Council of Trent, On Justification, Ch. VIII and XVI

Thank you for your response. Well said!

What I think should be more than understandable regarding the truths of the faith handed down to the Apostles and ultimately to us in the here and now is that there never really was an "Apostolic Succession" of authority that wasn't first dependent upon the revealed Scriptures. The example I gave of Peter being corrected by Paul concerning the "requirements" expected of Gentiles coming to the Christian faith should be more than adequate to demonstrate that, even in that first century there was no absolute belief in an authority intrinsic to the Apostles nor to their personally named successors. It was always dependent upon what was the truth and their faithfulness to what Jesus had taught them. Certainly, the Apostles were given authority by Christ to preach the gospel and to disciple others to carry on the ministry of reconciliation. But, he did not give them the authority to make it up as they went along. It was supposed to be as they were lead by the Holy Spirit and as he revealed the truths to them to pass onto the church.

That it was a succession of the teachings of Christ and not of the teachers, is pretty well attested to both in the New Testament epistles and the writings of the early church fathers. What Rome relies upon is the supposed perpetual "Seat of Peter" having ultimate authority over all the Christian faithful. But there is no evidence in Scripture that this was Christ's intent. It is the duty of the church to pass on the faith "once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). And I think we agree that the church is the “buttress and pillar of truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). However, I think Catholics believe that in order for this succession to be valid, it has to be seen as primarily a succession "in person". Whereas, Protestants, on the other hand, believe that the primary issue involved is a succession in teaching, doctrine, and practice. That's why Roman Catholics will focus on the one to whom the succession is given, while Protestants focus on the teaching and doctrine itself, believing that the person who receives the succession is instrumental, but not integral. In the Apostles' time, they were very careful to train up church leaders and as Paul said to Timothy, "Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure." (I Timothy 5:22)

Rather than this way of thinking about church leadership and the working of the Holy Spirit in those doing the leading being a "new" or novel concept, I think it can be easily shown to be the way Christ designed and intended His body to operate. If not, then I hardly see the need for the Scriptures. If the succession of authority included the gift of "infallibility" and it could be miraculously handed down from one individual to his next in line, there would be no need for divinely inspired Scripture containing the teachings to be held by all. The special "prophet" could be entrusted to keep it all straight and he would also have the authority to develop doctrine as the need arrived since he has a direct line to God and all. Right? It seems to work like this for the Mormons. What could go wrong???

BlueDragon:

I am well aware that the Vatican I Council and the definition of Papal Infallability is a problem for the Eastern Orthodox Church. I am honest enough to admit that. Nevertheless, unless you are dealing with the Monks of Mt. Athos, most of the Eastern Orthdox Patriarchs and Metropolitans will honestly concede that the Church of Rome did in fact exercise a Primacy. That is undeniable from the constant History and Tradition of the Undivided Catholic Church, of which both Rome and the East claim to 100% in continuity with and as both sides will admit [not the most strident internet layman], the differences between the 2 with respect to Doctrine is less than 1%.

And again, nobody in the first millenium of the Church held to sola scriptura. You can scream it to be true but it is not true. Since you mentioned the Eastern Orthodox, who are not part the Western-Latin-Roman Christian Tradition, and split from Rome in the 11th century, they no nothing of “sola scriptura” nor of any of the Reformed doctrines of justification. So if you are going to bring up the East on the question of the Bishop of Rome and Vatican I, which is a “legitimate question to raise with me and other Catholics”, then it should also follow that you should consider what the Eastern Orthodox thinks about the Reformed view of sola scriptura, sola fide, its view of Liturgy and Worship, its view of Sacraments/Holy Mysteries [as the East calls them], what the East thinks of how the Reformed view The Blessed Virgin Mary or as the East calls her the All Holy Panagia/Most Holy Theotokos, etc, etc, etc.

As for the Old Catholics, most of them are now similar to the Anglican-Episcopalians in that they have caved in on womens ordination and on modernity’s view of Marriage, etc. Only the Polish National Catholic Church [part of the Old Catholic Church is still viewed by Rome as having valid Sacraments and not changing anything in terms of Doctrine, Liturgy, etc, since Vatican I in 1870]. Someone can confirm that but I am pretty sure they are the only one of the Old Catholic Groups that Rome still views as having a valid Eucharist in the same fashion that Rome views the Eastern Orthodox as having valid 7 sacraments/Holy Mysteries, etc.

And as the Fathers and Sacred Scripture, again, the Bible alone is not in their writings. Saying that Sacred Scripture and everything needs to be in accordance with Scripture is not to say “the Bible alone” That is not what any of them meant. There are many excellent Church Historians in the Protestant World who don’t come to the conclusions that you do. JND Kelley and Chadwick, both Anglicans, J. Pelikan who was Lutheran when he wrote is series on the History of Doctrine [later became Orthodox] and Philip Schaff, the great Scholar from the 19th century, who was Reformed and in his work, sort of moved more to a Catholic position and even got critisized by the hyper Reformed types for working with the Tractarians/Oxford Movement Anglicans who were doing similar studies in Patristics and were calling the Church of England to move back in line with the Catholic Church and Rome, of course its leader, John Henry Newman and many others became Catholic.

