary to your statements:

1. the ‘true’ church somehow ceased about a generation after the death of John

The church, the BODY of Christ, is a spiritual kingdom of all believers in Christ who have received Him and accepted the gift of eternal life given by the grace of God through faith. As such, this church had ALWAYS existed since Christ first called believers to Him. It has NEVER ceased to exist for we, "like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (I Peter 2:5)

2. the promised gift of the spirit was kind of a dud

The Holy Spirit has ALWAYS indwelled the believer in Christ and will NEVER leave us or forsake us - we are sealed until the day of redemption. The Holy Spirit is in the world to:

But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. (John 16:7-11)

3. it took the Holy Spirit about 1500 years to get his act together enough to make a successful stand against those awful, stupid, and superstitious successors of the Apostles

At the start, the Body of Christ was not centralized but was made up of all believers dispersed throughout the world, each worshiping together with others in local assemblies. No one thought the bishop of any one church was above any other, or that the bishop of Rome was somehow invested with any particular authority. "The word "pope" was not used exclusively of the bishop of Rome until the ninth century, and it is likely that in the earliest Roman community a college of presbyters rather than a single bishop provided the leadership. In the late 2nd or early 3rd cent. the tradition identified Peter as the first bishop of Rome. This was a natural development once the monarchical episcopate, i.e., government of the local church by a single bishop as distinct from a group of presbyter-bishops, finally emerged in Rome in the mid-2nd century. (Joseph F. Kelly in his The Concise Dictionary of Early Christianity (The Liturgical Press, 1992), p. 6).

4. The martyrs of Rome and of the various persecutions might be worthy of a little respect, but they were just SO wrong about what really mattered.

The martyrs of Rome were every bit as precious as those who were killed in Jerusalem or Greece or Egypt for their faith in Jesus Christ. The Lord God knows those that are His and His sheep hear His voice. Rome happened to be the capital of the Empire in the early centuries of the faith and it was because of this location, that the church of Rome gradually assumed authority as it melded itself with the Emperor Constantine and gained in prestige, power and wealth. From http://vintage.aomin.org/1296CATR.html:

Roman supremacy developed over time, beginning with the geographical, social, and political advantages associated with being in the capital of the Empire. Rome was the only Western apostolic see; the East had multiple apostolic sees, including Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, and eventually Constantinople as well. It is hardly a coincidence that Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy to this day demonstrate in their ecclesiology the very differences one would expect to arise from the facts of history: Rome demanding allegiance to one, centralized authority in the bishop of Rome, while Orthodoxy, forced by history to deal with multiple centers of authority, presents a concept of "collegiality."

When Rome the Empire fell, the bishop of Rome stepped into the vacuum, and the rest, as they say, is "history." But to make this historical development one that was intended by Christ and implemented by the Apostles, is to read into history a reality that is not only absent, but is contrary to the actual facts.

5. when Jesus promised the 12 that they would be led into all truth, he left out the part about “in 1450 years give or take.”

Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit, who would lead His children into all truth and he has never rescinded that promise. That the Church of Rome presumed to itself the sole charisma of "infallibility" and with it, the usurpation of the ultimate authority of Holy Scripture with their own interpretation of it and Holy Tradition, proceeded over the centuries to corrupt and debase the faith is an historical fact. It was God who spurred the men and women of the Reformation to endeavor to reform the Christian faith to its original orthodoxy and it is why there has always been and always will be a remnant of the faithful who will never leave or forsake the true faith taught by the Lord Jesus Christ and continued through the Apostles and their divinely-inspired writings.