Protestants and atheists are dissimilar in most regards, and I suspect both sides would be happy with my making this observation. But there is one area in which the two groups behave all too similarly: a fallacious sort of burden-shifting argument. For purposes of this post, we’ll call it “the Norseman and the Atheist.”
I. The Norseman and the Atheist
A Norseman and an atheist are having a conversation about religion:
- N: You believe that the world was created from nothing by nothing?
- A: I do. I believe that matter is all that there is.
- N: How is that possible?
- A: Well, of course I can’t prove that there are no gods or spirits, because it’s impossible to prove a negative. But since you’re the one who believes in these, it’s up to you to prove to me that Thor and Odin exist. I can’t find them looking under a microscope or through a telescope. Based on this, they’re obviously just legends, and so the logical conclusion is that there’s no god.
What are the logical errors that the atheist is making? They’re subtle, so you could be forgiven for missing them, but there are several of them:
- Assuming that there are only two possible answers (if the Norse are wrong, then atheism is right, and vice versa);
- The fallacy that you “can’t prove a negative.”
- Forcing one’s opponent to prove the case within one’s own interpretative framework. The debate here is whether matter is all that there is, and the atheist is using a materialist framework (telescopes and microscopes).
The net result of these fallacies are that one person is saying (in essence): “I don’t have to prove anything to win this argument. Instead, you have to prove your side, and you must do it using a framework I insist on. Unless you can convince me (in my framework) that I’m wrong, then I win.” The fallacious nature of this argument would be clearer if it were a Christian saying, “I don’t believe in Odin because that’s not what the Bible says.” But the fallacy is the same in either case.
So let’s unpack why this is wrong, and where this fallacious line of argumentation can be seen in both atheist and Protestant writings.
II. Where the Argument Goes Wrong
So here’s why each of the three fallacies are wrong:
The first fallacy is wrong because most arguments in life aren’t limited to two possible answers. So proving your opponent wrong doesn’t prove you’re right. After all, it’s possible that both the Norseman and the atheist are wrong!
The second fallacy is wrong because it’s just not true that you “can’t prove a negative.” Dr. Philip A. Pecorino, in the class notes from his philosophy of religion class, includes a piece he wrote entitled “The Burden of Proof” that claims:
So you simply cannot prove general claims that are negative claims — one cannot prove that ghosts do not exist; one cannot prove that leprechauns too do not exist. One simply cannot prove a negative and general claim.
To support this, he quotes from the atheist Richard Carrier’s article “Proving a Negative,” which is funny, because the article begins by debunking Pecorino’s claim:
I know the myth of “you can’t prove a negative” circulates throughout the nontheist community, and it is good to dispel myths whenever we can. As it happens, there really isn’t such a thing as a “purely” negative statement, because every negative entails a positive, and vice versa.
It’s for this reason that Dr. Steven D. Hales, chair of philosophy at Bloomsburg University (and author of at least 10 books on philosophy) has written, “A principle of folk logic is that one can’t prove a negative. […] But there is one big, fat problem with all this. Among professional logicians, guess how many think that you can’t prove a negative? That’s right: zero.”In other words, the idea that “you can’t prove a negative” isn’t true – it’s just bad folk wisdom.
Hales goes on to explain why this is so: “any claim can be expressed as a negative, thanks to the rule of double negation.” To say “this is pure gold” (a positive claim) is to say “there are no additives in this gold” (a negative claim). To say that the first claim requires proof and the second claim (which means the exact same thing) doesn’t is just playing linguistic games.
The third fallacy is wrong because it’s begging the question. In the conversation between the atheist and the Norseman, the atheist is assuming that if anything exists, it can be observed through scientific means (like microscopes and telescopes). But all that proves is that these gods (if they exist) aren’t material. So at the heart of the problem, the atheist is assuming the very thing that he’s supposed to be proving: that matter is all that there is.
Hopefully, it’s clear enough why the atheist’s argumentation was fallacious (regardless of whether or not you agree with his conclusions). But where do we see examples of this in real life?
III. The Fallacies in the Wild: Atheist Edition
I suggested at the outset that these fallacies are common amongst both atheists and Protestants. So what are some examples of this? Let’s look at atheists first.
Several atheist writers aggressively defend the fallacious argument that atheism is a negative position with no burden of proof. To wit, Keith Parsons both defends this fallacy, and cites several better-respected atheists who did, as well:
The “evidentialist challenge” is the gauntlet thrown down by atheist writers such as Antony Flew, Norwood Russell Hanson, and Michael Scriven.[1] They argue that in debates over the existence of God, the burden of proof should fall on the theist. They contend that if theists are unable to provide cogent arguments for theism, i.e. arguments showing that it is at least more probable than not that God exists, then atheism wins by default. It follows that atheists are under no obligation to argue for the nonexistence of God; their only task is to show that theistic arguments fail.
But there’s one logical leap from “your particular arguments for God fail” to “there are no good arguments for theism,” and another logical leap from that to “therefore no God exists.”
It’s quite possible that one particular set of arguments doesn’t work, or even that one particular god doesn’t exist, but that there’s still a God. And even if you come away unconvinced by the arguments for God, that doesn’t prove the opposite. There’s no such thing as winning by default here. If I said, “there are an even number of stars,” I probably wouldn’t be able to convince you of that as more likely than not. But that doesn’t prove that there are an even number of stars. Surely, if someone said, “if you can’t prove it’s more likely that there are an odd number, even wins by default!” you would recognize that they were playing fast and loose with logic, and trying to manipulate the debate. The same is here. If you’re unconvinced by the arguments for theism, that proves, at most, a sort of agnosticism, that you lack the necessary evidence to come to a conclusion. But agnosticism is equally far from theism and atheism, and it’s intellectual game-playing to conflate atheism and agnosticism.
So that’s the first fallacious game being played. The related one is that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (ECREE, for short). The claim was popularized by Carl Sagan, a sort of watered-down version of a bad argument by the philosopher David Hume. As Dr. David Deming has pointed out, this poorly-defined axiom has become “a fundamental principle of scientific skepticism” and “an axiom of the skeptical movement.” Not only has this saying been used to discredit mainstream scientific theses, but:
In other instances, the invocation of ECREE has been virtually unintelligible. Tressoldi (2011: 1) described ECREE as a statement that “is at the heart of the scientific method, and a model for critical thinking, rational thought and skepticism everywhere.” Yet in the same paragraph the author conceded that it was impossible to objectively define the term “extraordinary.” He admitted that “measures of ‘extraordinary evidence’ are completely reliant on subjective evaluation” (Tressoldi 2011: 1). It is clearly impossible to base all rational thought and scientific methodology on an aphorism whose meaning is entirely subjective.
So the combination of “the presumption of atheism” and “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” amounts to, “I don’t have to prove my case at all, and you have to prove your case to an extraordinary degree… as defined by me.” This is irrational burden-shifting. The claim “there is a God” and “there is not a God” equally require evidence, just as the claim “there is an even number of stars” and “there is not an even number of stars” require equal amounts of evidence.
IV. The Fallacies in the Wild: Protestant Edition
So if the atheist argument is “the default is that there’s no God, and it’s 100% on you to prove that there is,” what does the Protestant one look like? Let’s talk about just two examples: (1) is sola scriptura true? and (2) are bishops the successors of the Apostles? Protestants say yes to the first claim, and no to the second. Catholics say the opposite. But what’s fascinating is the manipulative way in which many Protestants approach the evidence on these (and many other) topics. I don’t know that they’re doing this intentionally – it may be as simple as just analyzing all of the evidence with the underlying assumption that they’re right… and that’s a universal risk. But whether it’s intentional or not, it’s certainly manipulation of the evidence.
Let’s start with sola scriptura. It’s the doctrine (according to the Westminster Confession) that
6. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men.
WCF 1.6
and therefore
The Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.
WCF 1.10
But there’s a huge, glaring problem with this. In the religious controversy over sola scriptura, the side in favor of the doctrine can’t find the doctrine taught anywhere in Scripture. And what’s more, the ability to decide issues based on Scripture requires knowing for sure which books are and aren’t Scripture… and nowhere in the Bible clarifies that, either. So before we learn one thing about the papacy, or history, or Tradition, or Church Councils, we can know that sola scriptura can’t be right because it doesn’t make any sense. Don’t get me wrong – it’s easy to imagine a world in which Jesus said “here, take this book, it’s all you need,” but He quite plainly didn’t.
These difficulties are insuperable for sola scriptura Protestants, which is why many of them are only too eager to try to change the subject instead. For instance, in response to the question “Where does the Bible teach sola scriptura?” James McCarthy (in The Gospel According to Rome) responds not by providing evidence that the Bible does teach sola scriptura, but by claiming Protestants shouldn’t have to actually prove their doctrine:
Though this tactic is effective in putting their opponents on the defensive, it is in fact misleading. Both sides agree that the Scriptures are the Word of God and that as such they speak with divine authority. The Lord Jesus Himself, in John 10:35, clearly identifies the Word of God as Scripture. The point of controversy is Tradition. The Roman Catholic Church asserts that Tradition is also the Word of God.
The question which the Roman Catholic Church must answer, therefore, is: Where do Jesus, the prophets, or the apostles teach that Tradition is the Word of God? Or, more precisely: Where in the Bible can it be found that Scripture and Tradition together, as interpreted by the Pope and bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, are to be the church’s rule of faith?
James McCarthy, The Gospel According to Rome, p. 354.
This is all three of the Norseman fallacies rolled into one:
- McCarthy acts as if he can prove sola scriptura true by default, by proving one variation of Catholic arguments wrong. But of course this isn’t true. The Eastern Orthodox (for instance) reject the papacy, and reject sola scriptura. So McCarthy isn’t answering the objection, he’s dodging it by changing the subject.
- McCarthy is making the negative evidence fallacy. He’s treating the Catholic claim for infallible tradition as something that needs to be proved, but the Protestant denial of tradition as something that can just be assumed until proven otherwise.
- His reasoning is entirely circular, because he’s begging the question. He proves the authority of Scripture by saying that Jesus says so… in Scripture. But he would never accept a Catholic claiming that Tradition is inspired because Tradition says so. No, he insists that Catholics must prove their claim from Scripture alone… the very framework he’s supposed to be proving.
We see the same thing in a recent Triablogue post by Steve Hays called, “What does sola scriptura mean?” in which he also desperately tries to change the conversation away from actually proving sola scriptura:
iii) The historic target of sola scriptura is the papacy and post-apostolic church councils. Sola scripture is the claim that there are no infallible post-apostolic church councils. Likewise, that God didn’t institute the papacy. The pope is not a divine mouthpiece.
iv) Apropos (iii), suppose a Catholic apologist asks us where do we find that in the Bible? But that’s the point–we don’t find the papacy in the Bible. And we don’t find divine promises to inspire post-apostolic church councils in the Bible. We find promises to the apostles. But we don’t find comparable promises to bishops or post-apostolic church councils.
This is sheer conversation-changing and burden-shifting. Notice that he’s redefined sola scriptura from a positive belief in the singular supremacy of the Scriptures as the Holy Spirit’s means of adjudicating theological debates to a disbelief in Councils and popes (bizarrely, he doesn’t even discuss Apostolic Tradition). Now, instead of having to prove their doctrines, he’s acting as if Protestants can assume it unless Catholics can prove the papacy and the infallibility of Church Councils. But regardless of the truth of Catholicism, sola scriptura is self-refuting. Even if the papacy were false, sola scriptura would still be false. So this is a totally irrelevant attempt at a tu quoque fallacy. And notice that, like McCarthy, he insists that the Catholic most prove these doctrines from Scripture, just like the atheist who insists that theists have to prove theism from materialist premises.
The fallacious nature of the argument becomes more clear as Triablogue continues:
vi) It’s not that we don’t find sola scriptura in the Bible, in the sense of a direct statement about sola scripture. That’s a confused way to frame the issue. Sola scriptura is defined by the point of contrast. The historical alternative. We don’t find what sola scriptura opposes in the Bible. […] For Catholic apologists to ask or exclaim, “Where do you find that in the Bible?” proves our point. We don’t, and that’s the problem–for Catholicism.
Even if all of this were true (it’s not, but no matter), this would be a fallacious argument. The whole argument is that, unless Catholics … starting from sola scriptura… can prove specific doctrines (the infallibility of the papacy and Councils to Triablogue, Apostolic Tradition to McCarthy) to the satisfaction of sola scriptura Protestants, then sola scriptura wins by default. It would be as if Catholics said, “unless you can show me where popes have denied papal infallibility, then papal infallibility is proven true.” Protestants would rightly recognize that as just terrible argumentation, and the same is true here.
Now, it’s true that Catholics accept the authority of Scripture, but that doesn’t change the fallacious nature of the argument – we don’t believe in Scripture alone. Likewise, theists believe in the existence of the material world, but don’t believe in the material world alone. In either case, insisting that we start the debate by acting like we believe the side we reject is a very strange shifting of evidentiary burdens.
Two final examples, just to show how often Protestant apologists engage in this intellectually-lazy burden-shifting. There’s no question, from Scripture, that the Church established by Jesus had bishops (1 Tim. 3:1) and Councils (Acts 15). Triablogue’s church (apparently) doesn’t. So you would think it would be on him to show that somewhere in Scripture said “do this now, but then get rid of the structure Jesus established.” After all, if there were any other teaching where someone said, “yes, Jesus taught this, but it’s not true any more,” we would normally expect them to support this claim with some sort of evidence. But amazingly, he doesn’t view himself as having this burden. Instead, his argument is that the Catholic just isn’t enough… and so he gets to win by default:
v) Catholics sometimes appeal to the “ordination” of Timothy (1 Tim 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6) as an example of holy orders. Suppose, for argument’s sake, we agree that the ceremony conferred a “charism” on Timothy. But Paul officiated at that ceremony. So that provides no precedent for “bishops” who aren’t handpicked deputies of the apostles. For “bishops” on whom apostles did not lay hands. […]
viii) Catholics appeal to Acts 15, but apostles along with a sibling of Jesus were participants. So that’s no precedent for post-apostolic church councils.
Notice the burden-shifting again and again. He just repeatedly says some version of “the Catholic side hasn’t proven their case enough” while he doesn’t bother to prove his case at all. The Apostles appointed bishops as successors, but that doesn’t prove (to Triablogue’s satisfaction) that the bishops appointed more bishops as successors., and so therefore he just assumes the opposite. An infallible Church Council exists in the Bible. But that doesn’t prove that later Church Councils are infallible, so therefore he just assumes the opposite. On and on it goes. If we show that historically, Peter was succeeded by Linus, and Cletus, etc., well, that’s not good enough because the post-Apostolic history isn’t contained in the Bible. Somehow, Catholics have to trace the last two thousand years of papal succession while only using books from the first century.
This is an easy con game, if you can get away with it. There’s no way a Catholic will ever be able to prove every doctrine beyond a shadow of any doubt, especially if the Protestant side doesn’t need to offer any proof or any sort of coherent theory. You can just as easily use this “method” to prove that Christian sexuality morality isn’t still applicable, or that if Jesus were alive today, he wouldn’t really still teach the things he taught, and so on. And how can anyone ever respond? No matter how good their evidence, you can just say “I’m not convinced.”
There’s a serious spiritual danger here for Protestants, one rarely remarked upon. Relative to atheists, Protestants are defined by what (and in whom) they believe. But relative to Catholics, Protestants are defined by what they disbelieve.* And so it’s easy to take the same fallacious burden-shifting arguments that atheists often use to justify their disbelief. But at heart, we need to recognize that this approach isn’t an argument. This is just the shrug of the skeptic in the guise of a Christian. It’s an abandonment of defending one’s beliefs. As an approach, it’s ultimately both illogical and totally unfitting, least of all for a Christian.
*I think that this is an important point. I’m not familiar with the Norseman fallacy being employed by Catholic, which may be my own blindness or bias, but which I suspect is because Catholics are rarely in the position of arguing for what we don’t believe.
Protestants also try to argue that “sola scriptura” can be deduced from scripture because scripture is the Word of God and therefore God would obviously give us a recipe book.
It amazes me that people are conservative politically and yet remain Protestant. The same reliance on history for their political views are rejected when it comes to theological matters. Protestants act like progressives in their politics but then ignore such critical thinking when it comes to theology.
Of course, the whole concept of a “reformation” is just another form of nominalism as the Church didn’t need to reform any of its theology (but many of its administrative functions).
Have the guts to reject Christianity if Christ failed with Rome instead of trying to make up a new fantasy religion off its back.
“It amazes me that people are conservative politically and yet remain Protestant. The same reliance on history for their political views are rejected when it comes to theological matters. Protestants act like progressives in their politics but then ignore such critical thinking when it comes to theology.”
I’m glad someone else noticed this. I forget the term, constitutional originalism? Conservatives are now usually die hard constitutionalists because they see the flaws in rules that can bend and change over time. Rightly so, but then a majority are Protestant and are either progressive in their interpretation of the Bible or make bold claims of knowing the true interpretation with little ability to defend the idea without stepping in Catholic territory.
“Have the guts to reject Christianity if Christ failed with Rome instead of trying to make up a new fantasy religion off its back.”
Amen.
Respectfully, a Constitutional originalist might reject more recent court cases if he believed they conflicted with the original intent. That’s the point, right? They don’t accept the way the reading of the law has changed over time; they want the meaning the writers had.
From a Protestant perspective, that’s exactly what we’re doing: getting back to what God, through the writers of Scripture, originally intended, and rejecting the “drift” over the years away from the beliefs of the early church. When one reforms what has been deformed, one is seeking the original shape.
Obviously that’s not the Catholic interpretation of Protestantism, but for many of us, that’s our internal perspective – and in that sense, I don’t think it’s odd at all that we’d be “originalists” in both spheres.
You are not a judge of any sort, least of all the judge of the Church Jesus established to teach with authority.
Nobody named you a judge, least of all Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church
However, there can be no doubt that you will receive many responses because Catholic men of today think themselves wiser that the Evangelists who taught that after a few attempts at correcting heretics they were to be marked out as heretics and shunned.
Well, granted, Irked, but the Protestant cannot avoid the writings of on-the-scene church fathers, who eyewitnessed the earth shaking events, who write, feel and appear very, very Catholic. Reformation without examination of what the first writers (interpretors) said, makes for a very weak reformation foundation.
Hi Joe!
I’m going to speak a word in defense of atheists here:
The second fallacy is wrong because it’s just not true that you “can’t prove a negative.” Dr. Philip A. Pecorino, in the class notes from his philosophy of religion class, includes a piece he wrote entitled “The Burden of Proof” that claims: So you simply cannot prove general claims that are negative claims — one cannot prove that ghosts do not exist; one cannot prove that leprechauns too do not exist. One simply cannot prove a negative and general claim.
I think you’ve misrepresented Pecorino’s argument, here. It’s quite correct that, in logic, there’s no difference between positive and negative claims; the positive claim “P” is logically equivalent to the ‘negative’ claim “!!P”, and so to say that no negative claim can be proved is to say no claim can be proved.
But of course, that’s not what Pecorino is saying. He’s not saying that, under the rules of logic, propositional logic is insufficient to show that a negative claim follows from a given set of premises. He’s saying that, in an evidentiary context like the physical world, establishing the truth of a negative claim can be prohibitively expensive in time or effort; that is, if I claim, “No green leprechauns exist anywhere,” it simply isn’t feasible for anyone to search literally everywhere to confirm that no such critters exist. Nothing logically precludes one from doing so – the search just is too long/expensive/technically difficult to completely perform, practically speaking. In such cases, it is sensible (after an extended search fails to turn up any evidence that leprechauns) to conclude that no leprechauns exist, even though they have not been formally proved to not exist.