Schaff wanted to move to Christian Unity and thought that Rome should take the lead, but he also questioned the need for Vatican I to define papal infallabilit knowing that once Rome defined it, there was no going back from it, and given the divisions between Rome and the Orthodox and the Protestant confessions, it would not help heal the breach.

Now you contend that Vatican I and Papal Infallability has soured Christian unity. Perhaps? I would contend that in the age of secularism, their is an foundation that is holding steady in the face of the secular onslaught. Here we are 142 years later and Rome and the Orthdox have the warmest relations between the Two Churches since the 11th century or maybe the attemp in the 15th century at the Council of Florence to establish full communion again [which of course did not happen]. As for how the Protestant world sees Vatican I, well I don’t know, I guess it depends on which Protestant Group you ask, some Anglicans see it now as a great defense against modernims and heresy [which is the way orthodox Catholics see it] and many of those guys have come back to Rome. Even some Lutherans see it that way, for example the late Father Richard J. Neuhaus, although not as many see it as the Anglicans with strong Catholic leanings. How the Reformed view it? well, probably not much different than what they did in the 19th century. at least that is my conjecture.

"...most of the Eastern Orthdox Patriarchs and Metropolitans will honestly concede that the Church of Rome did in fact exercise a Primacy."

A 'primacy' only of respect for what transpired in times long BEFORE the quotations made were trotted out near the millennium in those early efforts to claim some special charism should not only CONTINUE to exist due to geographical location, but could be safely inflated, bit by bit to where it is now. Regardless of that same set of ideas not being much found in the scriptures save for by way of special pleadings, and going much against scripture in more traditional understandings. Excusing it all away may work for you, but not one inch, for me.

Now you contend that Vatican I and Papal [sic] Infallability has soured Christian unity.

It started long before that, as we both well enough know. The link I gave you outlined the despicable methodology employed for the "papist" contingent within the Roman Catholic church to elevate one chair above all, going fully against previous councils of their own church, not to mention more fully against traditions of those in the East. I notice you fairly skipped right over that part...focusing instead on rhetorical distraction in the way you employed mention of them in reply. I've had about a gut full of that sort of deception.

Thank you for your comments. Your reply can serve as further rebuttal for the time being. I'm tired of chasing down every denial and disproving them, each day like it's never been discussed here before.

Here of late I've taken to including some illustration or demonstration as am led, using theological principles & scripture best I can to get towards fundamental truths --- but few seem to get it, or just cruise right over it. Or it goes right past them somehow... It gets real old. I'm wearing down, and getting quite tired. I do wish they'd just hurry up and light that fire they'd like to burn me to a crisp with, like they did to "heretics" and others in opposition, when they could get away with such. It's like they keep jones'en for the good 'ol days.

As to the near impossibility we face on this forum, a convert from Rome to an unspecified Orthodox Church put it;

For non-Roman Catholics, it is almost impossible to comprehend the attachment a Catholic has for the Papacy and our reaction was highly defensive. In the past, when we came across serious works of history which contradicted the Roman Catholic position, we were skeptical and if we found that the author was Protestant, or the book came from a Protestant publishing house, it was given scant attention and if it contradicted a dogmatic belief it was dismissed immediately. Only Roman Catholic historians have a pure line to objectivity, especially when it concerns articles of faith. This is what Catholics are taught and it is this belief that will keep their faith inviolate. This teaching is best exemplified by Pope Leo XIII in his celebrated Letter to the Prelates and Clergy of France (September 8th, 1899). While encouraging them to the study of history he reminds Those who study it must never lose sight of the fact that it contains a collection of dogmatic facts, which impose themselves upon our faith, and which nobody is ever permitted to call in doubt. Cardinal Manning of England is even more blunt, The appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be divine. 10 At another time Cardinal Manning wrote, The appeal from the living voice of the Church to any tribunal whatsoever, human history included, is an act of private judgment and a treason because that living voice is supreme; and to appeal from that supreme voice is also a heresy because that voice by divine assistance is infallible.

Really, where did Christ say that individuals need to read and determine their own doctrine. God formed a people, the people of Israel and saved them as a community, which prefigured the Church, founded by Christ who was sent by the Father and thus Christ sent the Apostles. THere was no Sola MEO everybody doing their own thing.

Salvation is an individual thing, not a corporate thing. It's not up to some body or men to determine FOR everyone else. Israel in SOME cases was saved from enemies as a community, but the individual Israelites were saved as individuals.

1 Corinthians 10:1-10 For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

6 Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” 8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. 9 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, 10 nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.

Numbers 21:6-9 6 Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. 7 And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8 And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

Romans 10:8-13 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

John 3:14-18 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Nowhere in Scripture is salvation ever addressed as anything but an individual matter.

You are still the Iscool I remember, you post Scriptures and never investigate what they mean, you post them as if they mean what you want them to mean, when there are countless down thru the centuries who don't interpret them the ways that "You" do.

There's your failure right there...

2Pe 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

The scripture tells us to stay away from that private interpretation that you allude to...But then maybe I didn't interpret that right, eh, hahaha...

But no, millions of others and I don't worry about private interpretation...We stick with belief in what the scriptures actually say, not what someone else wishes they would say...

Gal 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

So I am guilty of believing this verse means what it says, eh??? I should be investigating what Catholics claim the verse means that it does not say...I don't think so...

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