Posted on 05/15/2015 2:05:08 PM PDT by RnMomof7
The nineteenth century witnessed the conversions of two prominent Anglican clergymen to Roman Catholicism. Both men would ultimately become cardinals in the Roman Church, and both men would profoundly influence Roman Catholic theology. The first was John Henry Newman (18011890). The second was Henry Edward Manning (18081892). Newman is probably most well known for his involvement in the high church Oxford Movement and for his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845). Manning is best known for his advocacy of social justice and for his strong support of the doctrine of papal infallibility following his conversion to Rome. He played a key role in the First Vatican Council (18691870).
What I find most interesting about these two men is their approach to history and what it tells us about the Roman Catholic Church. Cardinal Newman famously said, To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant. He believed that if one compared the teaching and practice of both Protestantism and Rome to the teaching and practice of the early church, one would be forced to conclude that Rome was the true heir of the early church. Of course, he had to posit a rather complex theory of doctrinal development in order to make such an idea plausible to himself and others not already inclined to agree. But be that as it may, Newman believed that the study of history supported the claims of Rome.
Cardinal Manning, on the other hand, claimed that for a Roman Catholic, the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy and that the only divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour (The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost). In other words, to examine church history in order to find support for the claims of Rome is to demonstrate a lack of faith in the Church of Rome. It is to place human reason over and above faith. If you want to know what the early church taught, all you have to do is look at what the Roman Catholic Church teaches today.
The Roman Catholic theologian Walter Burghardt expresses the same view in connection with the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary, which was defined as dogma in 1950:
A valid argument for a dogmatic tradition, for the Churchs teaching in the past can be constructed from her teaching in the present. And that is actually the approach theology took to the definability of the assumption before 1st November 1950. It began with a fact: the current consensus, in the Church teaching and in the Church taught, that the Corporeal Assumption was revealed by God. If that is true, if that is the teaching of the magisterium of the moment, if that is the Churchs tradition, then it was always part and parcel of the Churchs teaching, part and parcel of tradition.
Manning and Burghardt are simply being consistent with belief in the infallibility of Rome and of the pope. If the church is infallible, appeals to history, tradition, and Scripture are superfluous. What the church teaches now must be what the church has always taught, regardless of what the actual evidence from Scripture and/or tradition might say.
Rome truly has no other choice if she wishes to maintain her current beliefs and practices. If she were to appeal to something like the Vincentian Canon (namely, that the true faith, the true interpretation of Scripture, is that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all), the pope would have to give up all claims to supremacy over the entire church, and the bulk of Roman peculiarities and practice would have to be jettisoned.
Cardinal Newman recognized the obvious difference between the current Roman Church and the early church. He was too deep in history not to see it. He had to develop his famous idea of doctrinal development to explain it. He argued that all the later Roman doctrines and practices were hidden in the church from the beginning. They were made explicit over time under the guidance of the Spirit. But the problem that many Roman Catholics fail to see is that there is a difference between development and contradiction. It is one thing to use different language to teach something the church has always taught (e.g., the Trinity). It is another thing altogether to begin teaching something that the church always denied (e.g., papal supremacy or infallibility). Those doctrines in particular were built on multitudes of forgeries.
Cardinal Manning solved the problem by treating any appeal to history as treason. He called for blind faith in the papacy and magisterium. Such might have been possible had the fruits of the papacy over 1,500 years not consistently been the precise opposite of the fruit of the Spirit (Matt. 7:16).
Cardinal Newman said that to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant. The truth is that to be deep in real history, as opposed to Romes whitewashed, revisionist, and often forged history, is to cease to be a Roman Catholic.
See post 35 use the sources and try and prove me wrong. My sources are completely legitimate.
Interesting you ask me a direct question about my reading habits and then say you won’t reply. Typical prot response when confronted with the truth.
Baloney! LOL. Thanks. I needed a laugh.
Is it your contention that whatever Cromwell did to the Roman Catholic church was all his doings and that somehow cancels out all the atrocities committed by the Roman Catholic church centuries before AND after him??? Cromwell was a tool of Cardinal Wolsey before King Henry VIII. Whatever he did or didn't do TO the RCC was because Henry wanted it - and Henry was NOT a Protestant. All of Cromwell's fealty to the king didn't help him when Henry had him executed for his setting up the marriage to Anne of Cleves and the embarrassment it caused him when he had to wriggle out of yet another marriage. Henry's royal coffers were what benefited from raiding and closing the English Catholic monasteries - also Henry's idea.