We know that’s what Pecorino is saying because he explains this a few paragraphs later: “The claim that you can not prove a negative claim is itself a negative claim and would be a self defeating statement or a retortion were it not generally understood to be a limited claim. What is usually meant by the assertion that ‘One can not prove a negative claim’ is that it is not logical to insist on proof of claims or statements of the sort: ‘There is no such thing as X that exists anywhere at all and at any time at all.'”
This is a pretty standard logical claim, and one Carrier repeats as well. It’s fundamentally correct, so far as it goes: “I believe God exists because you can’t show he doesn’t” is pretty weak sauce; we should disbelieve a claim that Odin exists until some positive evidence is introduced. (Fortunately, as theists, this is far from the strongest argument in our logical arsenal!) This style of reasoning is sometimes called “inductive” reasoning – indeed, Hales calls speaks in defense of it under that name in the piece of his you cite.
So “Years of looking have not produced evidence Odin exists” does not prove Odin doesn’t exist, much less (as you note) prove that no gods exists – but it is a strong inductive argument if not a proper proof, as all three of the gentlemen you cite (Pecarino, Carrier, and Hales) seem to agree.
I’m obviously not defending atheism itself here, but the logical form of this dispute is much stronger than you’re giving it credit for here. Absent any positive evidence for the existence of gods, there’s no good reason to hold to their existence. The weakness in their argument, I think, is precisely in their dismissal of the positive evidence for Christianity.
… Then, of course, we come to Protestantism. There we have two basic arguments: sola Scriptura and the succession of apostolic authority through the chain of bishops. As noted above, both of these can be stated as negative propositions:
1) Apart from Scripture, there does not exist any infallible authority for the church today.
2) Apostolic authority is not passed from bishop to bishop in an unbroken line of succession.
In both cases, the argument is fundamentally of the same inductive form. The Catholic Church insists that some thing or person must be taken as authoritative. We deny that sufficient evidence has been introduced to establish that this thing should be taken as authoritative. Strictly speaking, sure, we have not proven that the thing should not be taken as an authority, but “prove to me that God didn’t establish this as an authority” is, again, a practically very difficult thing to do without being personally omniscient or having a set of axioms that fully describes the universe.
(Like, seriously: how would you, practically speaking, demonstrate, “This thing is not a divinely established authority?” What sort of evidence would you accept, there?)
The inductive argument – “We know a heck of a lot about the history of the church, and what we know doesn’t support the Catholic claims” – is pretty strong, though. And absent evidence in support of the Catholic claims, we believe it’s wrong to bind the Christian conscience to hold these things as truths.
Now, I don’t think that’s the end of the story. I think we actually have positive evidence against the claim of petrine succession, for instance, starting with the fact that the church fathers don’t agree that it’s true, and I think your claims that sola Scriptura is self-refuting don’t hold up. But your primary line of argument here seems to be that a particular style of inductive argument is fallacious, and so that’s where I’d like to focus my attention.
Still, I can’t resist one question:
There’s no question, from Scripture, that the Church established by Jesus had bishops (1 Tim. 3:1) and Councils (Acts 15).
This is just peculiar to me. Every Protestant church I’ve been in had bishops; bishops, biblically, are the same thing as elders, or overseers – or, as we typically call them today, “pastors.” Are you saying we don’t believe we still have bishops/elders?
Hello again Irked. Hope you are doing well.
Just wanted to answer one of your questions and ask a follow up.
You asked, “(Like, seriously: how would you, practically speaking, demonstrate, “This thing is not a divinely established authority?” What sort of evidence would you accept, there?)” If we could demonstrate that a supposed divine source contradicted itself or spoke falsely, that would certainly be evidence that it was not a divine source. That’s precisely what some atheists attempt to do in arguing that the Scriptures contradict each others. Similarly, that’s what some Protestants attempt to do in denying the authority of Tradition or the Church. Demonstrating that a contradiction or falsehood has actually occurred comes down to the truth of the individual arguments, of course.
Second, you wrote, “We deny that sufficient evidence has been introduced to establish that this thing should be taken as authoritative.” This sort of response troubles me a bit. To ask a somewhat similar question as the one you asked, how do you define “sufficient?” Qualifiers like that are fairly subjective. My own approach is more to ask, “What’s the most reasonable conclusion, given everything we know?”
Peaceful days,
Jordan
Hi Jordan!
Doing very well, thanks for asking – vacationing with my extended family right now, which is really nice. Hope you’re well, too!
If we could demonstrate that a supposed divine source contradicted itself or spoke falsely, that would certainly be evidence that it was not a divine source. That’s precisely what some atheists attempt to do in arguing that the Scriptures contradict each others. Similarly, that’s what some Protestants attempt to do in denying the authority of Tradition or the Church. Demonstrating that a contradiction or falsehood has actually occurred comes down to the truth of the individual arguments, of course.
I think this is a good answer, and it’s one I’d hold to as well. (In part, I posted that questionjust to see how folks would answer.)
I suspect we’d agree, though, that this is sufficient but not necessary for rejecting something as divinely inspired? For instance, I probably can’t show errors in a good math textbook, but it’s still not a divinely-empowered authority.
All that to say that I don’t think the Protestant case stands or falls by whether they can show contradictions in the Catholic tradition – showing one is fatal to the Catholic case, I think, but it’s reasonable to not accept tradition as authoritative without doing this.
This sort of response troubles me a bit. To ask a somewhat similar question as the one you asked, how do you define “sufficient?” Qualifiers like that are fairly subjective. My own approach is more to ask, “What’s the most reasonable conclusion, given everything we know?”
That’s a good question, and hard to give a good answer to. I think I’d probably peg “sufficient evidence to accept a source as authoritative” at somewhere past just “the majority of the evidence” and closer to “clear and convincing evidence,” to borrow some terminology from the legal system. I’d generally agree with your approach, though.
I’d personally go beyond just denying sufficient positive evidence in this area – I’d say there’s sufficient evidence to reject Catholic tradition as divinely inspired. But for the sake of defending the logical form of the argument, I was trying to be pretty minimal in my claims.
Hi Irked,
Glad to hear it. I am doing well too. Lots of change in my life right now, and our Lord is showing me a lot of things to repent of and to grow in.
Yes, I agree that there are other ways to make the case that a particular source is not divine in origin. Both atheists and Protestants have other ways to argue that their point of view is the most reasonable. You’ve referred to a historical argument above, for instance, around papal succession. If, for example, a bunch of ancient documents were unearthed in the Vatican recording a gap in papal succession and a huge cover up by the Catholic Church, etc., that would be a strong piece of evidence against the Catholic claims. There are others we could think up. The Vatican archives are deep…
What I think we need to avoid as Protestants and Catholics (and I think you agree with me) is an approach that constantly moves the line on the amount or quality of evidence that we demand from our interlocutor. That leads to situations where you could pile a literal mountain of evidence in front of someone, and they will simply say that it’s not enough to convince them; it’s not “sufficient.” Dialog under those circumstances is pointless, and it’s simply a bad way of determining truth.
You mentioned that you think there is positive evidence against the claims of the Catholic Church. I think one of Joe’s points here (and obviously correct me if I am wrong Joe) is that you need this evidence if you are going to reject the Catholic claims. We should not reject the Catholic claims due to a lack of evidence. Rather, in that case, reason would dictate that you are agnostic toward those claims. And I think many people have a tendency to be given a view as a child or pick a view as a young adult, and then assume that whatever view they have is correct unless “proven” otherwise.
Peaceful days,
Jordan
Hi Jordan,
It sounds like we’re on the same page, yeah. I would also agree that there are basically three positions: “P is definitely true,” “P is definitely false,” and “I don’t have enough evidence to determine the truth of P.” If there’s no evidence for or against, ambivalence is reasonable.
On the other hand, I also think it’s reasonable – again, when working in a world of real, pragmatic evidence, and not pure logic – to believe things don’t exist until evidence supports that they do. We should not be agnostic about the possibility of teapots orbiting the sun exactly opposite the earth; we should believe they don’t exist until there’s some reason to believe otherwise. (On the other hand, it shouldn’t require particularly much evidence to push us out of disbelief.)
This is to some degree moot; I think there’s positive evidence against the Catholic case (and for the Protestant), and I imagine you’d argue the opposite, so neither of us is really resting on inertia. Definitely with you on the importance of being open to evidence, though.
Hello Irked,
It’s funny; I was thinking of the teapot thing as well when I was writing the last post. I’m a bit on the fence about it. It’s difficult for my brain to figure out the difference between “I don’t have evidence of a teapot,” and “It is most reasonable to believe there is no teapot.” That’s when I start thinking about what makes something reasonable to believe and my head starts to spin.
For example, I couldn’t give you one shred of evidence that the earth is round other than, “Everyone that I trust tells me that it is.” Is it reasonable to believe it? I think yes, but that’s a pretty terrible argument for the truth of a thing. And, indeed, a great deal of the things that I know have exactly the same basis.
Epistemology is “fun.”
Peaceful days,
Jordan
Jordan,
Funny thing, there: I start one of my classes by asking my students to defend their belief that the world is round against my (pretended) belief that it’s flat. Most of them struggle – and if I didn’t prepare for it beforehand, so would I!
I guess my response would be that there are all sorts of institutions telling you that they’re authorities theologically. To be agnostic about all of them before they offer evidence in their defense is to say, “Well, they might all be right” – and if they might be right, hadn’t we better do what they say, just to be on the safe side? That seems simply unlivable; assuming they’re wrong until they present evidence, on the other hand, is at least something you could practically do.
(I’m happy to say that “Someone I trust told me this is true” carries at least some weight of evidence, though!)
Seems like we might be winding down – if so, just wanted to say thanks for a mutually-respectful conversation.
Why no Protestant Bishops? Because none of them conduct a mass. Nominalistic to call a Protestant bishop a bishop as that term was used in scripture.
It all gets back to the Mass. Always has and always will because if the Mass was just a symbol then all of Catholicism is a joke and therefore all of Christianity is a joke. To claim early church history is Protestant is to ignore reality and side with modern progressives who just make things up like AOC.
Hi Johnny,
Bishop, as the term is used in Scripture specifically, doesn’t include any special power of conducting a mass. Nor, for that matter, does the early church order in the Didache indicate any theologically-essential role for the elders of the church in taking communion. (Indeed, the only thing the Didache says regarding bishops is that the churches should “appoint [them] for yourselves” – as, indeed, we do.)
Obviously a Catholic reads this history differently. But I was specifically replying to Joe’s comment, “There’s no question, from Scripture, that the Church established by Jesus had bishops (1 Tim. 3:1) and Councils (Acts 15). Triablogue’s church (apparently) doesn’t.” Joe seemed to be saying that, because Protestant churches do not believe in apostolic succession, they likewise do not believe the institution of bishop/elder continues into the modern day – and again, yes, we do!
Irked –
How do you think early Christians worshiped if there wasn’t a mass? Serious question that ties into the definition of priest/Bishop.
Hi Johnny,
Well, we don’t really have to guess. The Didache tells us at least one pattern of early Christian worship; indeed, it’s the easiest record we have of that form. If we’re to appeal to tradition, that would seem to be a pretty good starting point, right?
So what doe we see as the pattern of worship in the Didache?
They had people who spoke the word of God to them (ch. 4). They reproved sin in the church (ch. 4). They immersed those who had fasted beforehand, if at all possible – which pretty necessarily implies that they baptized were adults (ch. 7). They fasted and remembered the Lord’s prayer (ch. 8). They prayed together over the cup and broken bread of the Eucharist (ch. 9). They gave thanks afterward and prophesied (ch. 10). They gathered, prayed, and shared communion every Sunday (ch. 14). They appointed righteous men as their own elders/bishops (ch. 15). They waited for the Lord to return (ch. 16).
That’s not identical to my services today, nor should it need to be – though it’s not that far off, either. But what’s striking in their listing is not so much what it says as what it doesn’t say. There’s no provision for the baptism of those too young to fast. There’s no fencing of the table or special instruction for managing the elements before or after the service. There’s no special role for a singular bishop, nor indeed indication that the local church has a singular bishop or leader. There’s no formalized confession to a priest, nor any evidence that such an office even exists. (Prophets are said to be “high priests,” but the Didache acknowledges that a church may not have any prophets – and the implication in that metaphor is that the members, collectively, are the priests.)
There’s no indication that the elements are anything other than a cup and broken bread, or that they serve for the forgiveness of sins; indeed, the implication is that the partakers should ensure they’ve been purified of sin beforehand.
If a service can lack all these things and yet be a Mass, then Protestants have a mass, too. And if any of these things are necessary to the Mass, then why on earth doesn’t the earliest order of worship care about them?
Irked –
We’re finally getting somewhere. Now all I need to conduct my own investigation is a name or group of people in early church history from 100AD-500AD who you’re virtually certain were Protestants.
Just looking for the top one in your mind.
For example, if you asked me this question I would say Augustine of Hippo.
Asked me the question for an example for a Roman Catholic.
I apologize for the lack of clarity.
The early church is neither Protestant nor Catholic. It’s the early church.
It seems like you’re asking me to defend positions I haven’t taken. I’ve made a very limited argument, mostly regarding logic, and I’m not sure what it is I’ve said that you’re arguing with.
Irked,
Just noticed your comment, and wanted to jump in on a couple points, just in case you’re still reading the thread:
1) “But of course, that’s not what Pecorino is saying. He’s not saying that, under the rules of logic, propositional logic is insufficient to show that a negative claim follows from a given set of premises.”
This is a good distinction, because there are a couple of possible things going on. In the case of leprechauns, there were good reasons to reject their existence apart from a negative claim (tracing the history of the myths, for instance) without conducting a physical search of the entire world. But if I were to say “cheetahs don’t exist” and what I really meant is that I hadn’t personally seen one and couldn’t afford the cost to do the kind of investigation necessary to confirm or deny their existence… well, the problem would be that my negative claim far surpassed the evidence. A lot of atheist (and Protestant) claims end up like this – the problem is claiming far beyond what the person actually knows or can prove. But there’s another half, which you allude to. It could be that what they’re trying to say is:
P1. If X existed, we’d see physical evidence.
P2. We don’t see physical evidence.
C. Therefore, X doesn’t exist.
But that is an actual proof (and a falsifiable one) for a negative claim. So by all means, negative claims are fine. But the idea that they can be thrown out and then not proven is wrong, and lazy argumentation.
2) For Protestantism, much of what I just said applies as well. I don’t think it’s nearly as hard as you’re imagining to prove the Protestant claim, if it were true. You could just point to when in history the papacy (or fill-in-the-blank) was invented. Likely, if someone came around and tried to set up the papacy, a lot of other bishops and Church leaders would be outraged, so this would be an extremely-well documented event. But since we don’t see evidence of it, there’s a good negative claim that such a post-apostolic creation never existed… meaning that the papacy dates back to St. Peter and to Jesus. Or to put it another way: we believe St. Peter was the first pope, and can give some evidence in support of it. If you reject that, you should be able to give an alternative positive claim of who WAS the first pope, just as if I denied that the U.S. dated back to the 18 century, it would be on me to explain how it DID come about.
3) “This is just peculiar to me. Every Protestant church I’ve been in had bishops; bishops, biblically, are the same thing as elders, or overseers – or, as we typically call them today, “pastors.” Are you saying we don’t believe we still have bishops/elders?”
I’m responding to a specific example (quoted right above this part) from Triablogue, arguing against post-apostolic bishops. That argument against bishops is a perfect example of burden-shifting and special pleading. I’m not claiming all Protestants use it for that specific belief, but if you can see how that argument goes wrong, I think you can see how so many analogous ones do, as well.
In the Blood,
Joe
Hi Joe,
Thanks for the reply!
But if I were to say “cheetahs don’t exist” and what I really meant is that I hadn’t personally seen one and couldn’t afford the cost to do the kind of investigation necessary to confirm or deny their existence… well, the problem would be that my negative claim far surpassed the evidence.
I guess I’m unclear, then: are you denying the validity of inductive argument as a means of reaching conclusions? If persuasive positive evidence for the existence of cheetahs has not been presented, and the searches I’m able to do don’t produce any supportive evidence, isn’t it quite reasonable to disbelieve in cheetahs?
“But cheetahs do actually exist,” someone might counter, and yes, of course they do; following a reasonable course of action for the evidence in hand doesn’t mean we always reach the correct answer. But the form of the challenge here works as well for “cheetahs” as it does for “Foogle-Wumps”; the question is, is there a point at which I can reasonably say that I don’t believe Foogle-Wumps exist? You give the example of:
P1. If X existed, we’d see physical evidence.
P2. We don’t see physical evidence.
C. Therefore, X doesn’t exist.
… as an acceptable proof structure. But at what point am I allowed to assert P2? Must I exhaustively search the universe to know that there is no physical evidence? If not, it’s always possible that the evidence does exist, and I’ve just not found it yet – right?
And that’s the point of inductive argument: it is distinctly not proof, under the laws of logic, but it allows us to reasonably form conclusions from partial information where logical proof is not feasible. (Notably, inductive reasoning is the foundation of virtually all of modern science.)
I’m still not sure, reading this, where you fall on this: do you not believe the atheists you quote are talking about inductive argument? Do you not accept inductive argument as a valid form? Do you accept the rationality of inductive argument, and simply believe (as I do) that they’re ignoring positive evidence for the existence of God? Something else?
You could just point to when in history the papacy (or fill-in-the-blank) was invented.
The straightforward Protestant response is that the papacy, like many Catholic doctrines, is a slow accretion of change: a move to singular bishops over a plurality of elders; a growth in the power of bishops; a gradual shift from deference to Rome as the seat of political power , to deference to the bishop of Rome as the seat of theological power. You’re asking for a moment; we don’t believe the “moment” exists.
I’m responding to a specific example (quoted right above this part) from Triablogue, arguing against post-apostolic bishops.
Sure, but the point of that article is that bishops in the Roman sense – those carrying a charism of special authority – don’t exist. That’s not remotely the same as saying that elders as described in 1 Timothy 3 don’t exist. Again, it feels as though the original post mischaracterizes the people it’s quoting.
Ah, I meant to say:
Likely, if someone came around and tried to set up the papacy, a lot of other bishops and Church leaders would be outraged, so this would be an extremely-well documented event. But since we don’t see evidence of it, there’s a good negative claim that such a post-apostolic creation never existed
I would have said that the Seventh Council of Carthage was a reasonably well-documented event.
Grr, and that comes off snarkier than I meant for it to. Joe, my apologies – it’s been a long day here.
Indeed. And they confirm the Catholic canon of scripture…
The council of 256/257, under Cyprian, which he called the Seventh? I don’t believe so, though I could be mistaken; that would be more than a century before Athanasius’s festal letter (which, y’know, denies the Catholic canon).
It does, however, feature “a lot of bishops and Church leaders” who are explicitly outraged over the claims of authority made by Stephen, Bishop of Rome.
As Cyprian put it, “Neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience; since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another. But let us all wait for the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only one that has the power both of preferring us in the government of His Church, and of judging us in our conduct there.”
That would seem to meet Joe’s criterion for evidence.
Hi Irked,
I’ve replied to you at the bottom of all the posts.
Irked –
Please name Christians from 100AD-500AD who rejected a priest conducting a mass.
Three people would be great. Even a group of people works provided one can verify your claims.
Irked –
Constitutional originalists START with actual history as the backdrop for interpreting the words within the Constitution. Thus, in order for Protestantism to be grounded in such “originalism” it would need to be supported with early historical support of people believing like them.
Where is there a body of Christians rejecting a priest conducting a mass from 100AD-500AD?
If you don’t want to go down the Mass route then pick another main tenant if your version of Protestantism and provide historical support for that belief from 100AD-500AD.
