Posted on 04/28/2015 8:36:56 AM PDT by RnMomof7
Its a question that requires little thought to answer; are you infallible? It ranks right up there with, Are you God? But to Catholic apologists the question is quite serious; thats because they believe that there is a man on earth who, on the subject of faith and morals, is infallible; they call him, holy father. See, it does rank right up there with, Are you God, at least when coming from people who think their leader is equal with God on deciding issues of faith and morals.
According to Catholic apologist, John Martignoni, this question should cause Protestants to suddenly doubt everything they believe, and Catholics should take comfort in knowing they and only they, have an infallible leader here on earth. But how can they know? Is there one Catholic person out there, besides the pope of course, who will confess to being infallible? And if a Catholic is not infallible, how can he or she know their pope is infallible? They cant! So if they cannot infallibly declare their pope to be infallible, then their assertion is nothing more than a fallible opinion. And if they are wrong, which my fallible counter-assertion says they are, then they are being deceived.
The logic that so often accompanies claims of papal infallibility goes something like this: Jesus did not leave His people vulnerable to the doctrinal whims of competing leaders.
The logic used is quite revealing; it indicates very strongly that those who use it have no idea what it means to have the gift of the Holy Spirit, because if they had the gift of the Holy Spirit they would not be looking to Rome for infallible direction. It also reveals that they think everyone else is like them, wanting to follow the whims of their leaders. It also denies the notion that Christ has relationship with man through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Their magisterium reserves that privilege for themselves and people buy into it. Its no different than Mormons following their prophet in Utah.
The pope is the head of the Roman Catholic Church, but the Apostle Paul explicitly said that Christ is the head of His Church and He reconciles all things to Himself. To wit, Catholics will be quick to agree that Christ is the head, but then immediately contradict themselves by saying, but He established the papacy through which He reveals His truths . Based on what? If Christ is the head and we are the body, where does the papacy fit in? I see no evidence of this claim in Scripture or history, so if the evidence is not there the papacy must belong to a different body; one that is not associated with Christ and His church.
In his newsletter on his website where he shares chapter one of his new book, Blue Collar Apologetics, John Martignoni instructs his faithful followers to establish the fact that Protestants are not infallible early on in discussions with them. The purpose of doing this is to attempt to convince the Protestant that he could be wrong about what he believes. The funny thing is Martignoni never tells his readers what to do if the Protestant turns the question back on them; and that is most certainly what is likely to happen.
Does Martignoni really not see this coming, or is he simply at a loss for how to address it? Once a Catholic apologist is faced with admitting their own fallibility, they will immediately be forced to deal with the realization that their claim of papal infallibility is itself a fallible opinion; so they must, therefore, admit that they could be wrong as well. And once they realize the playing field is level, the evidence will do the talking.
A Catholic apologist who is willing to concede that his belief regarding papal infallibility is nothing more than a fallible opinion will likely ask another similar question, What church do you belong to and how old is it? In their minds this is the true gotcha question. They believe, in their fallible opinions of course, that they belong to the church founded by Christ nearly 2000 years ago. But the fact is, and yes it is a fact, there was no Roman Catholic Church 2000 years ago; it took a few hundred years for that to develop. Furthermore, by their own admission, the doctrines they hold equal in authority to the Bible, which they call sacred traditions, did not exist at the time of the apostles; that also is a fact.
There is something, however, that is clearly older than any Protestant or Roman Catholic Church and that is the written books of the Bible. If a person bases his or her faith on these written works then no supposed authority that came later can undermine the power of God working through them. It is unfortunate that when a person comes to Christ in faith through reading the Bible, that there are so-called Christians who come along to cast doubt in their minds. For example, in a tract on the Catholic Answers website called, By What Authority, it is stated, In fact, not one book of the Bible was written for non-believers.
Not according to the Apostle John who explicitly wrote, These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name? He did not say these are written because you believe; he said, these are written that you may believe. Johns gospel is a firsthand written testimony of the ministry of Jesus for the purpose of bringing people to Him, and Catholic apologists are telling us it was never Johns intention for us to become believers by reading it? Amazing; isnt it? The Catholic Answers philosophy seems to be to make up facts rather than face them.
So for the sake of the next John Martignoni disciple who wants to ask me if I am infallible, the answer is no; and incidentally your answer to my identical question is also no. Thus I am not interested in your fallible opinion that your pope is infallible when speaking on faith and morals. Perhaps one of you can go tell Mr. Martignoni that chapter his one is incomplete, and that he might want to consider adding a realistic response to his question rather than a bunch of scenarios where the Protestant is simply dumbfounded. His current scenarios might have been fun for him to write, but they are only going to embarrass his readers when they go out armed with the Martignoni sword.
