Posted on 03/19/2014 1:32:10 PM PDT by rwa265
If a Protestant looking into the claims of Catholicism were to ask me, What one book should I read, where I can find a quick answer to any question I have? I would tell him to read Devin Roses new book The Protestants Dilemma. I would also recommend this book to Protestant apologists, even those of many years, well-skilled in polemics. It will remind them of the heavy burden of proof they face, and the weakness of their position on point after point. The truth may set them free and bring them home too. (It has happened.)
All this may seem like overstatement the obligatory praise from one Catholic blogger to another. But it is not.
Consider first the range of issues this book takes up. There are thirty-six chapters, each one on a different topic, from the papacy to sola scriptura, from the canon of the Bible to Purgatory, from confession to Eucharist to infant baptism. If something about the Catholic Church troubles you, this book has the answer. If you think you have found the point on which Catholicism fails, this book will show you why it is one more point upon which Protestantism fails.
Consider also the brevity. The book is just over 200 pages long, which means that Mr. Roses answers get to the root of the question without a knot of academic detail. It is harder to do than it might seem. This is the book of a man who has spent a long time studying the questions that divide Protestants and Catholics, and who knows how to present his case in a way that is easy for anyone to understand. At the same time, the book is useful for the professional apologist, for it recalls his mind to the basics.
(Excerpt) Read more at scottericalt.com ...
But a Pope declared his writings were free from anything meriting censure! Of course, whether even his canonization is infallible can see debate.
Nothing new under the sun.
Long before the Reformation itself, the unity of the Christian Church in the West had been severely undermined
Considering his preceding statement, 'severely undermined' seems pretty tame.
It is against this background of a profoundly shaken ecclesial consciousness that we are to understand that Luther, in the conflict between his search for salvation and the tradition of the Church, ultimately came to experience the Church, not as the guarantor, but as the adversary of salvation.
From a modern Pope no less.
He then sought the help of the city prefect (the first occasion of a Pope in enlisting the civil power against his adversaries)
366, when the papacy took the secular sword, when the Kingdom of God, the one not of this world departed as the Pope sought the kingdom of this world.
Don't you have I Timothy 2:5,6 in your Bible?
For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.
Well, there you have it. If he said so, it has to be true.
How convenient......
Ah that is easy. Would you like to discuss?
Well, the Catholic church teaches wrong then because there's only ONE mediator between god and man, and that's Jesus Christ.
It says so right here in the Bible that the Catholic church claims it wrote.
1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
Wow an entire Mormon policy addressing your use of their products:)
If you need protective coverage PM me:)
So, when in 1302, Pope Boniface VIII issued the Papal bull Unam sanctam, which declared that outside of the Roman Catholic Church, "there is neither salvation nor remission of sins" and that, "Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.", he was not making a binding on heaven and earth infallible statement???
You come along and contradict that by saying "Protestants" CAN be Christians and be saved without belonging to and being obedient to the Roman Catholic Church. Do you, as a member of the Catholic Church, have that same authority to bind and loose? Are you your own pope by doing that?
Codswallop! NO power or person on earth can prevent the Holy Spirit from reaching the hearts of those who diligently seek God.
They will only accept thanks for giving the world the Bible. ;o)
Thanks quite a history there. I might add Pope Damasus is no doubt on the papal roles as being one in the “unbroken line” of popes which asserts the apostolic line. Even with the edge of the sword.
I am sure you have a Dilbert cartoon supporting these unofficial official policies:) It just oozes Dilbert.
Many, and monks. Then you have "Christians" today today who argue fornication is not forbidden in the Bible, only with prostitutes! Cause they know for sure how the word was used in post-classical Greek,. One even asserted Paul could not read Hebrew (he must have only been able to speak it and understand it orally: Acts 21:40; 22:2; 26:14).
I want to ask them then, why kind of context does it sanction sexual relations in? You know, like Mt. 19:4-6?
Not a popular post.