I find it so entertaining when FRoman Catholics play the "Protestants did bad things too" card. It reveals their own lack of knowledge or resistance to facing the truth about their church and what was done under the permission and orders of their Popes. That really is the difference some seem unable to grasp - though some Protestants did do bad things, they were not done through orders from any Protestant pope or magesterium. How quickly RCs defend Catholicism by blaming individuals for wrongs committed - even when Popes directly approved and directed them - yet ALL "Protestants" (regardless of denomination) are blamed for the acts of individuals going back five hundred years. Don't y'all realize how duplicitous that is???
As the OP article explains, to REALLY study history - without the Rome-colored glasses - is to understand that history does NOT prove the claims of Catholicism. Newman and Manning actually cancel each other out in their attempts to explain the discrepancy between what the Christian faith has been believed always, everywhere and by all and what Rome teaches today. So, whose side are you on - Manning or Newman?
Yeah, you should. Including more of the quote from Manning than what was cited in the OP didn't change a thing! He still said that whatever the RCC says is the truth TODAY is the truth because they say so. It's explained here Viva Voce - whatever we say.
Well said!
I can give you a few that come to mind - though this is not exhaustive by any means. St. John Chrysostom stated:
Then we have Cyril of Alexandria:
We have St. Gregory the Great, who rebuked John of Constantinople for making such a claim, wrote the Emperor Maurice:
Regarding an early acceptance of a universal infallible Roman authority, we have:
In the controversy between East and West...the case of Honorius served as proof to Photius that the popes not only lacked authority over church councils, but were fallible in matters of dogma; for Honorius had embraced the heresy of the Monotheletes. The proponents of that heresy likewise cited the case of Honorius, not in opposition to the authority of the pope but in support of their own doctrine, urging that all teachers of the true faith had confessed it, including Sergius, the bishop of New Rome, and Honorius, the bishop of Old Rome (Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1974), Volume Two, pp. 150-151) (for more discussion on this, see http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2013/10/cyril-of-alexandria-was-real.html)
Just what is it you imagine is in error or revisionist history with the OP? Go ahead, give me a list.
When you have no valid rebuttals, start picking personally on someone for their love of reading and history. Pitiful!
"As soon," says Cardinal Manning, "as I perceived that the Holy Spirit of God has united Himself indissolubly to the mystical body or Church of Jesus Christ, I saw at once that the interpretations of the living Church are divine."I have emphasized the portions that were redacted from the "Biblical Catholic" version. Of course that omission, the "mystical body," is intriguing, because it appears to be a differentiation from the visible Church. But of course it's hard to tell, because this is the only fragment I could come up with. So I'm not trying to make anything out of it, except to say that ellipses are not the friend of good source citation.
Quoted from here: http://archive.thetablet.co.uk/article/22nd-may-1909/11/reviews
No Catholic would first take what our objectors call history, fact, anquity, and the like, and from them deduce his faith....These things are not the basis of his faith, nor is the examination of them his method of thoelogical proofAssuming the quote is good (though the misspellings of "antiquity" and "theological" do not enhance my confidence), while he may be right about Roman Catholics not deducing faith from history and facts, for those of us not born into the Roman system the facts and the history do indeed play a role in coming to faith. I would not say their role was the cause of faith in the theological sense, because that must be a gift of God, as it was for Peter, through a work of miraculous grace. But were there no Gospel record of the history of the resurrection, were there no fact of the teaching ministry of Christ and the apostles as recorded in Scripture, there would have been no Gospel to believe for people like me.
Still waiting for you to call the OP out for their error as you have done to Catholics.
I guess that Catholics are the only ones that actually admit errors.
Of course that just goes to prove my statement that there are only 2-3 non-Catholics that are christians on these threads.
Ummmm, post 8 that you already responded to. And no imagination required, I presented facts and quotes in context, something the OP failed to do.
I was pointing out a lack of scholarly rigor. It seems the non-Catholics are not doing a good job of reading and evaluating. Or is this just a feeble attempt to couch a personal attack?
Let's drink to old Jim Bridger,
yes lift your glasses high
As long as there's a USA
Don't let his memory die.
Johnnie Horton
You can question it all you like but if God puts a cause on someones heart who are you to question it?
>>as well as the propriety, on a site of otherwise shared political, social, and moral values<<
So debate of what scripture says should be disallowed? Should error be tolerated just so "we can all just get along"?
>>and perhaps are more inclined to mud-slinging.<<
When Christ corrected the Pharisees was that mud slinging. When Paul corrected Peter was that mud slinging? When Christ warned the church's through the letters in Revelation was that mud slinging?
Powerful dude!
Then there wuz a little something called the Spanish Inquisition...
Go up North to find his brother; Tim.
Tim??? I thought it was WAY up north,
cuz Big Sam left Seattle in the year of 92
With George Pratt his partner and brother Billy too
Weren't there other Inquisitions too? I never heard about any of them until later in life. Maybe that was because of where I went to school. 🇵🇭😇
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