Jordan –
You’re referring to a weight of the evidence vs a sufficiency of the evidence issue. Weight = quality of evidence and sufficiency = lack of evidence. The two are similar but different.
My question to Irk goes to the sufficiency of his claims that Protestantism has historical support. If it does, then please name the top three Protestants in early church history outside of scripture.
Might just be easier for him to name his top three from 100AD-500AD instead of the mass rejection to keep it simple.
Hello Johnny,
I don’t know if you are asking me to name these Protestants as well as Irked, but I think that question is off-topic for this thread. The main point of this post is not to actually evaluate historical arguments for or against Catholic claims, but rather to determine the way in which we would evaluate that argument. My comments to Irked were trying to determine who has the burden of proof and the nature of that burden. I was not using “sufficient” in any technical legal sense. I was trying to figure out how Irked was using it.
Peaceful days,
Jordan
Johnny,
I share Jordan’s understanding of the conversation, which is why I’ve been hesitant to answer some of these questions: I’m just not sure they tie in to Joe’s original topic.
Rather than comment on a nine-year-old post about how Ignatius of Antioch clearly indicates that the early churches had singular bishops (as, indeed, his own letters at least do seem to indicate), and that we shouldn’t be confused by statements from other early writers that seem to instead indicate a plurality of elders, I’ll just ask here – what do you make of Jerome’s statements (granted, written ~180 years later) that seem to state just about as explicitly as possible what is now considered as the Protestant case: https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/jerome-on-church-officers.4772/ ?
In a nutshell he says – “presbyter” and “bishop” are two words that mean the same thing. Early churches were governed by a council of presbyters, but this increased the risk of dissension as (apparently) people would just appeal to the presbyter that agreed with them. So, to eliminate this disunity, it was thought good to elevate a single presbyter above the rest, but this was implemented as a practical custom to solve this problem and not by divine appointment. Jerome actually sounds incredibly Protestant on this point – I am wondering what you think. (You could just think “he was mistaken”, that is a possible answer.)
Hi David,
St. Jerome makes it clear that the tri-fold ministry was instituted by the Apostles themselves. Here is one example, from his Letter to Evangelus:
Irked –
What person in history from 100AD-500AD would you say with virtual certainty was a Protestant?
I’m a former Protestant and a major impetus for my conversion to RC was history. I searched for real persons in history whom I could call a Protestant and came up empty.
Irked –
I’m trying to understand your logic and beliefs so that I can research them for myself. History is important to me so when someone has a different view I try to see if others had that view in history.
If the early Church was neither Catholic nor Protestant, as you just stated, then aren’t both Catholics and Protestants misguided because by definition they are something other than the early church?
Positive response appreciated.
Johnny,
I don’t think “Are Protestants misguided?” is a useful question. Protestants don’t all agree; clearly some of them are wrong about something. The same thing is true of the early fathers; they disagreed with each other all over the place, and so clearly some of them were wrong about something.
The church, in other words, consists of people, in all ages. But its concerns in the early years were about things like, “How does the incarnation work, anyway?” – many of the issues you and I hold as distinctives hadn’t arisen in the church yet, and so many fathers don’t seem to have expressed codified opinions either way.
Irked –
So nobody really knows what is most likely truth or fiction about the early church? If you assert the early Church isn’t Roman Catholic or Protestant, as you have, then you must have some evidence to support such claim or you’re left with historical agnosticism or historical Gnosticism (and you aren’t willing to share).
I think our discussion relates directly to the “prove the negative” contained in this article. 🙂
Johnny,
So nobody really knows what is most likely truth or fiction about the early church?
No, I said nothing of that form. I said that the early church was made of human beings who did not all agree on the right interpretation of Scripture, much as it is today. You may find examples of particular cases in which they don’t agree in any of a number of threads I’ve participated in over the past few years; I would recommend, for instance, the relatively recent discussions in which it is demonstrated (and in which no one really plausibly denies) that the fathers did not primarily believe the object of Matthew 16 was Peter.
But that’s not the topic today. I answered your question, because you said it would help you to understand my position; I’m not willing to abandon Joe’s original post (and my reply) to go to some different ground.
Do you have a critique of claims I made in my original post?
Irked –
I asked for you to name one person in the early Church from 100AD-500AD that best exemplifies what you believe is a Protestant. You didn’t answer my question for your own reasons which is fine.
Hi guys,
This is completely off topic, but it’s actually pretty important regarding Islam.
There is currently an Evangelical historian named Dan Gibson who has spent over 30 years studying Nabataean and Arabic history in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. During this research he decided to take GPS measurements from the foundations of all of the existing mosques he could find in the world from the lifetime of Muhammad to about 100 years after his death. This GPS data was to determine in which direction the early Muslims were praying back then.
Today, About 99.9 % of Muslims think that the early ‘qibla’ direction was the same as it is today…towards modern Mecca. But this is NOT what Dan Gibson found. up to the year 723 AD…100 years after Muhammads death, ALL of the early Mosques point in the direction of PETRA, in Southern Jordan, and about 650 miles north of todays Mecca. This indicates that the birth place of their prophet Muhammad is really PETRA, and not Mecca…which also indicates that about 1.2 billion Muslims today are praying to a site that Muhammad and the Qur’an never intended for them. They are also taking their Hajj pilgrimage to a site Muhammad prbably never saw in his entire life….and was merely by early successors of Muhammad for political purposes….about 130 years after Muhammad’s death. And, almost no Muslims know about these findings.
Anyway, Historian Dan Gibson made an excellent Youtube video …translated it into about 17 different languages (sub captions mostly for Islamic countries) called “The Sacred City”. For any of you who are interested…you can find it easily by Googling these words:
“The Sacred City Timeline”.
This video should be very interesting and intriguing for all who enjoy studying Christian apologetics…and even current world politics. Gibson, also, has about 20 other shorter Youtube videos going deeper into various of the data covered in the longer video, above.
Best to all.
– Al
awlms –
Interesting video topic. I think more investigation should include if Mohammad ever existed.
I’m not aware of any third party proof that he existed. Plenty that Jesus existed as a person (put aside the Messianic claims).
It’s amazing how Islam get a free historical pass but Christianity gets nothing but ridicule.
Hi Johnny,
There is currently a lot of study (polemics) going on regarding almost every aspect of the history of Muhammad, the Qur’an and the history of Islam. A lot of this is also being conducted via Youtube debates and discussions. If you Youtube search for Jay Smith or David Wood or Christian Prince…you will find a lot of topics about Islam that even the most knowledgeable Muslim scholars have a hard time refuting. These online debates are pretty much a daily occurrence with typically hundreds or thousands of viewers following and commenting on them. And, actually, in the comments associated with these talks and debates, a lot of Muslims decide to convert to Christianity.
Again, the Protestants are leading the way in all of these apologetical discussions…but it would be great if a Catholic perspective could also enter the ‘fray’…so-to-say. I hope that maybe Joe Heschmeyer might read these comments and decide to do a post, or two, with Muhammad and Islam as the subject matter. I’m not so sure why Catholics shy aways from these Islamic controversies and discussions? Evangelicals seem to have no problems ‘stepping up to the plate’ and telling the truth about Islam and Muhammad as the evidence provides it to us. But, at least Catholics did a fairly decent job in protecting all Christianity from the onslaught of Islamic conquest over many centuries of western civilization.
Best to you in the Lord. And spread, if you can, the Dan Gibson video to others as it is good for this data to be widely known. The cover-up of Muhammad’s home city of Petra, and his early history, is one of the best examples of ancient ‘fake news’ that the world has ever seen.
The central fact of any discussion about religion is always avoided
That central fact is that Jesus Christ dwells in His Catholic Church and no other church
His Catholic Church is His Kingdom on earth
Maybe if our Popes, Prelates, and Priests preached this essential truth they would gather more converts
Another central truth is that it is The Catholic Church – especially in its Apostolic College – that bears primary responsibility for the refusal of others not to convert
It will be judged for that failure and our current chaos may be linked to our punishment for the modern ecclesiological praxis that is essentially indifferentist
These tiresome and tireless modern religious debates exist because modern Catholics are wildly weak intellectually when compared with the early Church Catholics who recognized their were part of a visible society established by Jesus – He picked the first members personally as members of His Church – and not part of an invisible society- and recognized only two churches
The Church of Christ
The Church of Satan
That reality existed then, it has existed and persisted for over 20 centuries, and it exists today
Just try and imagine one early Catholic speaking about any other “Church” and you should begin laughing at that essential absurdity.
Sure, modern Popes, Prelates, and Priests speak that way but such speech would have been condemned by early Catholics
Modern Popes,Prelates, and Priests want to be loved by their enemies rather than to risk their enmity by teaching them the truths of Jesus Christ
We must love our enemies enough to speak the truth to them and them essential truth is not that we have the fullness of truth (we do) and they don’t ( they don’t) but that it is only in His Catholic Church that Jesus Christ lives and if they desire to be worthy of the name Christian they must convert to the one true Catholic Church Jesus established
Hi Irked,
St. Athanasius also denies the Protestant canon, as he quoted from Baruch and Susanna as Scripture, while rejecting the book of Esther.
Ahhhh Irked, we’ve been through this before, and you should not cherry-pick quotes from the fathers. This quote of St. Cyprian does you no good. Because before this letter, as I showed to you in a thread on a previous blog of Joe’s, that in previous letters he himself had appealed to Pope St. Stephen to depose other bishops.
Now which is it with St. Cyprian? Does Pope St. Stephen have power over other bishops, or not? St. Cyprian had no problem with Pope St. Stephen exercising universal jurisdiction, until he disagreed with Pope St. Stephen.</i.
1.) In St. Cyprian’s epistle 66, he writes to Pope St. Stephen to depose Marcian, the bishop of Arles, and to appoint a new one.
How can Cyprian ask Pope St. Stephen to do this, if Cyprian does not believe that Pope St. Stephen has universal jurisdiction? Or that there is no bishop among bishops? After all, if Pope St. Stephen cannot interfere in St. Cyprian’s diocese, how come St. Cyprianhe has no problem with Pope St. Stephen interfering in Marcian’s?
2.) Basildes was a Spanish bishop who had been excommunicated and been deposed. He traveled to Pope St. Stephen asking to be re-instated. We know in St. Cyprian’s letter to other Spanish bishops that did not want Basildes re-instated as a bishop that he believed Pope St. Stephen had been deceived by Basildes.
Why did Basildes travel to Rome asking to be re-instated, if the pope had no authority to interfere in another diocese?
In St. Cyprian’s letter to those Spanish bishops, why didn’t he just tell them that Pope St. Stephen does not have the authority to re-instate Basildes?
Again, it’s quite obvious that St. Cyprian had no problem with universal jurisdiction, until that jurisdiction was used against what he was teaching.
As a side note, St. Cyprian’s viewpoints lay out the need for universal jurisdiction. In his letters, he states that non-rebaptism of
those that were baptized by heretics is itself a heresy. Then he goes on to say that each bishop can believe and do what he wants on this issue in his own diocese. Huh? But that is why appealed to Pope St. Stephen to depose Marcian, because Marcian was teaching heresy. To protect his ridiculous theory, he has to do a 180, from what he previously argued.
Hi Duane!
St. Athanasius also denies the Protestant canon, as he quoted from Baruch and Susanna as Scripture, while rejecting the book of Esther.
Yep! It’s not a perfect match either way – though it’s a heck of a lot closer to ours than to yours. The principle to which he appeals, though, is that “it is handed down that this is the number of the letters among the Hebrews.” He then gets the Hebrew list slightly wrong – adding one and dropping one, while keeping the same number – but it’s the same principle we’d point to.
And critically, we don’t ground our claims to authority on the insistence that the early church held a universal opinion that exactly matches what we believe today.
Ahhhh Irked, we’ve been through this before, and you should not cherry-pick quotes from the fathers. This quote of St. Cyprian does you no good. Because before this letter, as I showed to you in a thread on a previous blog of Joe’s, that in previous letters he himself had appealed to Pope St. Stephen to depose other bishops.
Briefly, your argument was (and is) that one of the greatest bishops of the third century (and another eighty bishops of the council beside?) was an enormous hypocrite. It’s a little bit funny to picture the reaction on here if I was the one making that argument; I don’t have ABS’s gift for creative invective, but I’m pretty sure there would be some pointed remarks about Protestant disrespect for the fathers.
But I also note that in letter 66, Cyprian also says “it is our business to advise for and to aid in, since we who consider the divine clemency, and hold the balance in governing the Church, do thus exhibit the rebuke of vigour to sinners,” emphasis mine, with no special consideration for Stephen. As I argued last time, it’s thus plausible in context to read the letter as a political appeal: “With your support, the rest of the bishops will promptly kick him to the curb.” Since that’s consistent with Cyprian’s statement in council, with his writings on the bishops as the “rock” of Matthew 16, with his 71st epistle, with Firmilian’s remarks to Cyprian that Stephen “pretends” to the authority of Peter, with Tertullian’s mockery a generation before (which Cyprian quotes at the council), etc., and since it doesn’t require the man to be…
… well, what would it make him to know that the doctrine of the papacy is true and yet deny it when it’s inconvenient? A heretic at minimum, surely; is that a damnable offense?
In any event, I prefer the reading that gives the man the benefit of the doubt – and it seems to me that, in setting four or five different sources against one, it’s not the four or five that should count as cherry-picking. But for the sake of the current argument, it almost doesn’t matter; Joe gave a specific challenge for a thing we should expect to find if Protestant claims are true, and we do in fact find it.
Hi Irked,
Do you believe in the Trinity?
Yes. It’s the necessary consequence of the teaching of Scripture, as later councils recognized.
Hi Irked, thanks for the reply.
Actually, St. Athanasius also refers to Sirach and Wisdom as Scripture. So now who’s canon is he closer to?
Most likely, as several apologists have pointed out, is that St. Athanasius most likely accepted all of the Deuterocanonicals as Scripture, and that when he lists the books that make up the canon in his Festal Letter 39, he is most likely referring to the books that are read at Mass, not what he considers the entirety of inspired Scripture. This becomes apparent when he quotes from books, and refers to them as inspired Scripture, that are not in that list.
Nor do we. But it is the Protestants who brought St. Athanasius and St. Jerome into the argument when they took out the Deuterocanonicals. And if St. Athanasius didn’t believe a book may have been inspired, so what? He was free to do so until the Church set the canon.
Why did they take those seven books out? Because they didn’t like what those books taught. As John Calvin said: They (the Catholics) can prove the doctrine of Purgatory from Maccabees. But what they did should give you pause, because now you have no principled reason for arguing against JW’s when they change words. Or LDS. Or as some non-denominationals have done when they refuse to read any of the letters of St. Paul, because they view him as anti women.
I think there are only two ways you can read St. Cyprian, based on his writings. There is no doubt that he appealed to St. Stephen’s authority and asked him to do to other bishops in Spain and France what he denied St. Stephen had the authority to do to him. This is quite obvious in his writings. So the first, and charitable, way to read him is that his opinion changed over time. Changing an opinion over time, does not make one a hypocrite. The second way is to say: “Yes, in this matter he was a hypocrite.” Based on his own writings, I do not see any other options.
The reason I asked about the Trinity, is your comment about 87 bishops. So St. Cyprian had 87 bishops who agreed with him? So what? St. Jerome states that 3/4 of the world’s bishops were Arian at the time of Nicaea. Should we be Arians then? And St. Athanasius said the Arians had more verses of Scripture in their favor than the Trinitarians had in theirs at Nicaea. He said it was only an appeal to the Tradition held by the Fathers that won the day for the Trintarian view.
But now here’s the interesting part about that council of bishops in North Africa, not one of them says St. Stephen did not have the authority to do what St. Cyprian objected to. They agreed with St. Cyprian that accepting the baptism by heretics was wrong, and that is what they said to St. Stephen. None of those bishops said St. Stephen did not have authority over them, which is why they all ended up doing what St. Stephen had commanded.
Thank you. Firmilian proves the Catholic argument. Notice, Firmilian says St. Peter had that authority. He says St. Stephen doesn’t wield that authority, not because the office doesn’t have such authority, but because he felt St. Stephen was teaching error, which made him not a true successor of St. Peter. Ergo, if the pope teaches doctrine that Firmilian agrees with, then you are a true successor in Firmilian’s mind, and you have the authority given to St. Peter.
Thank you again. You keep bringing up people that prove the Catholic’s argument. What does Tertullian say in a nutshell? He says I know that you (Callixtus) are going to appeal to the fact that you sit on the chair of Peter, and that as such you have authority over the whole Church. How did he know what Callixtus was going to argue? Easy. He’d seen universal jurisdiction applied at least three times already. First with St. Clement. Then with St. Sixtus. Then with St. Victor. Not in any of his writings before his argument with St. Callixtus, do we see Tertullian have a problem with the doctrine. By Tertullian’s own words, we know the doctrine must have existed. Else how did he know what St. Callixtus would appeal to?
Which ties into St. Cyprian again. He also had seen papal appeal to universal jurisdiction based on the Chair of Peter before. He’d seen it at least four times. He never wrote against or questioned it before St. Stephen used it on him. In fact he had appealed to St. Stephen to wield that same authority against bishops in Spain and France. He appeals to the writings of Tertullian only after he did not want to do what St. Stephen commanded.
Hi Duane,
Actually, St. Athanasius also refers to Sirach and Wisdom as Scripture.
In the Festal Letter, or in a different context without the accompanying definition of exactly what he means by graphe?
Most likely, as several apologists have pointed out, is that St. Athanasius most likely accepted all of the Deuterocanonicals as Scripture, and that when he lists the books that make up the canon in his Festal Letter 39, he is most likely referring to the books that are read at Mass, not what he considers the entirety of inspired Scripture.
Okay. So when he says that these are the books “handed down, and accredited as Divine,” and that “In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness,” emphasis mine, it’s your opinion that he just means, “These are the ones we read at Mass?” That seems like a fair interpretation of those words?
Nor do we.
Cool. You’re okay, then, with not claiming that your positions are “in accordance with the ancient and constant faith of the universal church?”
Why did they take those seven books out? Because they didn’t like what those books taught.
Is that also why Jerome, Gregory the Great, the Glossa Ordinaria, etc. said they were noncanonical? Or is it possible that “We don’t hold to the teaching of these books” was the result, and not the cause, of their rejection?
Based on his own writings, I do not see any other options.
You don’t see any possibility of him making an appeal for political support to Stephen, as I suggest?
The reason I asked about the Trinity, is your comment about 87 bishops. So St. Cyprian had 87 bishops who agreed with him? So what?
The “So what” is that this is the standard Joe set for evidence. If you think it’s a bad standard, I’d invite you to talk to him about it; I didn’t set it.
But now here’s the interesting part about that council of bishops in North Africa, not one of them says St. Stephen did not have the authority to do what St. Cyprian objected to.
Are you not counting Cyprian in this tally? Like, is your argument, “Well, only Cyprian, at the council Cyprian calls, in the opening statement of that council, having assembled to assert that they are not going to do what Stephen commands – only he explicitly denies Stephen’s authority, and so probably he was the only one who thought it?”
Because that seems a little unfair to me as a standard. “Sure, here’s a guy condemning the papacy in the strongest and most explicit terms, but where’s a second guy saying the same thing at the same time?”
Notice, Firmilian says St. Peter had that authority. He says St. Stephen doesn’t wield that authority, not because the office doesn’t have such authority, but because he felt St. Stephen was teaching error, which made him not a true successor of St. Peter.
I’m afraid I’d have to ask you to show me where he says all that.