Ping
Yep, when I was in the RCC, I was a terrible sinner, as were the vast majority of the people in my catholic high school, but I enjoyed sinning, and some others were worse than me. I was never self satisfied, in that I knew it was a works based religion, and I committed mortal sins everyday, and I knew I could never lead a good enough life to make it. It seemed I was powerless to stop it, so I figured, eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die. Actually, I couldn't have cared less about the church, I was only there to play hockey. I could play hockey pretty well too, even if I am tooting my own horn. 😆 Thank you for the good wishes about enjoying my new found freedom. I am not in RCC bondage anymore. It's a beautiful thing. Don't knock it till you've tried it. 😇 Yes, OSAS is also a beautiful thing. You should indeed look into it, though I am not sure it would work for you, because, even though it has been pointed out about 3,976 times, it appears to me that you still think you can have faith and then live like Hell. Let me think about that for a minute.........ah, no you can't, so we will have disagreement among the troops. 😱 Thank God those nice guys came along. I owe them a lot. Try it, you'll like it.
Metmom, do you suppose terycarl is one of those people who cringes at the thought, that somewhere, there is someone, who is enjoying life? Certainly is possible. I thought, however, it was in like Flint, not Flynn, but what do I know? I am just a poor OSAS kind of guy. 😂 It's a beautiful thing.
🇵🇭😀😇😆😁😅😄😎😂😃😱
How's that?😆
We are ALL ambassadors for Christ, every single believer.
tc:I have no concept of where you learned such a warped idea of what Catholicism is, but untold billions of people have interpreted it slightly differently that you did....Do you really suppose that people, over the centuries (20 of them) would have clung to, loved and accepted a vision of God and salvation as you have described?????
Absolutely, without question, because they were told by the church that if they didn't play according to the Catholic rules, they would burn in hell for eternity. And without having Scripture to tell them otherwise, since the Catholic church prohibited people from privately owning it or even reading it, they wouldn't know any better.
Muslims believe in a harsh, demanding, intolerant god and yet there are untold billions of them.
Numbers don't mean something is correct. It can simply mean that lots of people have been cowed into submission to a belief system out of fear of the consequences.
We can now start hearing from other former RC's about their experiences.....
Seems clear to me that you missed the ENTIRE point I was trying to make......
I did not expect anything more.
I can only conclude that jealousy is what’s behind the accusation.
I think you’re right.
Numbers are irrelevant to Christianity. Big numbers mean nothing.
1,800,000,000 muslims and 1,100,000,000 hindus would claim their belief is correct using your "accounting".
“This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.”
Galatians 2:4
The word merit by it’s very definition indicates deserving or justification for reward. Playing word games doesn’t change that fact. Buddhism is high on merits as well.
:) I really didn’t UNDERSTAND her comment, there (i.e. asking if I had “no answer”, while hitting “reply” to the very answer which allegedly wasn’t there)... so I assumed that she’d written to me in error, or was thinking of something else. Whatever.
5 Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.
6 The apostles and elders met to consider this question. 7 After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. 8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. 9 He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. 10 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? 11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.
12 The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. 13 When they finished, James spoke up. Brothers, he said, listen to me. 14 Simon[a] has described to us how God first intervened to choose a people for his name from the Gentiles. 15 The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:
16 After this I will return
and rebuild Davids fallen tent.
Its ruins I will rebuild,
and I will restore it,
17 that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
even all the Gentiles who bear my name,
says the Lord, who does these things[b]
18 things known from long ago.[c]
19 It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. 21 For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.
The apostles and elders, your brothers,
To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:
Greetings.
24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
Farewell.
30 So the men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter. 31 The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message. 32 Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the believers. 33 After spending some time there, they were sent off by the believers with the blessing of peace to return to those who had sent them. [34] [d] 35 But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, where they and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord.
HMMMmmm...
:) Nice to see you again, Elsie. Surreal and erratic to the n-th degree, as always.
No priest found in any of those. presbýteros properly, a mature man having seasoned judgment (experience); an elder. [http://biblehub.com/greek/4245.htm]
The Greek word for priest is hiereus and is never used for New Testament church authority or leadership. It is used for all believers.
1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Written by Peter no less!
>>You'll have to explain your reasoning for that one; I'm not even sure what that means, as worded.<<
1 Timothy 3:2 An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. 4 He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity 5 (but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?),
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