Quite a compilation! I know that you could have listed tons more! It seems that it is not really the “Protestants” that have a dilemma after all. ;o)
Not only. He was canonized a saint! Not sure if his sword was also. And i have read Kelly invoked for support in RC apologetics. More from same source:
Damasus enjoy the favor of court and aristocracy,... His magnificent lifestyle and hospitality help to break down the anti-Christian prejudices of upper-class pagan families. He was active in repressing heresies, including Arianism, and did not scruple to call in the secular power... His measures against the intransigently Nicene disciples of Lucifer of Cagliari (d. 370/ 1) were particularly brutal...
In 378, he persuaded the government to recognize the holy see as a court of first instance and also of appeal for the Western episcopate... In tune with his ideas, Theodosius 1 (379-95) declared (February 27, 380) Christianity the state religion in that form from which the Romans had once [imagined they] received from St. Peter, and Damasus of Rome and Peter of Alexandria now professed; for Damasus this primacy was not based on decisions of synods, as were the claims of Constantinople, but exclusively on his [presumption of] being the direct successor of St. Peter and so the rightful heir of the promises made to him by Christ (Mt. 16:18) [although many "church fathers"did not interpret that text as such].
And the election account is supported in the work of Duffy (Pontifical Historical Commission, Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge, and former President of Magdalene College):
Damasus grass-roots supporters included squads of the notoriously hard-boiled Roman fossores, [actually a minor order in the church, made up of catacomb diggers generally armed with picks], and they massacred 137 followers of the rival Pope Ursinus in street-fighting that ended in a bloody siege of what is now the church of Santa Maria Maggiore.
What genuinely gave bishops of Rome the impetus to expand further was the conversion of Constantine. Eamon Duffy noted that this event propelled the bishops of Rome into the heart of the Roman establishment. Already powerful and influential men, they now became grandees on a par with the wealthiest senators in the city. Bishops all over the Roman world would now be expected to take on the role of judges, governors, great servants of state..- Saints and Sinners, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997, 2001, pp. 37-38; http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2010/11/scott-windsor-3-defense-of-papacy-from.html
Then you have this:
Klaus Schatz, in his Papal Primacy: From its Origins to the Present, not only acknowledges that in the case of the process of the development of the historically developed papacy the initial phases of this long process extended well into the fifth century (Schatz pg 36)
And from John F. O'Grady, priest of the Diocese of Albany New York and professor of biblical theology at Barry University in Miami, and author of seventeen books:
The study of the New Testament demonstrates that the apostles, in fact, had no successors, nor did the twelve.
Many Roman Catholics assume that after the death of Peter every bishop of Rome was aware of the special authority he inherited as the successor of the chief of the apostles. To explain the lack of any evidence of the exercise of such a universal power, (emphasis added) apologists replied that the circumstances did not merit any intervention..
.Contemporary theologians are more aware of the lack of conclusive evidence documenting any understanding in the early Church of a universal role for the bishop of Rome. The earliest fathers of the Church cited to support these views, Clement of Rome, Ignatius and Irenaeus, do not offer undisputed evidence and therefore their arguments cannot be used without some reservation. pp. 119 ,125
More .
Which leads to the "no true Catholic" response:
"No true Catholic would deny that Scripture (via Matthew 16:18) clearly and unequivocally established Apostle Peter as the Rock upon which Christ's Church, the Roman Catholic Church was founded. [thus some "Church Fathers" were not Catholic] True Catholics only accept the arguments of true Catholics. This is as it should be, and definitely how God intends His followers to follow and obey His divinely established Teaching Office, the Magisterium. Further, no true Catholic would deign to privately interpret the Magisterium's infallible teachings." - http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2010/11/built-on-sinking-sand-scriptural_27.html
Which is worthy reading, as is this .
Good discussion here also: http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2010/10/tying-up-some-loose-ends-from-yesterday.html
Those who do not LEARN from history...
None of these revelations are Faith building!
Shame on you!!
—Wannabe_Catholic_Dude(Mary; pray for these folks...)
No, no, NO!!!
The MORMON's have the 'keys'!
And the Priesthood; too!
http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Keys_of_the_Priesthood
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