You keep bringing up people that prove the Catholic’s argument. What does Tertullian say in a nutshell? He says I know that you (Callixtus) are going to appeal to the fact that you sit on the chair of Peter, and that as such you have authority over the whole Church.
It would seem that your argument rests on Tertullian predicting this claim prior to Callixtus making it. Can you show me where that happens?
Hi Irked,
Yes. For he also says this in that same letter: But for greater exactness I add this also, writing of necessity; that there are other books besides these not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness. The Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, and Esther, and Judith, and Tobit, and that which is called the Teaching of the Apostles, and the Shepherd. But the former, my brethren, are included in the Canon, the latter being [merely] read… Athanasius the Great: Part of Festal Letter 39 (c. 367 A.D.)[2] Notice, that he says those books that you reject, are handed down by the Fathers for instruction in the word of godliness. If only the canon that St. Athanasius lists is Scripture, why the necessity by the Fathers to read these books that are uninspired? Here is the kicker. To this day, Revelation is not considered canonical in most Eastern Orthodox Churches, and not read in their Divine Liturgies. But it is considered inspired Scripture. And where was St. Athanasius from? The East. And we know he quotes from them as Scripture. What did St. Paul say about all Scripture?
No not at all. What we do not agree to is when you said :
We ground our claims to authority on the fact that Jesus Christ gave His Church that authority.
This one I find strange. St. Jerome said that when he gave arguments against the Deuterocanonicals, he was saying what the Jews of his day would argue, not what he himself thought about those seven books.
In Saint Jerome’s prologue on the book of Judith, he states that the First Council of Nicea recognized the book of Judith as canonical.
St. Jerome quotes from the Deuterocanon as inspired Scripture about fifty-five times.
St. Gregory the Great is the same as with St. Athanasius. When he gives the list of canonical books, that exclude the Deuterocanonicals, it is from before he was pope and when he was in Constantinople. In his writings he flat out calls Wisdom, Sirach, Tobit, etc…as Scripture, numerous times. Don’t you find it strange, that after he became Pope he never once said to the Latin Church, that did hold those books as canonical, that they are wrong? After all, he was relegated the care of their souls.
Nope. His letter doesn’t say St. Stephen should advise the bishops to depose Marcianus. His letter advises St. Stephen to tell the bishops to depose Marcianus. And when he talks about St. Stephen re-instating Basilides and Martialis against the wishes of the Spanish bishops, he says St. Stephen was deceived, not that St. Stephen did not have the power. In his letters he also talks about Novatian usurping the power to dethrone bishops. You can only usurp something, if that something in fact exists.
Yet everyone of those bishops took the time to write on the record as saying the pope was wrong about baptisms by heretics. Yet not one of them goes on the record saying the pope does not have the authority to do what he was trying to do. And they all ended up obeying what St. Stephen had commanded.
You yourself wrote that Firmilian said St. Stephen “pretends” to the authority of St. Peter. What authority is Firmilian talking about? In his writings, Firmilian never says the authority does not exist. Very odd. All he does is deny St. Stephen’s credentials, when he says St. Stephen’s edict shows him to not be the true successor of St. Peter.
Here is what the historian Michael Winter has to say: “Firmilian’s protest amounts almost to the classical conditions for the argument from silence. Despite his anger there is no formal denial of Stephen’s competence to excommunicate other bishops. Everything would seem to provoke such a denial if it had been possible. Instead he can say no more than that when Stephen has excommunicated everyone he will have severed himself from the whole of the church.
Duane,
Notice, that he says those books that you reject, are handed down by the Fathers for instruction in the word of godliness. If only the canon that St. Athanasius lists is Scripture, why the necessity by the Fathers to read these books that are uninspired?
For the same reason my church requires people to read the materials for our membership classes: even uninspired commentary can be valuable and, indeed, precious, particularly for the new believer. Gregory is explicit about this: the books are not to be read as authoritative, but as edifying. There’s not a lot of room for speculation there.
I do not see how you are reading claims that these are the divinely inspired books, and the only books in which is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness, and making that equivalent to “the books read in Mass.” Can you explain what Jerome means by these words?
This one I find strange. St. Jerome said that when he gave arguments against the Deuterocanonicals, he was saying what the Jews of his day would argue, not what he himself thought about those seven books.
Yes, in Against Rufinus Jerome notes that his commentary on Daniel echoes critiques of “fables” long made by the Jews. I’m not sure what that has to do with his commentary on Wisdom of Solomon: “As, then, the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees, but does not admit them among the canonical Scriptures, so let it also read these two Volumes (Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus) for the edification of the people, not to give authority to doctrines of the Church.” Unlike his commentary on Daniel, there’s no “The Jews say…” there.
St. Jerome quotes from the Deuterocanon as inspired Scripture
You’ve repeatedly introduced the word “inspired” into the claims you make about these folks. To my knowledge, there’s only one place so far where explicit claims of inspiration have been made: they’re in Athanasius’s comments on the canon, as distinct from his comments on the noncanonical books. In point of fact, Jerome and Gregory use the word Scripture, i.e., Writings, without generally claiming inspiration. Is it conceivable they’re not using the word as you or I would, particularly given both of their explicit statements that these books should not be used to determine doctrine?
I mean, are there Scriptures (as you would use the term) that you don’t think should determine doctrine?
Don’t you find it strange, that after he became Pope he never once said to the Latin Church, that did hold those books as canonical, that they are wrong?
I do find it strange that it’s claimed that the Latin church held these books as canonical, in the immediate context of a major Latin bishop rejecting them as canonical. I find it particularly strange given that, just a few posts ago, I was told that the church had not yet defined a canon and people were free to believe what they wanted about it.
Nope. His letter doesn’t say St. Stephen should advise the bishops to depose Marcianus. His letter advises St. Stephen to tell the bishops to depose Marcianus.
Of these two verbs, “advise” is the only one Cyprian attributes to the two of them in this letter.
Yet everyone of those bishops took the time to write on the record as saying the pope was wrong about baptisms by heretics. Yet not one of them goes on the record saying the pope does not have the authority to do what he was trying to do.
Again, I think it’s more than a little unfair to say, “Not one of them goes on record, except the guy who led the council. But disregarding him!”
You yourself wrote that Firmilian said St. Stephen “pretends” to the authority of St. Peter. What authority is Firmilian talking about?
Evidently, the authority of Peter. You made the positive claim that he believes people other than Peter held that authority. Where does Firmilian say this?
Derp, and obviously by “Can you explain what Jerome means…” I mean Athanasius.
Hi Irked,
Here is the problem you face. St. Paul says this:
Now, St. Athanasius, St. Jerome, and St. Gregory the Great, quote from some, or all of those disputed writings and call them Scripture. The ECF’s only say “it is written” when referring to the Scriptures. Yet St. Gregory and St. Jerome use “it is written,” or “the Scriptures say” numerous times when quoting from the deuterocanon. Knowing what St. Paul says about all Scripture, you expect me to believe that somehow these great Catholics are using them in a way that somehow means that they really do not consider them Scripture. Do you also have some swampland in Florida to sell me? By the way, St. Jerome explicitly uses them to prove doctrine.
Furthermore, according to St. Jerome, the first Council of Nicaea recognized Judith as canonical. Is St. Athanasius, who was at that council, rejecting what that council believed? Or is it much more likely that what Protestants understand about what an Eastern Father states is canonical is not what Protestants mean by canonical?
You know full well that Pope St. Damasus 200 years before Pope St. Gregory had listed the books which were canonical. You also know full well that his listing was made after St. Athanasius walked the Earth, which was the context of when the comment of an undefined canon was made.
Wrong. His letter tells St. Stephen to tell the bishops not to “suffer” Marcian anymore. It means tell them not to put up with Marcian anymore, or to depose him.
You have another problem though, in the case of Basildes every article I’ve read says St. Stephen lifted his excommunication, which according to your understanding of St. Cyprian, St. Stephen did not have the power to do. Yet when the Spanish bishops complain to St. Cyprian, he does not say what anyone who did not believe St. Stephen had the power to do would say, namely that St. Stephen does not have such power. Yet the only argument St. Cyprian can give is to tell the Spanish bishops that St. Stephen was deceived. But being deceived would not matter if St. Stephen did not have the power to lift the excommunication. But we know he did. And we also know that all those bishops who complained about non re-baptism, ended up doing what St. Stephen told them to do.
What is his argument with St. Stephen? It’s that St. Stephen, in claiming his authority comes from St. Peter, has introduced heretical teaching not handed down by the Apostles. Notice, Firmilian never says that the authority St. Stephen is claiming does not exist. His argument is solely that St. Stephen’s non re-baptism of heretics is wrong. Again, the obvious position to take if you did not believe that St. Stephen does not have that authority, is to say that it does not exist, or only existed with St. Peter. He admitted the authority existed with St. Peter. If he says it was not handed down, that calls into question if the authority he himself possesses was truly handed down.
Dear Duane
Protestants always quote Early Catholic Fathers and claim they are really Protestant
Arguing with them is literally a waste of time
Would a New York Yankees fan even bother to argue with a Boston Red Sox fan who claimed Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle were Red Sox players.
If you did enter into that absurd discussion you’d find the claimant arguing about baseballs and gloves and bats and stadiums etc
The claims are absurd and while one doesn’t have to laugh at the person making the claim, it doesn’t hurt
Duane,
Regarding St. Cyprian’s quote, it should also be noticed that the Seventh Council of Carthage is not considered Ecumenical, as these third-century assemblies in Carthage were mostly local synods, attended by bishops in northern Africa: “Having Therefore Summoned Eighty-Seven Bishops from Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania, Who Assembled at Carthage in the Kalends of September, A.D. 258…”. Therefore, the famous quote often used by Protestants as proof of alleged outrage towards the Papacy could be read as an unintended reminder to these local bishops not to set themselves up against the throne of Peter.
Furthermore, no schism with Rome came as a result of these Councils, and the issues left unresolved were finally addressed in Nicaea (ecumenically).
As a side remark, it is interesting to note that one raison d’être of these Councils was the condemnation of something that is common practice in Evangelical churches, i.e. the re-baptism of those who had already been baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity.
Anyhow, thank you as usual for your spot-on remarks. I always learn a lot from them (and Irked’s as well, although in a different way).
Hi LLC,
I certainly wouldn’t claim it was an ecumenical council; that would be impossible, since the Catholic definition of “ecumenical council” requires it to be nominated by the pope. Virtually by definition, any council denying special authority to the bishop of Rome cannot be “ecumenical” in that sense.
But Joe gave a pretty specific challenge. He said:
“Likely, if someone came around and tried to set up the papacy, a lot of other bishops and Church leaders would be outraged, so this would be an extremely-well documented event. But since we don’t see evidence of it, there’s a good negative claim that such a post-apostolic creation never existed.”
Well, here are eighty-seven bishops. They’re outraged enough to repudiate not just Stephen’s particular policy, but his claims to authority in general. We have documentation of their remarks, as well as their personal correspondence (such as Firmillian’s letter to Cyprian).
Where do I fall short of Joe’s standard?
(Isn’t it remarkable that no outright schism took place here? Wouldn’t we expect these men to be excommunicated, or at least removed from their positions, if this is just a matter of local men setting themselves up against the papacy? Why aren’t they?)
Irked,
“…requires it to be nominated by the pope” = I believe (but I could be mistaken) that the Pope has to approve the work of the Council, not to nominate (I assume you mean convene) it, but I see your point. Nevertheless, the Councils of Carthage did not “deny” irrevocably the special authority of the Pope per se; they made their opinions and reservations about Pope Stephen’s policy known. Which, incidentally, is what Bishops do regularly at Councils and Synods, before submitting to the final ecumenical resolutions.
The (in)famous quote of St. Cyprian is followed by “But let us all wait for the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only one that has the power both of preferring us in the government of His Church, and of judging us in our conduct there”, and so they did (waiting, I mean). The main issue at hand was finally resolved, ecumenically, at Nicaea. God and the Church work at a different pace than our modern addiction to immediacy has us trained to expect.
Regarding Joe’s specific challenge, as mush as Carthage showed that some Bishops disagreed with the then Pope and his policies, it also shows that they didn’t leave the Church because of the disagreement. Which takes me to your last point. They were not excommunicated, nor removed, because there was no need for it. As said, the matter at hand was resolved ecumenically, and (as far as I know) no local Church left Rome because of it, before or after Nicaea.
LLC,
Nevertheless, the Councils of Carthage did not “deny” irrevocably the special authority of the Pope per se; they made their opinions and reservations about Pope Stephen’s policy known.
I’m not sure I understand the distinction you’re drawing here. They said no bishop, Stephen included, had authority over the rest, correct?
The (in)famous quote of St. Cyprian is followed by “But let us all wait for the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only one that has the power both of preferring us in the government of His Church, and of judging us in our conduct there
Yes, I quoted that. It continues the preceding thought: to Cyprian, only Christ is over the bishops in government of the church.
Regarding Joe’s specific challenge, as mush as Carthage showed that some Bishops disagreed with the then Pope and his policies, it also shows that they didn’t leave the Church because of the disagreement.
Why would they? They could speak with authority within the church; indeed, they did.
Does the council meet Joe’s criteria, or not? As Jordan said above, “What I think we need to avoid as Protestants and Catholics (and I think you agree with me) is an approach that constantly moves the line on the amount or quality of evidence that we demand from our interlocutor.”
They were not excommunicated, nor removed, because there was no need for it.
Are you saying there was not a need for the Shepherd of Shepherds to remove bishops who are opposing the rightful hierarchy established by God? Is church discipline only to be practiced when pragmatically useful?
Irked,
“They said no bishop, Stephen included, had authority over the rest, correct?” = no; what St. Cyprian says is that no Bishop should set himself up. The Pope (so, Stephen included) does not “set himself up”; it is chosen among Bishops. St. Cyprian warns against self-appointment supremacy (a dictatorship, in other words).
Also, it is interesting to note that the Council is allegedly open to all opinions: “It remains, that upon this same matter each of us should bring forward what we think, judging no man, nor rejecting any one from the right of communion, if he should think differently from us”. Therefore, it makes only sense that they would allow for other opinions to be heard, and to make concession for other opinions to be expressed outside of the Council. If I am not mistaken, Cyprian had sent a report to Stephen from a previous Council, saying that no binding rule had been promulgated. And yet, they seem to pass judgment on Stephen’s decision.
“only Christ is over the bishops in government of the church” = and, in his absence, Peter and his descendants.
“Why would they? They could speak with authority within the church; indeed, they did” = why did they have a Council? In other words, if (as you seem to imply) Cyprian believed that each Bishop could do as he deemed appropriate, why listening to other opinions? Had the Council decided against Bishop A’ position, would he then had to agree with the Council or not? And so, then, back to square one: why having a Council? And not just this specific one, but all others, starting with Jerusalem’s?
“Does the council meet Joe’s criteria, or not?” = this is for Joe to say. I would’ve phrased his criteria differently. But, since you ask me, I’d say that the Seventh Council of Carthage shows that Bishops were (and are) very vocal in showing their disagreement with the Pope and among themselves, yes, but such disagreements did not lead to a schism, and the matter were settled at Nicaea, ecumenically, so, it’s a tie.
“Are you saying there was not a need for the Shepherd of Shepherds to remove bishops who are opposing the rightful hierarchy established by God?” = sarcasm aside, as already said, no Bishop, following the Council of Carthage, left Rome, and the matter was officially settled later, so no drastic measures were necessary, so, no, there was no need.
LLC,
no; what St. Cyprian says is that no Bishop should set himself up. The Pope (so, Stephen included) does not “set himself up”; it is chosen among Bishops. St. Cyprian warns against self-appointment supremacy (a dictatorship, in other words).
That’s not a sustainable interpretation. Even Duane and I seem agree that at this point, Cyprian rejects the supremacy of the papacy. “[E]very bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another,” says Cyprian. Is the pope a bishop, or not? Can he judge other bishops, or not?
“only Christ is over the bishops in government of the church” = and, in his absence, Peter and his descendants.
Is that what Cyprian says here, or does he say Christ is the only one in this position?
“Why would they? They could speak with authority within the church; indeed, they did” = why did they have a Council? In other words, if (as you seem to imply) Cyprian believed that each Bishop could do as he deemed appropriate, why listening to other opinions?
Do you see a difference between “We have power over you” and “We’re telling you that this is a bad idea and we’re not going along with it?”
“Does the council meet Joe’s criteria, or not?” = this is for Joe to say.
Yes, precisely. I’d appreciate it if other folks would stop saying, “Well, who cares?” to my response to him.
so, no, there was no need.
Okay. I would not have said we restrict church discipline to cases where people leave the church; I didn’t think that was Catholic doctrine, either.
Irked,
“That’s not a sustainable interpretation” = since this is what Cyprian wrote, since the Council of Carthage was limited to the North African Bishops, and since Cyprian elsewhere supports the Pope’s primacy, it is as a sustainable interpretation as yours. Was Cyprian speaking for all Bishops of Christendom? As for Duane, I do not presume to speak for him.
“Is that what Cyprian says here, or does he say Christ is the only one in this position?” = was Christ alive at the time of the Seventh Council of Carthage?
“Do you see a difference between “We have power over you” and “We’re telling you that this is a bad idea and we’re not going along with it?” = you didn’t apparently understand my point, which is this: why is a “we” necessary? In other words, according to you, Cyprian doesn’t need his neighboring Bishop’s opinion on this matter. And yet, he assembles a (many, actually) Council, and tells the Pope of their decision (not binding, it seems). Not even his own; theirs. Had they decided against him, what then? Furthermore, why informing the Pope? And finally, why even worrying about the Pope’s disagreement to the point of calling another Council?
“Yes, precisely. I’d appreciate it if other folks would stop saying, “Well, who cares?” to my response to him” = care to explain? My original post was directed to Duane.
“I would not have said we restrict church discipline to cases where people leave the church” = I don’t think I understand you here, neither. All I said is that what you seem to consider final and irrevocable was nothing of the sort. The disagreement between the Pope and the North African Bishops was simply that, a disagreement, and was going to be solved ecumenically, so no need for disciplinary actions.
LLC,
since this is what Cyprian wrote, since the Council of Carthage was limited to the North African Bishops, and since Cyprian elsewhere supports the Pope’s primacy, it is as a sustainable interpretation as yours.
Then it should be straightforward to find a scholar of note who holds it. Here, for instance, is major church historian Philip Schaff sharing my reading. Who ya got?
was Christ alive at the time of the Seventh Council of Carthage?
Yes! That’s the very foundation of our faith!
you didn’t apparently understand my point
No, I did. My answer stands.
The disagreement between the Pope and the North African Bishops was simply that, a disagreement, and was going to be solved ecumenically, so no need for disciplinary actions.
Stephen called Cyprian “a false Christ and a false apostle, and a deceitful worker.” Are you saying that the pope doesn’t need to discipline bishops who are also false Christs?
Irked,
“Then it should be straightforward to find a scholar of note who holds it” = are you denying (or can you find anyone who does) that Carthage was a regional Council, limited to North African Bishops, and that Cyprian elsewhere supports the Pope’s primacy? Incidentally, can you show where Philip Schaff disagrees?
“Yes! That’s the very foundation of our faith!” = for once, we agree. The Holy Spirit, who is alive, selects the Pope as Vicar of Christ, as Cyprian knew very well.
“No, I did. My answer stands” = you provided no answer at all.
Before burning the 1520 Papal bull Exsurge Domine that contained his condemnation, Luther was a devout Roman Catholic and highly esteemed the Pope (L. DeChirico). Human opinions change. The fact remains that no disciplinary measure was needed.
Are you denying (or can you find anyone who does) that the issue at hand at the Seventh Council of Carthage was ecumenically settled in Nicaea, and despite the fact that it was not what the African Bishops had lobbied for, no African Bishop left the Church?
