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.
you know I thought you were a little more discriminating than that....
‘cause the Spanish Inquisition was a war by Ferdinand and Isabella on non-spanish, think Roman Catholics et al, who disagreed with Spain.
..however Elise you run a great protestant dis-information campaign.
AMDG
I have nothing better to do than to defend the gospel of Jesus Christ ... I have nothing better to do than to post historic truths omitted or hidden by Rome, I have nothing better to do that to post articles that will make people think and search..
I have no delusions that all Catholics will read and understand.. I have no delusions that they will leave Rome.. I just hope that some will be prompted to turn to the infallible scriptures to seek truth ...and that some of those that do will find Christ
I do this not because I hate Catholics, but because I love them
The NT is very deep in history ...and it you find no pope, no priests , no mass , no confessional, no 7 sacraments, no prayer to the deceases saints,no "immaculate conception, no perpetual viriginity of Mary, no assumption etc ....
Catholics that arrive in Heaven will be greeted by Jesus “My mother told me about you.”
Here is the entire quote in context: And from this (Truth is the same forever) a fourth truth follows; that the doctrines of the Church in all ages are primitive. It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But 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. How can we know what antiquity is except through the Church? No individual, no number of individuals can go back through eighteen hundred years to reach the doctrines of antiquity.
We can know antiquity through the scriptures ... thru by the work of the Holy Spirit , and yes we deny the infallibility of the church
Boy someone must feel pretty embarrassed right about now....Thats ok ...no need to be embarrassed Verga ... we are family here
They are there. You are choosing not to see those references.
‘...no prayer to the deceases saints’
that is one of the most unscriptural things I have seen you post.
you are as wrong as wrong can get.
first of all saints, and not just saints, but all people who have ‘fallen asleep’ are ‘alive in Christ’.
Now if you haven’t heard those phrases you aren’t reading scripture and if you are reading it you aren’t understanding it.
anyway bad, bad, bad theology ‘no prayer to deceased saints’
AMDG
We just call into account the fact Catholics have a problem reading the quotes accurately ..
Please share them
Please show me the prayers to Moses or David by the NT church ....
‘Please show me the prayers to Moses or David by the NT church’
wow, just wow...
maybe you should talk to some of your other protestant brethern who could show them to you
do you realize how silly you look when you make such demonstrably un-scriptural statements?
and it makes your protestant friends look less than knowledgeable about scripture when they don’t correct you.
AMDG
Just give us the chapters and verses where ,Peter, Paul, Luke, or anyone in the NT Prayed to the dead..and yes they are physically dead..enough word games ..
And BTW do you see how biblically unknowledgeable your statement makes you look??
I am asking my ping list.. ..why don't you google search your belief ?
Reading the source of that quote just makes me sad. Here's another quote from Newman.
It is maintained that doctrines which are associated with the later ages of the Church were really in the Church from the first, but not publicly taught, and that for various reasons:
Secret teachings? He's making an appeal to secret teachings? Really?
In the Bible, the apostles said they always preached in public. The Bible never makes allusion to secret teachings. Secret teachings are to be avoided, not embraced. There are no secret teachings and there have never been!
Prot revision is sad and it is much sadder when you all continue to bear false witness in spite of the truth. I pity you.
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.
I guess the former protestant was saying the exact opposite or what the OP claimed, and the rest of these quotes back that up:
.Scripture and antiquity, whether by individuals or by local churches, are no more than appeals from the Divine voice of the living Church, and therefore essentially rationalistic"
Your charge is manifestly wrong, as in fact Manning is indeed arguing that Scripture and antiquity are only what Rome says they are and mean, and thus the other quote you provide:
"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 proof"
For under Rome's presumes that a infallible magisterium is essential to even know what Scripture is and for assurance of Truth, and that being the historical steward of Scripture makes here that.
Cardinal Avery Dulles: People cannot discover the contents of revelation by their unaided powers of reason and observation. They have to be told by people who have received in from on high. Even the most qualified scholars who have access to the Bible and the ancient historical sources fall into serious disagreements about matters of belief. - Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ, Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of the Faith, p. 72; http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/08/magisterial-cat-and-mouse-game.html
It is the living Church and not Scripture that St. Paul indicates as the pillar and the unshakable ground of truth....no matter what be done the believer cannot believe in the Bible nor find in it the object of his faith until he has previously made an act of faith in the intermediary authorities..." - Catholic Encyclopedia>Tradition and Living Magisterium; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15006b.htm
Thus while appeal is made to Scripture as a merely historically accurate book in seeking to persuade souls to believe in Rome,
Once he does so [enters the Roman church], he has no further use for his reason. He enters the Church, an edifice illumined by the superior light of revelation and faith. He can leave reason, like a lantern, at the door. Therein he will learn many other truths that he never could have found out with reason alone, truths superior, but not contrary, to reason. These truths he can never repudiate without sinning against reason, first, because reason brought him to this pass where he must believe without the immediate help of reason. (John H. Stapleton, Explanation of Catholic Morals, Chapters XIX, the consistent believer (1904); Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor Librorum. Imprimatur, John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York )
Boy someone must feel pretty embarrassed right about now.
Indeed, which is you, unless you are beyond seeing that what the Prot argued is actually what you affirmed. And thus a faithful RC is not to ascertain the veracity of RC teaching by examination of evidences (for that reason). For to do so would be to doubt the claims of Rome to be the assuredly infallible magisterium by which a RC obtains assurance of Truth.
For Rome has presumed to infallibly declare she is and will be perpetually infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares.
BINGO
‘yes they are physically dead..enough word games ..’
They are NOT DEAD they ‘have fallen asleep’ and are ‘alive in Christ’ why would Paul be playing word games?
Didn’t he mean it?
Or is this just one of your ‘divinely inspired’ off the rails personal interpretations of scripture??
AMDG
..Exactly... what so many fail to realize is that almost nothing that their church teaches is "infallible"..a handful of scriptures declared infallibly defined and a handful of papal ex-catherdia statements spun into a doctrine..
Most have never read and seriously considered the scriptures ..so they trust the "voice of the church" in basically all their documents..
Please produce the verses or admit that no one in the NT church prayed to the dead..(in Christ or not)
You are the poster child for those who dont understand scripture
AMDG
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