Irked,
“Then it should be straightforward to find a scholar of note who holds it” = are you denying (or can you find anyone who does) that Carthage was a regional Council, limited to North African Bishops,
No.
and that Cyprian elsewhere supports the Pope’s primacy?
Yes.
Incidentally, can you show where Philip Schaff disagrees?
Footnote 4675, on the passage in question: “Of course this implies a rebuke to the assumption of Stephen, [“their brother,” and forcibly contrasts the spirit of Cyprian with that of his intolerant compeer].” Other footnotes apply as well. See also Schaff here:
“[His view] embodies no hierarchical assumption, no “lordship over God’s heritage,” but is conceived in the spirit of St. Peter when he disclaimed all this, and said, “The presbyters who are among you I exhort, who am also a presbyter.” Cyprian was indeed a strenuous asserter of the responsibilities of his office; but he built upon that system universally recognised by the Great Councils, which the popes and their adherents have ever laboured to destroy. Nothing can be more delusive than the idea that the mediæval system derives any support from Cyprian’s theory of the episcopate or of Church organization. His was the system of the universal parity and community of bishops. In his scheme the apostolate was perpetuated in the episcopate, and the presbyterate was an apostolic institution, by which others were associated with bishops in all their functions as co-presbyters, but not in those reserved to the presidency of the churches. Feudal ideas imposed a very different system upon the simple framework of original Catholicity. But a careful study of that primitive framework, and of the history of papal development, makes evident the following propositions:—
1. That Cyprian’s maxim, Ecclesia in Episcopo, whatever else he may have meant by it, is an aphoristic statement of the Nicene Constitutions. These were embedded in the Ignatian theory of an episcopate without a trace of a papacy; and Cyprian’s maxims had to be practically destroyed in the West before it was possible to raise the portentous figure of a supreme pontiff, and to subject the Latin churches to the entirely novel principle of Ecclesia in Papa. To this novelty Cyprian’s system is essentially antagonistic.”
He continues in that vein for quite a while, but the earlier footnote is most explicit as to where Cyprian expresses his antagonism to the papal system.
Do you have any scholar of note who shares your reading, or not?
for once, we agree. The Holy Spirit, who is alive, selects the Pope as Vicar of Christ, as Cyprian knew very well.
Facts not in evidence. You said that, when Cyprian says “Christ alone” in the council, he actually means “Christ and the pope.” You’ve given no support for this claim.
The fact remains that no disciplinary measure was needed.
“The pope does not need to discipline bishops he believes to be false Christs” does not seem consonant with belief in the papacy.
Are you denying (or can you find anyone who does) that the issue at hand at the Seventh Council of Carthage was ecumenically settled in Nicaea
No, I haven’t denied anything of that form. It’s irrelevant to my argument.
Irked,
So, you deny that elsewhere Cyprian supports the Pope’s primacy? In this case, we have no basis to continue this discussion.
“You said that, when Cyprian says “Christ alone” in the council, he actually means “Christ and the pope.” = in my note to Duane, I say that “it seems that”, ergo it’s my impression, derived by the fact that elsewhere Cyprian supports the Pope’s primacy (which you deny).
“No, I haven’t denied anything of that form. It’s irrelevant to my argument” = but it is very much relevant to mine.
Now, it seems that we are going around the same points. Therefore, I bid you farewell, until next time.
LLC,
So, you deny that elsewhere Cyprian supports the Pope’s primacy?
Yes.
Now, it seems that we are going around the same points.
I agree. I don’t see any way to move forward without answering the question of whether your reading is unique to you, and you’ve several times declined to do so. That seems like a good stopping point.
Hi LLC,
Sorry I didn’t reply earlier.
As I’ve read and reread this council, I almost come to your view on this. St. Cyprian knows that the Church has been dealing with the Novatian schism, and it’s effects. He could almost easily be read as reassuring Pope St. Stephen that they are not setting up a rival Church in N. Africa. The one drawback is his tyranny statement, which I think is obviously aimed at St. Stephen. It is funny though, that St. Cyprian knows whence St. Stephen’s claim to authority came from, yet St. Cyprian never says that Jesus never gave that authority to the Bishops of Rome. That would be the expected response of any bishop who did not believe Jesus gave that authority. Yet St. Cyprian is silent to this point. He just makes the absurd claim that know bishop can judge another.
Ummmm, that should be no, not know. I will not blame my phone, as I normally do for this spelling error.😉
Duane,
I don’t know if this was intentional from Cyprian (who perhaps had understood that he had started a dissenting movement without fully understand the consequences) or providential by the Holy Spirit, but it seems that Cyprian went to a considerable length to make clear that the function of the Seventh Council of Carthage was nothing more than that, a local group of Bishops reaching a common point about a specific topic, and not even a final one (“But let us all wait for the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ” or of His Vicar, the Pope).
I think Protestants must ignore these limitations in order for their claim to have any foundation. And yet Cyprian’s words are there for everyone to read.
I always appreciate your insights and Biblical knowledge. And I still blame my phone regularly…
(“But let us all wait for the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ” or of His Vicar, the Pope)… I think Protestants must ignore these limitations
I do have a tendency to ignore words that were never said, yes.
That is an amazing reading.
Irked,
“I do have a tendency to ignore words that were never said, yes” = interesting remark; I wonder how that applies to your reading of, for example, Luke 8.
Furthermore, I notice how even you can’t ignore the first part of my point, i.e. that Carthage was a regional Council.
Yes. I read Luke 8 in continuum with other passages describing the same event. I don’t think that’s equivalent to holding a position that (as far as you’ve presented) is utterly unknown among scholars of this passage, and which requires misquoting Cyprian as its primary defense.
There is no part of my argument that cares whether the council was regional or not.
Irked,
as long as you believe it…
As for the limited extent of Carthage, this is my original point to Duane. I understand that you do not care about it (since you can’t deny it), but I do.
Dear Duane Quoting Msgr Joseph Fenton:
Elsewhere in his writings St Cyprian speaks of “ one Church and one Cathedra, founded upon Peter by the voice of the Lord ( Ep63)
He describes “ one Church, founded upon Peter in origin and unity” (Ep 70)
And, in the famous passage of the 59th Epistle, he speaks of “ the cathedra of Peter and the ecclesia principalis, whence the sacerdotal unity derives it’s origin.”
Fr Fenton goes on to observe that “ St Cyprian’s theology is not completely perfected and developed…”
And that is why those outside the Kingdom of God (such as prots) cite him in an attempt to convince the naive as to the putative soundness of their claims
But, of course, that is a silly attempt as even most prots now accept that Matt 16:18 refers to Peter alone
You will never read those outside the Kingdom of God quoting St Opatus of Milevis, for instance, for, as Fr Fenton notes: “ it remained for St Optatus to gather together the elements found in a comparatively undeveloped stage in the writings of Saints Ireneaus and Cyprian and to formulate a much more complete theology of The Apostolic See.
Those outside the Kingdom of God frequently claim they desire to use the earliest sources to get at the “truth” about the Church but they never do get around to the real source of truth, Jesus Chris “
It was He who personally selected the original members of His Catholic Church and prepared those among the chosen to be the members of the Hierachy He selected ( Pope and Apostles) and the time He spent with them was effectively an intense seminary experience at was to them alone that He made His promises and it was to them alone that He sent The Holy Ghost upon them to teach all truth and it was His Catholic Church to which He alone said He would be with it for.all time
And it is in The Catholic Church alone where He lives until He comes again
As I noted below, we know what Cyprian thinks about the authority of Peter: it’s inherited by the bishops as a whole, and from the bishops as a whole the church draws its unity. He’s unambiguous on this point, in the full context.
So, yes, absolutely, he thought the church was founded upon Peter.
Joe,
Is there any chance we could get a “sandbox,” so we can see how our writings will appear, before we post?
Duane,
I usually compose my responses in MS Word, and then paste them in the Comment window. And still make mistakes…
Proof of the existence of God, ends with the conclusion, “Therefore, there must exist a being, beyond human experience, whose essence and existence are identical.” To this is added the comment, “This all men speak of as God”. Because the conclusion incorporates the first definition of the word, God, within the argument itself, the burden of proof of the existence of God is on the theist, who ‘becomes’ a theist upon reaching the conclusion of the argument. The logic of the argument begins without a definition for the word, God. It is only by means of the argument that “a being whose essence and existence are identical” can be understood to have any meaning beyond grammatical construction.
For logic to have any traction, there has to be agreement on some self evident truth. To deny existence is to deny one’s self with the ability to ask such questions. Once the reality of existence is agreed upon, we can explore its nature, which brings us to the conclusion that there is an essential existence that is the basis for all existence and that theists call “God”.
The Donatists falsely appealed to St Cyprian in trying to argue that the Catholic Church was not worthy of its claim of Catholicity with its four marks and Hierarchy etc
Protestants have just resurfaced many of the arguments of The Donatists as they ape The Donatists and the theologians first recruited to correct the false claims of Protestantism ( men like John Driedo in the 1520s) referred back to St Augustine’s arguments against The Donatists
Arguments like the Church in Jerusalem was to spread throughout the world teaching Luke 24:46-47 and Acts 1: 7-8
Denying that truth is denying Jesus Christ and His commands
This is His Catholic Church He established and sent to teach the whole world
There has never been anything Protestant about it and Jesus Christ lives in His Catholic Church and no other
St Cyprian on the Catholic Church and primacy of Peter:
He (our Lord) builds the Church upon that one (peter) and He entrusts to him the sheep must be fed. And, although He gave like power (parents potentates) to all the apostles, He nevertheless established one cathedra and, by His own authority, He disposed the origin and nature of the unity. Certainly, the rest of the Apostles were what Peter was, but the primatus is given to Peter and there is shown to be one Church and one cathedra.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Many Protestants copy and paste partial quotes from Protestant polemicists claiming that what Catholic saints wrote is what Protestants believe
When it comes to The Apostolic See and The Apostolic College there Is not one – not one- Protestant communion that was created
/established by an Apostle
That is a simple matter of fact as is the fact that every Protestant communion exists in opposition to Jesus Christ and His one true Church in which He lives and dwells
St Cyprian on the Catholic Church and primacy of Peter:
He (our Lord) builds the Church upon that one (peter) and He entrusts to him the sheep must be fed.
Yes, and in his 33rd epistle, Cyprian explicitly states who inherits that position: “Our Lord whose precepts and warnings we ought to observe, determining the honour of a Bishop and the ordering of His own Church, speaks in the Gospel and says to Peter, I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Thence the ordination of Bishops, and the ordering of the Church, runs down along the course of time and line of succession, so that the Church is settled upon her Bishops; and every act of the Church is regulated by these same Prelates,” emphasis mine.
As with the majority of the early fathers, Cyprian does not attribute Matthew 16 to the bishops of Rome alone.
Defending the Bride
is a website that has an excellent collection of what The Catholic Church teaches about Church authority
Clicking on the “ Authority” link leads one to an explanation of the primacy of Peter and an explanation of the keys
The keys were given only to Peter as is perfectly plain in the words of Jesus
It both a silly and dishonest attempt to cite Cyprian on these points as though his personal
Opinions are dispositive
The Church has never cited him on his personal views about authority in any Magisterial teaching ever
Those who refuse to become members of The Kingdom of God – outside of which there is no salvation- continually amaze me
They argue furiously against what is taught by the Church which Jesus established and said of it Who hears you heard me but they are unable ever to cite where it is they derive one scintilla of authority
Can any prote cite Jesus as giving them authority to teach anything?
No
Does that truth ever get through to them?
No
C’mon, man. You can’t have this both ways. You appealed to what Cyprian says about the authority of Peter; you can’t then say, “Well, but that’s just his personal opinion, and it doesn’t really matter.”
The Church has never cited him on his personal views about authority in any Magisterial teaching ever
If I may indulge in sarcasm for a moment, I’m sure it’s easier to argue for that whole “constant faith of the universal church” thing if you don’t quote the fathers who disagree with you.
Dear irked
I follow the teaching of the New Testament that teaches we must mark out heretics and avoid them after a few tries at correction
It should be noted that your idea of constant faith is silly in that you think members of His Kingdom never disagreed about doctrine – what were ecumenical councils for if not to settle arguments or condemn errors
The pony being that not every thing written by a church father is dispositive but only those words approved and promoted by the church
Adios
Just posted was FrRylands correction of your claim but that will not effect
The pony being that not every thing written by a church father is dispositive but only those words approved and promoted by the church
Remarkable standard, isn’t it? “Our faith is supported and confirmed by tradition, where by ‘tradition’ we mean not the earliest teachings of the church, nor the majority opinion of the fathers, nor anything else but precisely the bits we define as such.”
Cyprian doesn’t think the bishop of Rome is authoritative? He has eighty-odd bishops join him in rejecting Stephen’s teaching? He explicitly denies that the bishop of Rome alone holds the authority of Peter? Others join him in explicitly denying that the bishop of Rome carries this authority?
Never mind. Never mind the original topic of this post, or Joe’s remarks above that this is exactly what we would expect to see if the papacy was a later invention. It’s not defined as part of tradition, and so it doesn’t count.
To return to Joe’s original topic, that’s the fundamental problem with these debates: they aren’t ultimately about the evidence.
Hi Irked,
The problem is, you show us one father of the Church, we show you many more. I show you where that one father quite clearly changed his postion. You say 87 bishops disagreed with the pope’s edict, proving your point. Yet we show you where they were actually silent on the point in question, which is odd, considering they had no problem condemning the teaching. And in the end they all ended up doing what that pope had commanded, proving the point in our favor. So who in reality really ignores the evidence?
Will the real St. Cyprian please stand?
by Fr Ray Ryland of Catholic Answers has a good piece about why he is appealed to by the Orthodox and Protestants
It is funny how these attacks against Peter always fizzle out but it is sad these attacks later surface in those who deny the words of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, who lived in His Catholic Church
DOCTRINE
Definition
Any truth taught by the Church as necessary for acceptance by the faithful. The truth may be either formally revealed (as the Real Presence), or a theological conclusion (as the canonization of a saint), or part of the natural law (as the sinfulness of contraception). In any case, what makes it doctrine is that the Church authority teaches that it is to be believed. this teaching may be done either solemnly in ex cathedra pronouncements or ordinarily in the perennial exercise of the Church’s magisterium or teaching authority. Dogmas are those doctrines which the Church proposes for belief as formally revealed by God. (Etym. Latin doctrina, teaching.)
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxc
It is not at all surprising that men come here to argue against Christian Doctrine completely ignorant about what the definition of doctrine is
They think if they can find one statement against Christian Doctrine made by a Church Father then that renders that Christian Doctrine nugatort and, thus, that Christian Doctrine is not binding
That is such a childish idea about Doctrine but that is the approach practiced by Protestants all of the time
I don’t know how it is they justify in their minds that approach – arguing against what they do not understand – but that is beside the point of their arguing
Their point is to deny the authority of the Catholic Church to teach because their progenitors inculcated in them the idea that each man is his own authority when it comes to Christian Doctrine
If you ask them where Jesus Christ gave them authority they have no answer
And that makes sense because if Jesus Christ gave each Protestant man authority the Protestant man could not then reasonably deny He gave authority to every Christian man also
Even a Protestant man should be able to see how absurd such an idea is
Jesus Christ gave His Catholic Church authority which is why ( just one of many possible quotes) He described His Catholic Church as the pillar and ground of truth
The teachings of Jesus Christ must he accepted with humility – as though one were a child
Easily available for free is an entry about The Early Church Fathers in The Catholic Encyclopedia online
On it one reads that they were fallible
For some reason this is news to Most Protestants
C’est la vie
It’s a lot easier to make fun of things I haven’t claimed than it is to address the ones I actually have, isn’t it?
If I don’t point out fathers who disagree with the modern Catholic Church, I get told that Protestants have no respect for church history and just invent their own doctrines apart from the constant witness of the fathers. If I do point out fathers who disagree with the modern Catholic Church, I get told I’m cherry-picking. If I point out cases where anywhere from dozens to the majority of the fathers disagree with the modern Catholic Church, I get told…
… well, I get told that tradition is whatever the modern Catholic Church says it is, and ridiculed for thinking the fathers were infallible(?).
In one sense, I’m appreciative, because I think this is a better falsification of Joe’s thesis above than I could have provided on my own. The fundamental claim of the original post is that Protestants play fast and loose with evidence, engaging in logical fallacies that unfairly put the burden of proof on the other side. I still don’t understand whether Joe is rejecting inductive logic altogether, or if there’s something about this particular application of it that troubles him – but in this conversation, at least, one of us is actually presenting evidence regarding the historicity of modern positions, and one of us is saying, “We’re right because we say we are.”
For clarity, if there’s anyone still reading: the point is not, and has never been, that Cyprian establishes doctrine. Obviously I don’t believe that, because I’m a Protestant.
The point is, again, that Joe said:
“For Protestantism, much of what I just said applies as well. I don’t think it’s nearly as hard as you’re imagining to prove the Protestant claim, if it were true. You could just point to when in history the papacy (or fill-in-the-blank) was invented. Likely, if someone came around and tried to set up the papacy, a lot of other bishops and Church leaders would be outraged, so this would be an extremely-well documented event. But since we don’t see evidence of it, there’s a good negative claim that such a post-apostolic creation never existed… meaning that the papacy dates back to St. Peter and to Jesus.”
Well, here it is! I was given a concrete goal to shoot at – a specific set of circumstances to look for, that would refute the negative claim that the papacy was a later invention. And hey, look! Here’s a council and surrounding brouhaha that satisfies every particular of the claim: (1) it’s primarily bishops involved, (2) they’re clearly upset – read Firmilian, if Cyprian’s not obviously cheesed off enough!, and (3) it’s well documented; we have the proceedings of the council.
Nobody’s really disputed any of these points. Instead, we’ve got a discussion about how dumb Protestants are for appealing to the fathers.
You utterly failed to show the Catholic Church invented the Papacy and you ignored the responses proving you wrong.
The Papacy long predates Cyprian and the Papacy had exercised its universal jurisdiction prior to Cyprian
and those examples are well documented but you simply gainsay what priests like Fr Ray Ryland have explained about Saint Cyprian and you repeatedly claim you have proven your point when you clearly have not
You think you have authority to judge the Church when it is the case it is The Church which has the authority to judge you, and others, and to declare them anathema.
It was Jesus Christ who instituted The Papacy – name another example of God changing a man’s name if that name change was not consequential – and when He first spoke to Simon Jesus said He would name him Cephas/ Peter
Doesn’t that at least suggest He had in mind a role with unique responsibilities for Peter?
You ignore evidence that clearly defeats your intent to divide the Catholic Church from the early Church and so you are reduced to make bizarre claims that the early Church was neither Protestant or Catholic
The plain and simple truth is that Catholic have Churches and Protestants have buildings with the vast number of Protestants being lay men devoid of Apostolic Succession without Holy Orders or worship
Right worship requires sacrifice and that does not happen in Protestant buildings
This will sound hurtful no doubt but it is not written with that intent but someone must speak the truth to you in love
Protestants refuse to worship as Jesus taught the Christians to worship snd so your services are no more effective than what Mormons do- who also make claims to a priesthood and bishops etc
Now, the internet abound with blogs and sites which prove every Catholic claim with direct Biblical citations
and ABS has cited just a few of them on this thread but it does not good for those who have minds as closed as yours
ABS,
You utterly failed to show the Catholic Church invented the Papacy and you ignored the responses proving you wrong.
I had a concrete goal: to answer a specific, concrete challenge from Joe. I love specific, concrete challenges, because they allow us to actually get somewhere. You can say that was a bad challenge, but then your beef is with him, not with me.
No one’s yet shown that my answer fails to meet the challenge, nor do you present any evidence against it here. In which particular do I fail to meet Joe’s specific challenge?
The Papacy long predates Cyprian and the Papacy had exercised its universal jurisdiction prior to Cyprian
and those examples are well documented but you simply gainsay what priests like Fr Ray Ryland have explained about Saint Cyprian
I’ve argued Cyprian, in his own words; if you’ve got some counter-evidence, by all means present it – but I’m not going to go argue with some other argument you’ve not presented.
It was Jesus Christ who instituted The Papacy – name another example of God changing a man’s name if that name change was not consequential
Can a name change be consequential without establishing a papacy?
Doesn’t that at least suggest He had in mind a role with unique responsibilities for Peter?
Certainly he did, and Paul even tells us what it was: the apostle to the Jews.
I have disputed every one of these points, and showed where you are in error. Not only I, but LLC also. Just because you don’t accept our arguments, does not mean therefore nobody disputed your points.
Duane,
thanks. I was going to say basically the same, but I saw no reason to reopen a one-way discussion.
Incidentally, I wouldn’t say that Irked is in error. Joe did, in fact, phrase his challenge as he did. I would’ve phrased it differently. But the issue remains: what Irked considers an “extremely-well documented” example of outrage was, indeed, a local expression of disagreement. Most importantly, nothing at all came out of it. At all. No African Bishop, including Cyprian, left the Church because of it. No disciplinary measures were needed, from the Pope nor from the dissenting Bishops. After the issue was settled, ecumenically, contrary to their original opinion, the dissenting Bishops obeyed to the Church with no ulterior expression of dissent.
Here and elsewhere, what didn’t happen is as important as what did happen.
Hi Irked,
Just because there was an argument between bishops and the pope, in no way shows that the papacy did not exist. For you to prove Joe wrong, using the case of St. Cyprian as your test case, as you have tried to do, you would have to show where the bishop of Rome did not believe he had the authority to do what they are claiming to have the authority to do. All you have to do is show one bishop of Rome who says they did not have the authority that you say they don’t have. You failed with St. Cyprian, because St.Victor 50 years before St. Stephen, and St. Sixtus 100 years before St. Stephe, had already claimed the same authority that St. Stephen claimed.
What did Jesus intend when giving the keys to St. Peter? We know He is citing Is. 22. You want to disprove the Papacy? Show us Catholics that this is not what Jesus intended when giving St. Peter the keys, and changing his name. Quoting a church Father who is mad at a pope, 100 years after other popes had already used the authority that they were claiming, won’t cut it. Good luck.
Three Ways You Shouldn’t Treat the Church Fathers
Was the title of Shameless Popery post of 2012 and it it Mr Heschmeyer lists the third reason appealed to
by many prots who seek to divide rather than understand
This is very sad because God desires we be alive at this time because it is in this epoch that each of us will have the best opportunity to attain unto Salvation for God desires each of us be saved
But if those outside of His Kingdom on earth are more focused on division rather than a serious and sober effort to join His Kingdom on earth that that is to be lamented because we Catholics love them and desire their salvation – eternal happiness
We are created for Happiness and we Catholics desire that all men attain unto that eternal happiness and if those outside His Kingdom do not join it we do not rejoice in their refusal to join His Kingdom for if they do not join His Kingdom The Catholic Church will be held responsible in some way
Did this happen prior to Cyprian?
Pope Clement I
“Owing to the sudden and repeated calamities and misfortunes which have befallen us, we must acknowledge that we have been somewhat tardy in turning our attention to the matters in dispute among you, beloved; and especially that abominable and unholy sedition, alien and foreign to the elect of God, which a few rash and self-willed persons have inflamed to such madness that your venerable and illustrious name, worthy to be loved by all men, has been greatly defamed. . . . Accept our counsel and you will have nothing to regret. . . . If anyone disobey the things which have been said by him [God] through us [i.e., that you must reinstate your leaders], let them know that they will involve themselves in transgression and in no small danger. . . . You will afford us joy and gladness if being obedient to the things which we have written through the Holy Spirit, you will root out the wicked passion of jealousy”
(Letter to the Corinthians 1, 58–59, 63 [A.D. 80]).
Before…so much for the Church that was neither Protestant or Catholic inventing the Papacy
Sure did. The elders of Rome here exhibit a terrible authority given to all Christians: to repeat and apply the very words of God in Scripture, making their hearers accountable for their obedience to the truth revealed in them.
But I’d like to stay on Joe’s topic.
Duane,
We’ve got about four subpoints at this stage; mind if I just collect them all down here?
Now, St. Athanasius, St. Jerome, and St. Gregory the Great, quote from some, or all of those disputed writings and call them Scripture.
Is it your position that wherever “graphe/scriptura” appears in the Jewish or Christian writings of the time (the Septuagint, the writings of the ECF, etc.) that it only means divinely-inspired texts?
Knowing what St. Paul says about all Scripture, you expect me to believe that somehow these great Catholics are using them in a way that somehow means that they really do not consider them Scripture.
I expect you to believe that those men mean what they say, when they explicitly say that some books are divinely inspired, and other books are not; and that some books may be used as the foundation for doctrine, and other books may be read only for edification – and that when they make ambiguous references to books, we evaluate their meaning in light of their explicit statements. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable standard.
I have asked, and have not yet heard it answered, how one may understand a division that says “these are the books God inspired: [a list],” or “these are the books that are read for doctrine rather than just edification: [a list],” as equivalent to, “these are the books we read in Mass.”
You know full well that Pope St. Damasus 200 years before Pope St. Gregory had listed the books which were canonical.
I’m aware of Damasus, but there’s quite a difference between “listed” and “defined.” Are you arguing that he spoke ex cathedra? Or are you arguing that the Council of Rome was ecumenical, rather than a (in this thread) much-maligned local council making fallible decisions that were not binding on the conscience of the Christian? Or what?
Of these two verbs, “advise” is the only one Cyprian attributes to the two of them in this letter.
Wrong.
Factually not. You said that, according to Cyprian, Stephen should tell rather than advise the bishops what to do. In fact, “tell” does not appear here; Cyprian never says to tell them anything. He does, however, say that the business of the bishops, including himself and Cyprian, is “to advise for and to aid in [church matters].” So when you say…
His letter tells St. Stephen to tell the bishops not to “suffer” Marcian anymore.
… you add words; the line is, “Wherefore it behooves you to write… not to suffer any longer that Marcian.” Is this urging Stephen to give a command, or to give advice? (For that matter, you say Cyprian “tells” Stephen this, but presumably you don’t think Cyprian is commanding Stephen as one in authority over him – even strong words don’t require that assumption.) Absent other statements by Cyprian, I could see either reading, though “advise” has the strength of, y’know, actually appearing in the letter.
But it seems your reading – and your hypothesis about Cyprian’s early view of the papacy – requires the other view. That doesn’t seem to me to be established.
Yet when the Spanish bishops complain to St. Cyprian, he does not say what anyone who did not believe St. Stephen had the power to do would say, namely that St. Stephen does not have such power. Yet the only argument St. Cyprian can give is to tell the Spanish bishops that St. Stephen was deceived.
Sure, let’s look at what Cyprian says there: “Neither can it rescind an ordination rightly perfected, that Basildes… went to Rome and deceived Stephen our colleague… to canvass that he might be replaced unjustly.”
So, three things stand out. First, as he does elsewhere, Cyprian refers to Stephen as “colleague” – as a peer, not a superior, and a “heedless” peer who doesn’t really have any idea how things work in North Africa, to boot. Second, the action he ascribes to Stephen is not to command, not to decree, but to canvass: to gather support.
Third, he fundamentally says Stephen can’t give it to Basilides anyway. (Note as well what he finally says of Basildes: “such persons attempt to claim for themselves the episcopate in vain.” It’s not given to him by Stephen; rather, he claims it for himself, and he cannot even succeed in doing so.)
I’d suggest, then, two reasons why he doesn’t say, “Well, obviously Stephen can’t appoint him.” The first is that, textually, he doesn’t acknowledge that Stephen has appointed him; he says only that Stephen “canvassed” for him, and fundamentally says this doesn’t change anything. The second is basically political: when working to exclude someone, one needs all the friends one can get, and explicitly saying to the bishop of Rome, “You have no power here, go home,” instead of just implying it, might invite more problems than it solved. That’s more of an inference – but it’s an inference that fits with the explicit statements he makes eventually.
“Evidently, the authority of Peter. You made the positive claim that he believes people other than Peter held that authority. Where does Firmilian say this?”
What is his argument with St. Stephen? It’s that St. Stephen, in claiming his authority comes from St. Peter, has introduced heretical teaching not handed down by the Apostles. Notice, Firmilian never says that the authority St. Stephen is claiming does not exist. His argument is solely that St. Stephen’s non re-baptism of heretics is wrong. Again, the obvious position to take if you did not believe that St. Stephen does not have that authority, is to say that it does not exist, or only existed with St. Peter. He admitted the authority existed with St. Peter. If he says it was not handed down, that calls into question if the authority he himself possesses was truly handed down.
But Firmilian does not, in fact, say that there’s a special authority of Peter that belongs solely to the bishops of Rome other than Stephen.
***
The problem is, you show us one father of the Church, we show you many more.
Really? Which fathers, of Cyprian’s time or earlier, unambiguously taught all of:
(1) that the person of Peter was the object of Matthew 16,
(2) that the significance of Matthew 16 was an establishment of infallible authority and headship over the rest of the church, and
(3) that this same authority and headship was henceforth inherited by the bishop of Rome
(4) alone?
Yet we show you where they were actually silent on the point in question, which is odd, considering they had no problem condemning the teaching.
Okay, I ignored this last time around, but let’s deal with it. Cyprian gives the opening statement, which unambiguously condemns Stephen’s claims of authority. Immediately before this, he addresses the bishops: “It remains, that upon this same matter [that is, the baptism of heretics] each of us should bring forward what we think, judging no man, nor rejecting any one from the right of communion, if he should think differently from us.”
And the bishops… answer that question, without sidetracking to critique Stephen again. But they do so in a council called in defiance of Stephen’s attempted decree, giving answers that flatly deny the truth of that decree, following an opening that condemns not only the decree but also the claimed authority, and ending with the statement that they’re going to keep doing what they were doing regardless. How is any of that consistent with their believing that Stephen really does hold this authority by divine decree?
We know that Stephen called Cyprian a false Christ and false apostle in the aftermath of this council, because Firmilian quotes him to that effect. So let me ask you the same question I asked LLC: how is it that we have no record that anyone here faces church judgment from the head of the church, if he is indeed such? Is that not a gross dereliction of duty on Stephen’s part, if he truly believes them to be false apostles?
And in the end they all ended up doing what that pope had commanded, proving the point in our favor. So who in reality really ignores the evidence?
If the standard for counter-evidence to papal theories requires that the bishop of Rome does not come to have power over the other bishops, then the standard is absurd from the start.
***
I have disputed every one of these points
You’re right. Disputed was the wrong word; I thought that rereading it later, but, y’know, my kingdom for an edit key, and I thought we were reaching an end. I apologize.
If I may nitpick, though: you’ve disputed every one of these points? The three points were: (1) they’re bishops, (2) they’re cheesed off about Stephen’s claims to authority, and (3) their actions are well-recorded. You dispute all three of those?
***
Just because there was an argument between bishops and the pope, in no way shows that the papacy did not exist.
It was a concrete response to a concrete challenge. If you don’t think the challenge is appropriate, I will direct you to Joe.
More, referring to it as “an argument” does not capture the salient points of Cyprian’s statement. Lower down, you said something to the effect that Cyprian “got mad” – and yeah, when we disregard the things Cyprian actually said, it is much easier to dismiss his objections.
For you to prove Joe wrong, using the case of St. Cyprian as your test case, as you have tried to do, you would have to show
Nah. I met one standard of proof; you said, “Who cares?” and ABS said it doesn’t really matter what the father say. I’m disinclined to play rope-a-dope with more.
What did Jesus intend when giving the keys to St. Peter? We know He is citing Is. 22.
We know this? Who, in the first thousand years of Christendom, explicitly made this interpretation?
Christ has appeared in person to “Protestants”,to say nothing of Muslims, atheists and many others who have sought him – and sometimes even apparently not sought him (at least not consciously), and God has performed innumerable miracles through “Protestant” believers, as the laziest may determine for themselves by viewing the vast number of testimonies now freely available on the internet.
So, either all of those testimonies are false, those miracles did not occur, or your claims to the keys of the kingdom of heaven are false. There is no middle ground, it is one or the other.
When a “Protestant” exorcist has greater and prompter success than your own, and you may watch as many of Bob Larsen’s as you have the courage for, the honest mind must ask itself what can explain these things?
Your latest supposedly infallible pope tells the youth of South America to “make a mess and then organize it”…curious indeed.
He covers up for child abusers and satanists in clerical collars. He applauds an abortionist. He questions basic tenets of the faith of Christ. The list goes on…
And find you have enough time for plucking out Protestant splinters? Surely you have some sense of the ridiculous, even if humility and repentance is so apparently lacking?
Here is the burden you need to shift: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/22400/22400-h/22400-h.htm
I ashamed to say I had never read it before, though we have a copy in the family which dates to the 1700s.
No wonder your church is afflicted; none with blood on their hands escape, and least of all those who torture and kill pretending to do so in the name of Christ.
He is slow to anger, but what greater blasphemy is there than to torture and kill and proclaim it is done in His name?
The curse of innocent blood,the mark of Cain, is not shaken off except by repentance and fruits worthy of repentance.
That book is truly one of the funniest books I’ve ever glanced at. There are so many known errors in it, that no one of a scholarly bent would ever base any argument using Foxe’s book as a source.
As an example, historians deem that over one hundred of Foxe’s supposed martyrs were common criminals, some who were arrested before Mary ascended the throne, and who would have been executed no matter the religion of who sat on the throne.
Perhaps the funniest story is Foxe’s story of Grimwood of Hitcham, who Foxe wrote was an evil Catholic whose bowels fell out as a punishment from God. Except English records show that Grimwood of Hitcham actually heard about his death when a Protestant quoted Foxe’s story in a sermon. Grimwood was in the church to hear the sermon.
Please keep the comedy coming James.
Here’s another funny one.
One of the people that was executed was one William Flower. He is listed as a martyr by Foxe. The reason he was executed was for stabbing a priest while the priest distributed communion.
There is a Protestant defender and apologist of Foxe named Fuller who wrote that many of the people that Foxe listed as martyrs under Queen Mary were seen drinking in the taverns under Queen Elizabeth.
This book just gets funnier and funnier.
Well Duane, that certainly is funny, but probably not in the way you think. I suppose it is possible that Foxe made mistakes, even popes seem to do that. But are you saying that all the Protestant martyrs he names were fakes or frauds?
I am aware that there are many people who will bludgeon reality until it fits their needs, and since the “Enlightenment” these mentalities have had many outlets other than Roman Catholicism: scientism and many other religions pretending to be something else. You may well be one of these for surely they did not all forsake Roman Catholicism when other fields beckoned.
So as a matter of interest, do you think “heretics” should be burned alive? If not, what punishment would you impose on them, if for example, you were made pope for day?
Well James, actually that book is funny in the way I think. You provided a link to a book as if that book were the gospel truth. That book is rife with errors. You want to know who admitted that Foxe didn’t put in due diligence in making his claims? Foxe himself in his second edition admits there are corruptions (errors) in his text. In a letter to one who criticized his work for the many inaccuracies, a certain Alan Cope, he admits he should have taken more time in writing his book.
I have no way of knowing if all the ones he names are fakes or frauds, nor do you. The Protestant James Gairdner says he found untruthfulness and dishonesty in every one of Foxe’s stories. Some of the martyrs Foxe named were known to be alive years after the book he wrote came out. Here is what some PROTESTANT historians have had to say about Foxe:
I can give many more Protestant criticisms of that book you linked to.
The question is not whether heretics should be burned alive. Burning was a form of capital punishment. You can ague about the humanity of the form that capital punishment took, but many consider all forms of capital punishment barbaric. The questions are should heresy be punished? Whether heresy should be considered treason? Does treason deserves the death penalty? For probably thousands of years heresy (though not always known by that name) was considered treason. If no, then heretics should not be killed. If yes, then heretics should be punished as you would any other treasonous act.
As an aside question to you, if one were to be found selling atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, and convicted of treason, should that person be put to death?
Duane,
Thank you for your incredible commentary. I hope I am as smart and perserving as you one day.
Peace be with you!
Melanie
Melanie,
Ty for your kind words.
Duane
Sorry. Persevering. One day….
Sorry. Persevering.
Well, if the critic of Foxe you cite is correct, he surely seems to have been a sort of Protestant Jesuit, for whom deception in the right cause was morally acceptable?
Or is it more a case the Foxe being a Puritan did not find favour with Mr. Gairdner, who I would guess was a high Anglican and perhaps one or two other thing we won’t mention.
You will see that the 1911 Britannica notes that Foxe in at least two editions corrected previous errors and was the victim of his informants on whom he had to rely being abroad for long periods in exile from RC persecutions in England and elsewhere.
Were he a dishonest propagandist, would he have done so?
FOXE, JOHN (1516–1587), the author of the famous Book of Martyrs, was born at Boston, in Lincolnshire, in 1516. At the age of sixteen he is said to have entered Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was the pupil of John Harding or Hawarden, and had for room-mate Alexander Nowell, afterwards dean of St. Paul’s. His authenticated connexion at the university is, however, with Magdalen College. He took his B.A. degree in 1537 and his M.A. in 1543. He was lecturer on logic in 1540–1541. He wrote several Latin plays on Scriptural subjects, of which the best, De Christo triumphante, was repeatedly printed, (London, 1551; Basel, 1556, &c.), and was translated into English by Richard Day, son of the printer. He became a fellow of Magdalen College in 1539, resigning in 1545. It is said that he refused to conform to the rules for regular attendance at chapel, and that he protested both against the enforced celibacy of fellows and the obligation to take holy orders within seven years of their election. The customary statement that he was expelled from his fellowship is based on the untrustworthy biography attributed to his son Samuel Foxe, but the college records state that he resigned of his own accord and ex honesta causa. The letter in which he protests to President Oglethorpe against the charges of irreverence, &c., brought against him is printed in Pratt’s edition (vol. i. Appendix, pp. 58-61).
On leaving Oxford he acted as tutor for a short time in the house of the Lucys of Charlecote, near Stratford-on-Avon, where he married Agnes Randall. Late in 1547 or early in the next year he went to London. He found a patron in Mary Fitzroy, duchess of Richmond, and having been ordained deacon by Ridley in 1550, he settled at Reigate Castle, where he acted as tutor to the duchess’s nephews, the orphan children of Henry Howard, earl of Surrey. On the accession of Queen Mary, Foxe was deprived of his tutorship by the boys’ grandfather, the duke of Norfolk, who was now released from prison. He retired to Strassburg, and occupied himself with a Latin history of the Christian persecutions which he had begun at the suggestion of Lady Jane Grey. He had assistance from two clerics of widely differing opinions—from Edmund Grindal, who was later, as archbishop of Canterbury, to maintain his Puritan convictions in opposition to Elizabeth; and from John Aylmer, afterwards one of the bitterest opponents of the Puritan party. This book, dealing chiefly with Wycliffe and Huss, and coming down to 1500, formed the first outline of the Actes and Monuments. It was printed by Wendelin Richelius with the title of Commentarii rerum in ecclesia gestarum (Strasburg, 1554). In the year of its publication Foxe removed to Frankfort, where he found the English colony of Protestant refugees divided into two camps. He made a vain attempt to frame a compromise which should be accepted by the extreme Calvinists and by the partisans of the Anglican doctrine. He removed (1555) to Basel, where he worked as printer’s reader to Johann Herbst or Oporinus. He made steady progress with his great book as he received reports from England of the religious persecutions there, and he issued from the press of Oporinus his pamphlet Ad inclytos ac praepotentes Angliae proceres . . . supplicatio (1557), a plea for toleration addressed to the English nobility. In 1559 he completed the Latin edition[1] of his martyrology and returned to England. He lived for some time at Aldgate, London, in the house of his former pupil, Thomas Howard, now duke of Norfolk, who retained a sincere regard for his tutor and left him a small pension in his will. He became associated with John Day the printer, himself once a Protestant exile. Foxe was ordained priest by Edmund Grindal, bishop of London, in 1560, and besides much literary work he occasionally preached at Paul’s Cross and other places. His work had rendered great service to the government, and he might have had high preferment in the Church but for the Puritan views which he consistently maintained. He held, however, the prebend of Shipton in Salisbury cathedral, and is said to have been for a short time rector of Cripplegate.
In 1563 was issued from the press of John Day the first English edition of the Actes and Monuments of these latter and perillous Dayes, touching matters of the Church, wherein are comprehended and described the great Persecution and horrible Troubles that have been wrought and practised by the Romishe Prelates, speciallye in this Realme of England and Scotland, from the yeare of our Lorde a thousande to the time now present. Gathered and collected according to the true Copies and Wrytinges certificatorie as well of the Parties themselves that Suffered, as also out of the Bishop’s Registers, which were the Doers thereof, by John Foxe, commonly known as the Book of Martyrs. Several gross errors which had appeared in the Latin version, and had been since exposed, were corrected in this edition. Its popularity was immense and signal. The Marian persecution was still fresh in men’s minds, and the graphic narrative intensified in its numerous readers the fierce hatred of Spain and of the Inquisition which was one of the master passions of the reign. Nor was its influence transient. For generations the popular conception of Roman Catholicism was derived from its bitter pages. Its accuracy was immediately attacked by Catholic writers, notably in the Dialogi sex (1566), nominally from the pen of Alan Cope, but in reality by Nicholas Harpsfield and by Robert Parsons in Three Conversions of England (1570). These criticisms induced Foxe to produce a second corrected edition, Ecclesiastical History, contayning the Actes and Monuments of things passed in every kynges tyme. . . in 1570, a copy of which was ordered by Convocation to be placed in every collegiate church. Foxe based his accounts of the martyrs partly on authentic documents and reports of the trials, and on statements received direct from the friends of the sufferers, but he was too hasty a worker and too violent a partisan to produce anything like a correct or impartial account of the mass of facts with which he had to deal. Anthony à Wood says that Foxe “believed and reported all that was told him, and there is every reason to suppose that he was purposely misled, and continually deceived by those whose interest it was to bring discredit on his work,” but he admits that the book is a monument of his industry, his laborious research and his sincere piety. The gross blunders due to carelessness have often been exposed, and there is no doubt that Foxe was only too ready to believe evil of the Catholics, and he cannot always be exonerated from the charge of wilful falsification of evidence. It should, however, be remembered in his honour that his advocacy of religious toleration was far in advance of his day. He pleaded for the despised Dutch Anabaptists, and remonstrated with John Knox on the rancour of his First Blast of the Trumpet. Foxe was one of the earliest students of Anglo-Saxon, and he and Day published an edition of the Saxon gospels under the patronage of Archbishop Parker. He died on the 18th of April 1587 and was buried at St Giles’s, Cripplegate.
A list of his Latin tracts and sermons is given by Wood, and others, some of which were never printed, appear in Bale. Four editions of the Actes and Monuments appeared in Foxe’s lifetime. The eighth edition (1641) contains a memoir of Foxe purporting to be by his son Samuel, the MS. of which is in the British Museum (Lansdowne MS. 388). Samuel Foxe’s authorship is disputed, with much show of reason, by Dr S. R. Maitland in On the Memoirs of Foxe ascribed to his Son (1841). The best-known modern edition of the Martyrology is that (1837–1841) by the Rev. Stephen R. Cattley, with an introductory life by Canon George Townsend. The numerous inaccuracies of this life and the frequent errors of Foxe’s narrative were exposed by Dr Maitland in a series of tracts (1837–1842), collected (1841–1842) as Notes on the Contributions of the Rev. George Townsend, M.A. … to the New Edition of Fox’s Martyrology. The criticism lavished on Cattley and Townsend’s edition led to a new one (1846–1849) under the same editorship. A new text prepared by the Rev. Josiah Pratt was issued (1870) in the “Reformation Series” of the Church Historians of England, with a revised version of Townsend’s Life and appendices giving copies of original documents. Later edition by W. Grinton Berry (1907).
Foxe’s papers are preserved in the Harleian and Lansdowne collections in the British Museum. Extracts from these were edited by J. G. Nichols for the Camden Society (1859). See also W. Winters, Biographical Notes on John Foxe (1876); James Gairdner, History of the English Church in the Sixteenth Century.
Printed by Oporinus and Nicolaus Brylinger. The title is Rerum in ecclesia gestarum … pars prima, in qua primum de rebus per Angliam et Scotiam gestis atque in primis de horrenda sub Maria nuper regina persecutione narratio continetur.
James,
Keep the comedy coming, every one of your comments brings laughter to my household.
You said: Well, if the critic of Foxe you cite is correct, he surely seems to have been a sort of Protestant Jesuit, for whom deception in the right cause was morally acceptable?
Not at all. The Jesuits in England hid their identity (deception) to bring the sacraments of Jesus to His flock, but keep in mind that while doing so there is no record of them breaking the commandment of Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor, something that Foxe clearly did.
You said: Or is it more a case the Foxe being a Puritan did not find favour with Mr. Gairdner, who I would guess was a high Anglican and perhaps one or two other thing we won’t mention.
I think it is pure stupidity to allude to one or two other things as if they might have bearing and then say we won’t mention them. The problem you face is that it was not only Gairdner that I quoted as finding dishonesty in every one of Foxe’s fables, I quoted two others. And I can quote many more Protestant historians who say the same.
You said: You will see that the 1911 Britannica notes that Foxe in at least two editions corrected previous errors and was the victim of his informants on whom he had to rely being abroad for long periods in exile from RC persecutions in England and elsewhere.
According to what you posted by Britannica he was a victim of this: The gross blunders due to carelessness have often been exposed, and there is no doubt that Foxe was only too ready to believe evil of the Catholics, and he cannot always be exonerated from the charge of wilful falsification of evidence.
Hmmm. Wilful falsification of evidence. Sounds like bearing false witness against thy neighbor.
You said: Were he a dishonest propagandist, would he have done so?
Yes, without a doubt. Dishonest people when called out on their dishonesty will usually correct that which was pointed out to them, in an effort to appear honest. Even after two corrections, there was still dishonesty in the parts that he did not correct. A truly honest person would go back and re-examine all that he had written to see if there were more errors, which we know are still in abundance in that book.
You said: Christ has appeared in person to “Protestants”,to say nothing of Muslims,
The Muslim testimonies where Christ has appeared and said that He is not God, but a Prophet, should I believe those? What about the appearances to Mormons with miracles attached, where He endorses Joseph Smith, are those also to be believed? All these testimonies are numerous.
You said: I ashamed to say I had never read it before, though we have a copy in the family which dates to the 1700s.
My family has been laughing at that book since the 1600’s. One of the finest works of fiction I have ever laid eyes on.
You appear to have the mindset of the unreasoning fanatic, certainly you have the language of one.
How you think to pluck the splinters out of Foxe’s eye with the lumberyard you have about you only a fanatic could explain. Start with the St. Gallen Mafia and go back from there? Then there’s the mafia that controls your branch of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8-E_lbdslM But that’s where the doctrines of men lead those who follow them.
The Muslims, Protestants, Atheists etc. to who Christ has appeared have I suspect all become Christians as a result; certainly those who testimonies I have heard all did. It’s hard to see any other result really isn’t it? Although I suppose to a RC fanatic, if they did not convert to Roman Catholicism their conversion would be considered false and therefore the visitation that prompted it.
No matter, the Almighty will judge.
Really? That’s the best you’ve got? To call me an unreasoning fanatic? The same charge can be leveled at you. If the Protestant historians that I quoted to refute what you posted about Foxe, makes me an RC fanatic, what does that make them? Are they also RC fanatics? That would be news to them. But again, what you yourself posted from Encyclopedia Brittanica stated exactly what I said. Is Encyclopedia Brittanica also made up of RC fanatics? And Foxe himself admitted what he wrote had errors in it. So you presented something as evidence that serious scholars admit is false, and for me calling you on it, makes me an unreasonable fanatic. Your logic amazes me. If your parents sent you to a private school, they should demand their money back. I know many a third-grader who can reason better than you.
I’ve asked you several questions in the past, none of which you have answered until now about those that have seen Jesus. I’m going to ask you again, but word it differently. Are the visions where Jesus led some to Mormonism, some to Methodism, some to Lutheranism, some to Catholicism, and some to non-denominationalism, are they all true? Because I am wondering why Jesus led some to denominations that are pro-abortion, some to denominations that are anti-abortion, some to ones that are pro-LGBT, some that are anti-LGBT? Do you believe that Joseph Smith really had a vision? What about Mohammed’s vision? Why or why not?
James,
What you posted in from Britannica backed up what I said about the book you linked to. Why would you link to a book that anyone with the slightest knowledge of that book, knows it to be filled with errors?
James,
Is wilful falsification of evidence the mark of an honest propagandist?
What is your proof that Foxe was wilfully dishonest? Plenty of people were tortured and burned by your church. There has never been any repentance so the curse of such acts, and many more, must therefore remain.
It is hardly surprising that the hallmark of the Counter-Reformation was religious terrorism by the RC Church and its state actors. Do you deny the torture, the executions and other atrocities?
To cap this final orgy of religious absolutism, the Basilica of Constantine was torn down and replaced with that present edifice, laden with “hermetic” (satanic) symbolism and a nice phallic Egyptian obelisk right in the center of the eye of Horus. Bernini and his confreres didn’t make any secret of it you know. Go and read for yourself, if you have the honesty to accept evidences you don’t like?
James,
You said:
This is getting embarrassing. Do you even read what you post? I call attention to what you yourself posted from the Encyclopedia Britannica on September 22nd, third paragraph down from what you copied and pasted. Here is the relevant passage:
The Catholic Church never burned or put anyone to death. Some of her members did rule on a person’s guilt or innocence, and then the civil magistrates carried out the civil punishment, but that is no different than happens today when a jury decides a defendant’s guilt or innocence. Here is what Professor Thomas Madden says:
Sir Henry Kamen of Oxford says the same thing in his book The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision. Furthermore, I recall seeing a passage in this book where he says something like in every inquisitional trial he studied (and it was thousands), if the accused was found guilty of a capital crime, the inquisitors always asked the civil authorities to spare the life of the convicted.
Since I can provide court cases from a variety of states in the 19th and 20th century where an all Protestant jury convicted a person, and the person was later executed by the civil authorities, does that mean the Protestant church put said person to death?
I can handle the truth. I just wish you would actually provide some. So far, you have not posted anything even remotely truthful.
By the way, I noticed you have not answered any of my questions that I have put to you. No problem, I probably would die of laughter, because I sure laugh for hours when you do post.
So the Encyclopedia Britannica is a good enough authority for you then? And you’re convinced Foxe included false accounts deliberately? Wonderful, so in your mind that negates the innumerable atrocities and brutalities inflicted by and in the name of your church? Murder, rape, infanticide, cultural vandalism, slavery, you name it – Holland for example – we can leave Germany and Eastern Europe for some other occasion.
One your popes minted a medal to celebrate the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacres, celebratory masses were held. And you “laugh” at Foxe? They laugh a lot in asylums I hear.
You are the one that quoted them as authoritative on Foxe in your post. Wilful falsification of evidence does mean that Foxe included the false accounts deliberately. And in earlier replies to you I quoted Protestant historians who basically said the same thing as the Encylopedia Brittannica.
All you have done are make baseless assertions. When you actually post something that is actually factual with links where academia verify what you post, then I will take your screeds seriously.
I’m not the James above.
In making this argument, which is overly pedantic, you’re cutting off the branch you’re sitting on.
My Father is catholic, my grandparents were, my step brother.. I know the organization.
Look, I like to talk to catholics with more obvious sweeping truths, because whether you guys like to admit it or not, you guys have to know that if you’ve got to essentially write the Magna Carta to apologize for your doctrines, you don’t have a strong case.
I mean no one seriously believes that all your disputed doctrines were passed on by this magical tradition. No one. When different people came to power they came up with new doctrines or added and supplemented existing teachings.
Catholic thinkers pushed ideas, political issues and the situation on the ground was evolving, and similarly after the reformation, Horrible Calvinism, Immersion, etc… just like today with the secret Rapture, charismatic tongues, Pre-trib etc.
The Catholics received nothing of substance that is not in the New Testament by tradition and maybe the laymen do not understand this, the blog writers, the fierce apologists, but your leaders know something so blatantly obvious as this. It’s simply ridiculous and I find it virtually impossible that if not a fact in your mind, that inside you know it makes zero sense.
Your later teachings were backed up very loosely after the fact and that’s why it takes forever to try and substantiate them. You want to see circular truth? This is a clinic. Make a doctrine and then go find a shadow of it somewhere. It’s a stated conclusion in search of premises.
I mean what do you think, we want to deny Truth? If this stuff had any validity I’d be happy to follow it. It’s not there. It hasn’t been passed down. It’s Men in power, at difficult times in history Meandering around in uncertainty about what our Mission is. Is God directing me? Is Christ returning soon. What is our role? Is this it? Can the Gospel be this simple? Is this the actual Kingdom?
Men did what men in power do. The went beyond what is written. Many of the doctrines demonstrated a lack of faith. We will preserve the church. We will count our troops. Celibacy to confiscate money & property for example. Control the Word. Squash opposition. Curses.
I won’t go on but you can trace almost all the disputed doctrines to some kind of selfishness, control, money, or lack of direct faith in Jesus Christ. Try it.
Many Protestants also created the control & faction paradigm through pride and lust for doctrinal superiority. It’s man trying to be more righteous, the lazy way. Forget the soup kitchen, I’ll data mine the Bible and figure out stuff so I can tell everyone they don’t know what they’re talking about.
We’ll. It’s a rant for sure guys but Christ knows who are His. We’ve been tested and been found lacking. We want desperately for out pet doctrines to save us and separate us from all the pretenders. Why, because we don’t actually believe that Jesus Christ alone can give us a piggyback ride into heaven.
Love ya
“DUANE
You are the one that quoted them as authoritative on Foxe in your post. Wilful falsification of evidence does mean that Foxe included the false accounts deliberately. And in earlier replies to you I quoted Protestant historians who basically said the same thing as the Encylopedia Brittannica.
All you have done are make baseless assertions. When you actually post something that is actually factual with links where academia verify what you post, then I will take your screeds seriously.”
So what proportion of Foxe’s account do you accept as true? Anything?
“Baseless assertions”? How about that St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre medal Duane? True?
How about the celebratory “masses”?
Take your time, look it up in your “Catholic Encyclopedia”?
James,
Since I quoted Protestant historians that said there were false statements in every one of Foxe’s stories, what proportion do you think I should accept as true? How should I discern the true parts of his stories from the false parts? Would you hand a history book to your child that you knew contained gross inaccuracies on every page and tell that child with a straight face, “to read that history book” to find truth? I think not.
Will you post the relevant passage from the Catholic Encyclopedia why the medals were struck? They provide it, I just want to make sure you’ve actually read the article.
You do realize that you have proven the author of the Burden Shifting article’s points? You have not refuted anything he said, or even tried. All you have done is try to shift to a different topic, instead of addressing his points, proving that what he said applies directly to you.
I am
I have no idea what your encyclopedia may say on the matter, nor do I have any inclination to look. Feel free to enlighten us though.
There are plenty of other sources – the medals themselves exist – the facts are not in dispute. The evidence they provide of a truly vicious, inhuman and even demonic mentality is horrifying. Such acts bring curses and curses persist until they are spiritually revoked.
One would need many Foxe’s to contain all the atrocities that were committed by the RC church. Have they been repented of? The blood guilt of such crimes is truly terrible to contemplate and the spiritual implications are frightening indeed. And as hardly need be said, the same applies to all of whatever church or affiliation who tortured and killed blasphemously claiming to do so in the name of Christ,
[quote]But there’s a huge, glaring problem with this. In the religious controversy over sola scriptura, the side in favor of the doctrine can’t find the doctrine taught anywhere in Scripture. And what’s more, the ability to decide issues based on Scripture requires knowing for sure which books are and aren’t Scripture… and nowhere in the Bible clarifies that, either. So before we learn one thing about the papacy, or history, or Tradition, or Church Councils, we can know that sola scriptura can’t be right because it doesn’t make any sense. Don’t get me wrong – it’s easy to imagine a world in which Jesus said “here, take this book, it’s all you need,” but He quite plainly didn’t.
These difficulties are insuperable for sola scriptura Protestants, which is why many of them are only too eager to try to change the subject instead. For instance, in response to the question “Where does the Bible teach sola scriptura?” James McCarthy (in The Gospel According to Rome) responds not by providing evidence that the Bible does teach sola scriptura, but by claiming Protestants shouldn’t have to actually prove their doctrine….[/quote]
And since He “plainly didn’t” you must ask why? Was it because He said “Peter, you can decide everything from here on out”, and the RC church just made an eenswy-weensy little modification to that so everyone that purportedly was Peter’s “successor” claimed the same privilege? What about those other churches that Peter founded, or helped to found?
Or was it because the Law was fulfilled in Christ and the time of legalism was over? Was the New Covenant not new? Is it not founded up the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth??
Temporal states and empires need lots of laws and rules and the Vatican Empire got busy and built up a whole mess of them, all the better to bolster the claims of authority over, well, everything. Sure worked well for a while, but how you gonna keep them down on the farm after they’ve read Scripture for themselves? “Simple, we won’t let them read it!”
“sola scriptura doesn’t make any sense” if you have built a tower of doctrines you want to defend. If you want to follow what God said then His Word is all you need! Simple as that.
If it’s not in Holy Scripture it is the doctrines of men, just as St. Paul said:
Epistle of Paul to the Colossians, Chapter 2:
16 Let no man therefore create a disturbance among you about eating and drinking, or about the division of the feast days, the beginning of the months and the day of the sabbath:
17 These are shadows of things to come; but the main objective is Christ.
18 Let no man by pretense of sincerity, doom you, so that you worship angels; for he is bold about the things he has not seen, and foolishly he is proud of his intellectual powers….
20 Therefore, if you have died with Christ and are apart from the principles of the world why then should you be doomed as though living in the world?
21 Do not touch, do not taste; do not follow.
22 For these things are customs which are changeable and they are the commandments and doctrines of men.
“He seeks those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth”.
“However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth.”
” But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.”
How will we avoid error? By making no assertions not implicit and irrefutable in Holy Writ. By making as few assertions as possible. By honest questioning against Holy Writ of all “doctrines” propounded by men. By recognizing that all men are capable of error, indeed we are prone to it by our vanity and inherently sinful natures. By being conscious of the promise that if we cause others to stumble we shall answer for it.
James,
Yes those medals exist, that is a fact. But you are such a fanatic that you will not even read one little entry they will shed further light on why they were stamped. Keep your head buried in the sand.
I have backed up all my replies to you with noted historians that back my position. You have not provided any. All you have done is make mostly false assertions and try to shift away from the topic.
It’s funny that you say this:
How will we avoid error? By making no assertions not implicit and irrefutable in Holy Writ. By making as few assertions as possible. By honest questioning against Holy Writ of all “doctrines” propounded by men. By recognizing that all men are capable of error, indeed we are prone to it by our vanity and inherently sinful natures. By being conscious of the promise that if we cause others to stumble we shall answer for it.
Since you are prone to error, we you have yourself stated that you are in this paragraph, why should I believe anything you say?
In fact you also said this:
St. Paul never said that. You did. But since you stated that you are prone to error, why should I believe your interpretation of any Bible verse? In fact, none of the verses you quote support your position. They are just your interpretation of them. But you have no God given authority to interpret them and say that this is what they mean, in contradiction to the Church that Jesus founded.
Duane, did you provide some “context” somewhere on such medals that I missed? I don’t see any here. I’m not sure what context would be relevant unless it were of the repentant variety? You might know better than I whether there has been any such repentance?
You see this is the Petrine petard you keep getting smacked in the head with: the popes can’t be wrong, so whatever they do is right, whatever they approve is Godly…so blood like 20,000 Albigensian, or 50,000 French Protestants and innumerable others gets hung around your necks forever. 20, 30, 40 generations is nothing in a spiritual timeline. Curses persist, that is clear as day from spiritual warfare.
We all know how hard it is for corporate bodies of any kind to admit error, the flag was nailed to the top of the mainmast, but if you take it down the sky will not fall, the Gospel will not fail, the RC church will not cease to be a fundamentally Christian church, indeed it will become more so, and those who had to leave it will no doubt return in their tens of thousands, especially if a few other unscriptural habits are dispensed with like the celibacy of the clergy which has produced this pedophile mafia that seems to have embedded itself so deeply it can never be otherwise removed.
“Fanatic” – how am I fanatic anymore than some of you are? I don’t presume to say that anyone is damned by virtue of their denomination, even when those are clearly heretical like Mormonism. I can think of a few Mormons who have lived such Godly and unselfish lives that I have no trouble believing the errors of their church/cult cannot condemn them out of hand. We cannot weigh their souls or their deeds. We can certainly point out the falsity of Mormonism and its divergence from Holy Writ, but what else can or should we do? It may “doom their souls” but that is for the Judge of all men to say, is it not?
A fanatic? I don’t need to hang a vast assemblage of doctrine on theological abstractions. Speaking of which, St. Paul was writing long before the cult of the Virgin began, and notice that he warns against being seduced into “the worship of angels”. Now angels if I’m not mistaken are entirely spiritual beings who were directly created by God for His service. There is of course a hierarchy among them, but St. Paul warned us against the worship of any of them. So how is it we are to worship the Virgin Mary, who was born of man and woman, and blessed among women though she certainly was, how can she be compared to an Archangel who stands by the very throne of God? If we are not to worship angels, how shall we worship her?
We are all prone to error, and those who of us who seek truth will welcome debate and reproof. Those who claim at the outset they have have no error, and indeed cannot err(!), well what can one say to such people? One can only wish them good luck and be thankful that they no longer have the power to torture and kill in the same of their purported certitudes. Such are the true fanatics.
You cannot see that St. Paul was condemning the doctrines of men, of those who preen on their intellects and their abstractions? If you do not think he was referring to all such endeavors, which ones do you think he was excluding? So many of the early church fathers warned again and again that what is not in Holy Writ cannot be equated with it. What could be more obvious?
Anyway, the belief that one is “in with the in crowd” has so powerful a draw on human vanity, arrogance and love of power that one could very well argue that any such thinking is inherently evil. Certainly the fruits of it seem to be nothing but evil, down through the centuries.
James,
See you have no idea what you are talking about.
1.) Catholics believe that popes can be wrong all the time. Only in certain limited circumstances do they exercise the charism of infallibility.
2.) You do realize that according to statistics most pedophilia is performed by married males? According to the National Insurance of churches pedophilia among married ministers in the major denominations of the Protestant world happens at the same rate as the Catholic Church. In non-denominational the data is harder to come by, but insurance adjustors believe it to be higher than the mainline Protestant denominations. So how would allowing for married priests have changed the scandal? And as for the practice of celibacy being unbiblical, according to whom? Your interpretation that you admitted in your last post was erroneous?
3.) The Catholic Church has never taught that anyone is in Hell, unlike numerous Protestant denominations.
4.) You’re not supposed to worship the Virgin Mary, but you knew that already. I know of thousands of Catholics, none of them have ever worshiped the Blessed Virgin Mary. So why do you make unfounded accusations?
5.) Don’t pretend like you’ve read the Church Fathers. If you had, then you would know that only one Church Father says anything near to your Holy Writ cannot be equated with comment.
6.) Is sola scriptura in the bible? Please give me the verse. Or is it a tradition of men?
I tell you why you are a fanatic. You say you are prone to error and accept reproof. I have shown you noted historians who admit that the Catholic Church never killed anyone, and that Foxe’s stories were filled with falsehood. How have you responded? By repeating what you know to be falsehoods now.
Keep it coming James. I welcome the chance to educate you.
1) You are entitled to your opinion, and now, thanks to the Reformation, I am entitled to mine. Now, thanks to the Reformation, you can read the bible in your native language…we could go on.
2) Your mafia is composed mostly of pederasts, homosexual child molesters who are of course quite willing to give up marriage and the company of women as it interests them not at all anyway. Clerical celibacy, another unscriptural “doctrine” dreamed up by some no doubt of a similar persuasion at the time. Not for nothing were the monasteries often known as temples of sodomy and gluttony to use the expressions of the time. “Never mind the Apostles, we have the keys!” Your church is plainly incapable of dealing with the matter, whether because people like this pope are ambivalent about such sexuality themselves, or because they have been trained to believe that some incantations they pretend are “sacraments” will magically wipe it all away, I don’t know. Maybe you do? The victims are of course ruined, and there is now considerable evidence that child-abuse opens the door to demonization, so that the crime is multiplied. If your popes had pursued these dogs with one tenth the fury they reserved for “heretics” in days of yore, we’d all be a lot better off.
Yes, the Protestants have these people as well, evil find an outlet anywhere it can. That your priesthood seems to be so vulnerable may well say something about the spiritual worth of their “sacraments”, don’t you think?
Judaism too has plenty of pederasts – they can be found everywhere everywhere the potential victims are. However, they are pushing hard for the “normalization” of their “sexuality”, and the dividing lines are a quite “blurred” so we may expect to see much more of this in future.
3. Is that so? I suppose you are engaging in a little pharisaical argument there aren’t you? “They’re not in hell, but they will be, without —–from us”
4. Again, you dance on the head of a pin. You know very well that making idols, images, praying to the Virgin Mary is worship. You may call it whatever you like, but is a contradiction of Hold Writ and you know it.
5. I’m not pretending anything. Having read as little of them as I have though, the fact that even that little refers to what you nicely call “sola Scriptura” suggests there must be plenty more to find.
6. Is “Sola Scriptura” in the bible? Well, going from memory there is St. John the Divine at the end of Revelation, there is the quote from St. Paul I mentioned above, but since you want more, start here: https://www.bible.ca/sola-scriptura-proof-texts.htm
I am frankly amazed that you would apparently seriously state “the [Roman] Catholic Church never killed anyone”. So you fomented wars, encouraged and approved massacres and atrocities, tortured, but you say “didn’t kill anyone”. Do you not see that this kind of pettifogging legalism, even it were correct, which it certainly isn’t, is worth less than nothing i a moral and spiritual context? Oh, you say, we got the civil powers to do it because it was legally treason…blah, blah, blah. I can only shake my head. You sound counsel of the accused at Nuremberg, but we’re talking about the Body of Christ. Do you not grasp that the standard is different?
James,
1.). We were entitled to our opinion before the Protestant Revolution. We could read the Bible in our language before the Revolution happened, as had been shown by numerous historians. One Lutheran scholar of the 19th century said basically most of what Protestants had been taught about the Bible not being available on the native language is a lie. Zwingli called Luther a liar when he heard that Luther said that he never seen a Bible on German before he posted his theses. We know there were 14 different Bible translations in German before Luther was born, three in French, and parts of one in English, all before the close of the 15th century. If you go to Germany, you can see them in the museums. Thankfully, Protestant Universities are starting to teach that what you have stated about Bibles in the native language, is a falsehood.
2.). Unscriptural according to whom? You? But you have already stated that you are full of errors, so why would anyone trust your interpretation of the Bible?
Statistics show that mainline Protestants are just as likely, or in the case of non-denominational slightly higher, than their Catholic counterparts to sexually abuse children, so this is another falsehood you are peddling.
3.). Nope. No Pharisaical argument. The Church does not teach what you are claiming. Another lie on your part. They are piling up. You really should stop bearing false witness.
4.). Not a contradiction. See Protestants have lost what the term prayer means. They have come to associate it strictly with worship, but that is not the only way the term has meant for the majority of people throughout the world, or even for the majority of Christians throughout the world.
Since we know their were statues in the Temple and in synagogues, obviously what you think is an idol, is not what Jesus thinks is an idol.
5.). Except only Cyril of Jerusalem says anything near to sola scriptura. The other Church father’s either do not comment on it, or explicitly endorse Sacred Tradition.
6.). St. John never says Bible alone. And St. Paul specifically says to hold fast to Tradition, contradicting you. You really need to read the Bible before commenting.
I’ve read that link before. Here is a reply to it. http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/protestantism/sola.htm
You do realize that sola scriptura in reality in every case can be shown to be solo scriptura?
7.). But it is correct James. And I have noted historians on my side. You have nothing. You are so quick to judge the people of the past, by today’s standards, but that is a mistake that the uneducated make.
Thanks again for the comedy. Keep it coming James, I can refute your errors and blatant lies until the day I die.
James,
1.) The traditional reading of the ending of Revelation is that St.John is only saying not to add or subtract to Revelation, not to the Bible as a whole. This is easily recognized in light of the fact the books that would comprise the canon of the Bible were not collected yet. Many Christians before the councils that determined the canon did not believe that Revelation was inspired. That, plus the fact that St. John says:
Reposted to correct formatting
James,
1.) The traditional reading of the ending of Revelation is that St.John is only saying not to add or subtract to Revelation, not to the Bible as a whole. This is easily recognized in light of the fact the books that would comprise the canon of the Bible were not collected yet. Many Christians before the councils that determined the canon did not believe that Revelation was inspired. That, plus the fact that St. John says:
Notice St. John says the book of this prophecy.. The Bible is made up of individual books, not all of which are classified as prophetic, and they were NOT classified as prophetic in St. John’s time! So we know your interpretation of the end of Revelation is incorrect.
Furthermore, your interpretation runs into a few other problems, such as:
A.) Who’s version of the Bible? Different communities have differing number of books. Who’s version should we use? The Protestant 66 book canon? The Catholic 73 book canon? The 79 book Greek Orthodox canon? The Swedenborgians, also known as New Church who reject the Epistles of Paul? Who determines which version has been added to or subtracted from? It can’t be you, for you admit you have errors. You cannot even trust the Bible, as it was written by men, and you say that men are filled with errors. Since you are so error prone, in your own judgement, you have no reason to trust that you are not in error when you believe the Bible is inspired.
B.). If you are going to be consistent, then you should read Deuteronomy in the same light as you read Revelation. A similar instruction is given in Deuteronomy 4:2,
If you are consistent, then why do you not follow these instructions, and only accept the Torah?
2.) Since there are internet testimonies where people say Jesus has led them to become Muslim, should I accept those testimonies as really being inspired by Jesus?
3.) In your first post you mentioned Bob Larson. This is taken from this website
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/l42.html
Pastor Bob seems to have a problem with that verse😉
Should I accept what Pastor Bob says here, during a live public exorcism?:
blockquote>My Bible tells me in Colossians 2:15 that Jesus made a public spectacle of the devil. I’m doing this for a reason. You know if God hadn’t been dealing with my heart in recent months, I never would have done anything like this. But God has been teaching me that I need to give the Christian community a window into the world of the reality of the supernatural, so we wake up, and get off our duffs, and get busy for God.
Or should I accept what Pastor Bob says here, at an earlier time, directly contradicting what he said in the above quotation?:
Duane,
I will happily concede to you on the closing text of Revelation. I’m afraid I cannot concede that “traditions” are equal to Holy Writ. If you do not accept the inspiration of Holy Writ, then on what does your claimed Petrine Mandate stand? If Scripture is not divinely inspired then all you have is your “traditions.” Why did Christ choose those he did as His disciples? Why did he not settle all the points?
As it says, the Holy Spirit will “lead us into all truth”. At least He will lead all those who actually want to be led. Those who think they can decide are unlikely to be led, would you agree?
Men want to define and delineate and determine, it is only natural for us. But of course it’s a blind alley. We start out with the best of intentions, perhaps, but it goes on too far, as people always do.
As for Bob Larson, I too find the “marketing” of his ministry unfortunate, that is a reflection of my cultural and religious background, but that is a matter of comfort, not truth. One must decide whether his exorcisms, like those of some other non-Roman Catholics, are genuine or not? Clearly they are. Clearly his techniques are both sophisticated, insightful and effective. Clearly far more effective than the traditional Roman Catholic rites. He is clearly fully conscious of the need to discern between the psychological and the spiritual and able to do so.
The reality is that he does not have the Vatican Bank behind him and must arrange and fund his own ministry. He is not sitting on billions of dollars worth of donated real estate and art. My impression is that he is trying to do as much as he can, as widely as he can, and that takes money. If your church wishes to trust to the providence of God, they can certainly sell all and give to the poor anytime they wish, but you think he should? Personally, I won’t hold my breath.
He charges for one on one ministry, not for ministry at the public seminars for which there is no admission charge. At a certain point Duane, one faces the practicalities of this material world. I will leave the weighing of his soul and methods to God.
You of course may wish to dismiss his ministry – but I don’t think anyone of honesty or insight can do so. The point Duane, is are the manifestations genuine and is the deliverance genuine, and is the glory given to God?
By their fruits ye shall know them. That this, those who actually want to know.
James,
You said:
So if the Apostles taught something as coming from Jesus and they never wrote it down you cannot accept it? Why? Where did Jesus ever say to write anything down? Why should a Divine Command that is not written down carry less weight than a Divine Command that is? You are trusting the Apostles testimony either way, so you must see why for a Catholic your position is incoherent.
You said:
We do accept the inspiration of Holy Writ. Where does Holy Writ say it contains all that God has inspired?
You said:
Many think they are being led by the Holy Spirit when it is only their own desires that they are listening too. It is I always easy to pull out the ‘I am being led by the Holy Spirit and you are not’ card when two parties disagree. Jesus gave us His Church to teach us, so that we know when she teaches us something to be held as dogma, that when we disagree, it is we who are in the wrong.
You said:
How would you know when it is men who want to define or the Holy Spirit inspiring men? Would it have been okay for a first century Christian to reject the decision of the Apostles at the Council of Jerusalem if he felt they were wrong? What system did Christ put into place for a Christian to have matters of doctrine settled? Remember, Jesus never mentions the 27 books of the New Testament.
You said:
They are clearly fake. One must wonder why it was so terrible to him when other exorcists were doing it in front of the camera, which he criticized, but okay for him to do it in front of the camera, once he realized he could make a quick buck off the gullible. He criticized them in his books for all the world to read, he has never apologized to them in his books once he decided to do the same thing. Very hypocritical. God sure changes his mind a lot with Pastor Bob. Pastor Bob also condemns divorce in one of his earliest books, yet it is my understanding that it was Pastor Bob who initiated the divorce proceedings from his first wife. What does Jesus say about divorce?
You said:
Pastor Bob is worth 11 million. He has made quite a good living off the gullible. You sound like Judas to me, who complained when the woman washed Jesus feet and put expensive perfume on Him.
You said:
I do dismiss it. I believe he is a fraud. If you were honest and had intuition, you would clearly be able to see that. You just are not being led by the Holy Spirit, or you would be able to clearly see that also. See how dumb it is to use the loaded if you are honest and have intuition terms? They can easily be said right back to you. Did Pastor Bob condemn others for doing the same thing that he is doing now? Most assuredly yes!!! The proof is in his books. And that is the height of hypocrisy.
You may believe what you wish Duane. My intuition is quite good I have discovered over the years. It took many years to convince me, and it still appalls me how little of it there seems to be around. Perhaps that was what Einstein meant when he called it “the most valuable thing”. We all have different gifts and gifts they are.
What book of Bob Larsen’s do you refer to?
“So if the Apostles taught something as coming from Jesus and they never wrote it down you cannot accept it? Why? Where did Jesus ever say to write anything down? Why should a Divine Command that is not written down carry less weight than a Divine Command that is? You are trusting the Apostles testimony either way, so you must see why for a Catholic your position is incoherent.”
Where would we find “a Divine Command that is not written down” pray tell? The Apostles wrote down what they considered to be the authentic and we assume important words of Christ. And I don’t know about you, but I believe they wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – how could they not being Spirit-filled men?
Individuals may receive direct revelations, but are those to be treated as equal to Scripture? Why did Christ quote Scripture in his answers to satan in the wilderness? Is He not God, can He not speak with all the authority of Scripture?
But you have the pronunciamentos of the popes and the Suma of Thomas Aquinas being laid on the alter at Trent beside Holy Writ (as I read elsewhere here today) as though they were equal! Yes, our paths divided long ago Duane. You keep your “traditions”, whatever they may be, I’ll keep the Gospels, the Acts and Revelation. Most of all, guidance I will seek it from He who is the only mediator between man and God, and it’s not your popes or your church. Or can you deny those words of Scripture as well?
So I suppose your exceptionalism makes your billions “good” while his (purported) millions “bad”? I don’t know the circumstances of his divorce, do you? What’s the relevance to the authenticity or not of the exorcisms? If a person who believes in Christ confesses and “truly and earnestly repents of their sins”, are they not forgiven?
It’s possible as we know from Scripture for a man to be a healer or an exorcist through faith and yet to be condemned at the Last Day. That ought to be a caution to such men, but how much more of a caution to those who cannot even do as much?
I don’t know about your Duane, but I have yet to deliver or heal another person
Sadly you sound like a fanatic to me. Perhaps you have a heritage of fanaticism behind you? I understand that you cannot accept evidences that conflict with your claims and beliefs. To do so would force a person to re-evaluate those and very few people really have the courage, or even the capacity to do that.
But He knows what can be expected from each of us; the danger comes when we do not.
James said:
I know I can believe what I wish. I have found my intuition is quite good also, so we are even.
James said:
Book of Family Issues
James said:
Sacred Apostolic Tradition, of course.
Should women receive Holy Communion? There is not one instance in Scripture where we see women receiving Holy Communion. How about the claim that the Gospel of Mark is of apostolic origin and should be accepted as inspired Scripture? The Bible nowhere makes this claim, but tradition does. Did Christ intend for the exception clause in Matt.19 to permit divorce between two baptized people in the case of adultery? Many Protestants say yes. But the Catholic Church relying on her knowledge of the teaching of the Apostles that has been handed down orally says no. How about abortion? How about contraception? I can go on.
James said:
Of course I believe they are inspired. But nowhere does the bible ever say that it contains all that Jesus commanded. That is an assumption on your part, meaning you are going outside of Scripture to make that claim. Christian faith predates the completed canon of Scripture and because Christ Himself never instructed us to learn the Christian faith relying on the bible alone. On the contrary, when Christ commanded that the faith be passed on to posterity, He specifically enjoined apostolic authority and liturgical tradition as the proper modes of its transmission. (Matthew 28; Luke 22:19; Luke 10:16) He says not a word about relying on the Bible alone.
James said: