Question:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – These may be some really naive questions, but where in the bible does it say anything about a Pope and that faith has anything to do with the structure that exists in the catholic church? I know very little about the structure of the catholic church other than it seems to be quite elaborate. What’s the basis for that structure? If the bible doesn’t define what it should be, does that mean that someone just made the whole thing up? You are under the misconception that the Bible contains the complete and sole sum of revealed truth. You’ll have to show me where in the Bible it says that everything is in the Bible. OK, what is/are the other mediums of revealed truth? Oral tradition, for one. For one… and the others? Catholics don’t follow the Bible, we follow the Apostles (much like they did immediately after Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascention into heaven. Many "Bible Christians" seem to think that the Bible dropped bound from heaven about 1500AD. Don’t follow the Bible? Not even a little bit? What are the records from the Apostles that are used as guidance, and why are they so uncompelling to these "Bible Christians" you described that they choose to not follow them? I should have put it a different way. Don’t follow JUST the Bible. We follow everything in the Bible, we just don’t believe that’s where it ends. *You* don’t *believe* that’s where it ends. Sorry, but what makes that more right than what Bible Christians believe? Because "Bible Christians" can’t tell me where in the Bible is says that the Bible is the only source of God’s revealed truth. The short answer is: You don’t find it in the Bible. So what? Another question: It seems like the catholic church made some really, really major errors over the course of its history and that many if not most of them were based on what turned out to be interpretations of the bible and the edicts of the church that, in retrospect, were at best way off base and at worse a self-serving exercise of power. How does anyone know whether what the catholic church authorities are saying now don’t fall in this same category? That is, if someone looks back at what the church is saying now, how do we know that everyone in the future won’t recognize that current positions are as absurd as those we now recognize to have been major errors in the past? The interesting part about all of this is that God reveals His Truth to us in His time. That means that errors are correctable as God reveals more of His Truth to us. I suspect that the people who suffered because of these errors wouldn’t find it quite so "interesting." Man, back in the days when the Catholic chruch had real power the last place you’d want to find yourself is on the wrong end of a position that people would later find to be "interesting." In any case, it seems like you’re saying that yes, indeed, we could quite well later find out that current positions of the Catholic chuch might later be recognized as wrong because God will have revealed more Truth to us. It’s happened. Note the problem with indulgences that bothered Martin Luther. But the revealed truth is right and correct for *now*. And God knows what He will reveal in the future. This sounds like pretty much a free pass for the chruch to do whatever they want. Sounds like that, doesn’t it. If you believe in Apostolic succession it isn’t a problem. Yet another question. One often hears about an individual quoting the bible to justify a certain ethical/moral position (e.g. homosexuality), but then someone else quotes some other part of the bible that is so patently absurd in a modern society (stoning your neighbor to death for mowing his lawn on a Sunday, or something along those lines) that it demonstrates that using biblical quotes is so fraught with contradictions that doing so merely smacks of self-serving selectivity. So, do such contradictions exist, and if they do, who gets to decide which ones are supposed to apply to modern society? I’m sure there aren’t any expiration clauses attached to teachings in the bible, or are there? This is why we have 2000 years of Biblical scholarship helping us to interpret these so-called "inconsistencies". We don’t run into the same problem that people who interpret their own Bible (already translated with the translator’s biases) to determine the Truth. That’s why we come up with one truth, and other Christians come up with 33,000 different "Truths". (If you think about it, 32,999 of those contradicting truths have to be wrong.) So, are you saying that these so called inconsistencies are all the result of misinterpretations? Inconsistencies between Bible verses? One of the problems is that the Bible needs to be taken in totality, not snipped piece by piece. What would happen if someone who only followed the Bible read only … say … Leviticus? So some parts of Leviticus are not appropriate but others are? And this line marks you as a troll. Later. *Plonk*
I had to respond to this. First of all, I don’t know what it means to be marked as a troll, what a troll is, or what it means when someone says *Plonk*, but it certainly smacks of someone who conveniently catagorizes those who have different beliefs or those who are willing to challenge what a person says. Saying that "…the Bible needs to be taken in totality, not snipped piece by piece" is, in my opinion, just a euphemism for "my gestalt of the bible is right and your gestalt of the bible is wrong." My conclusion from this entire thread is that just about any beliefs or reasoning are not only possible, they are routinely indulged in whether or not the links are so tenuous as to be nearly non-existent, or are based merely on individual beliefs. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – -Tony
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Jesus collected and taught a group of people, and of these He made Simon, renamed Peter, the leader. He also said He would build His Church upon Peter. Sorry but he He didn’t say that. He said "upon this rock" not referring to Peter but to his statement "thou art the Christ the son of the living God". If it was based on the statement than why did He feel the need to rename Simon Peter? I don’t believe He renamed Him. 18 And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, 13 and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. 14 Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." I am curious as to how one could read this another way than him being called Peter. And note..your argument falters further in the next verse. The 2nd person pronoun is used and no evidence that Jesus has switched the person being addressed from Peter to someone/thing else. In case you didn’t know, Peter was his name. Matthew 4:18 And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. In other words..Peter was his nickname. Which Jesus turned into his actual name. At the same time Jesus said that Peter would be rock upn which He would build his Church..and who would receive the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Again..no sigin of a pronoun shift.
<G Because of his impulsive and bull-headed nature, I have often joked that Peter should be the patron saint of ADHD…I wonder if Simon was called "rock" because of his stubborn nature? Buny
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Jesus collected and taught a group of people, and of these He made Simon, renamed Peter, the leader. He also said He would build His Church upon Peter. Sorry but he He didn’t say that. He said "upon this rock" not referring to Peter but to his statement "thou art the Christ the son of the living God". If it was based on the statement than why did He feel the need to rename Simon Peter? I don’t believe He renamed Him. 18 And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, 13 and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. 14 Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." I am curious as to how one could read this another way than him being called Peter. And note..your argument falters further in the next verse. The 2nd person pronoun is used and no evidence that Jesus has switched the person being addressed from Peter to someone/thing else.
Not to mention that the name "Peter" (The Greek variation of the Aramaic Cephus–both of which…) means *ROCK*…if Jesus did not mean Simon to be the rock on which He was to build His church, then why re-name Simon "Rock"? Buny
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – These may be some really naive questions, but where in the bible does it say anything about a Pope and that faith has anything to do with the structure that exists in the catholic church? I know very little about the structure of the catholic church other than it seems to be quite elaborate. What’s the basis for that structure? If the bible doesn’t define what it should be, does that mean that someone just made the whole thing up? You are under the misconception that the Bible contains the complete and sole sum of revealed truth. You’ll have to show me where in the Bible it says that everything is in the Bible. OK, what is/are the other mediums of revealed truth? Oral tradition, for one. For one… and the others? Catholics don’t follow the Bible, we follow the Apostles (much like they did immediately after Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascention into heaven. Many "Bible Christians" seem to think that the Bible dropped bound from heaven about 1500AD. Don’t follow the Bible? Not even a little bit? What are the records from the Apostles that are used as guidance, and why are they so uncompelling to these "Bible Christians" you described that they choose to not follow them? I should have put it a different way. Don’t follow JUST the Bible. We follow everything in the Bible, we just don’t believe that’s where it ends. *You* don’t *believe* that’s where it ends. Sorry, but what makes that more right than what Bible Christians believe?
Because "Bible Christians" can’t tell me where in the Bible is says that the Bible is the only source of God’s revealed truth. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The short answer is: You don’t find it in the Bible. So what? Another question: It seems like the catholic church made some really, really major errors over the course of its history and that many if not most of them were based on what turned out to be interpretations of the bible and the edicts of the church that, in retrospect, were at best way off base and at worse a self-serving exercise of power. How does anyone know whether what the catholic church authorities are saying now don’t fall in this same category? That is, if someone looks back at what the church is saying now, how do we know that everyone in the future won’t recognize that current positions are as absurd as those we now recognize to have been major errors in the past? The interesting part about all of this is that God reveals His Truth to us in His time. That means that errors are correctable as God reveals more of His Truth to us. I suspect that the people who suffered because of these errors wouldn’t find it quite so "interesting." Man, back in the days when the Catholic chruch had real power the last place you’d want to find yourself is on the wrong end of a position that people would later find to be "interesting." In any case, it seems like you’re saying that yes, indeed, we could quite well later find out that current positions of the Catholic chuch might later be recognized as wrong because God will have revealed more Truth to us. It’s happened. Note the problem with indulgences that bothered Martin Luther. But the revealed truth is right and correct for *now*. And God knows what He will reveal in the future. This sounds like pretty much a free pass for the chruch to do whatever they want.
Sounds like that, doesn’t it. If you believe in Apostolic succession it isn’t a problem. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Yet another question. One often hears about an individual quoting the bible to justify a certain ethical/moral position (e.g. homosexuality), but then someone else quotes some other part of the bible that is so patently absurd in a modern society (stoning your neighbor to death for mowing his lawn on a Sunday, or something along those lines) that it demonstrates that using biblical quotes is so fraught with contradictions that doing so merely smacks of self-serving selectivity. So, do such contradictions exist, and if they do, who gets to decide which ones are supposed to apply to modern society? I’m sure there aren’t any expiration clauses attached to teachings in the bible, or are there? This is why we have 2000 years of Biblical scholarship helping us to interpret these so-called "inconsistencies". We don’t run into the same problem that people who interpret their own Bible (already translated with the translator’s biases) to determine the Truth. That’s why we come up with one truth, and other Christians come up with 33,000 different "Truths". (If you think about it, 32,999 of those contradicting truths have to be wrong.) So, are you saying that these so called inconsistencies are all the result of misinterpretations? Inconsistencies between Bible verses? One of the problems is that the Bible needs to be taken in totality, not snipped piece by piece. What would happen if someone who only followed the Bible read only … say … Leviticus? So some parts of Leviticus are not appropriate but others are?
And this line marks you as a troll. Later. *Plonk* -Tony — For fairly troll free Catholic discussion, join on the web at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/romancatholic/ "Or could it confirm that he’s [Joseph Geloso's] a locution short of a dogma?" – Daniel Hoehr
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Jesus collected and taught a group of people, and of these He made Simon, renamed Peter, the leader. He also said He would build His Church upon Peter. Sorry but he He didn’t say that. He said "upon this rock" not referring to Peter but to his statement "thou art the Christ the son of the living God". If it was based on the statement than why did He feel the need to rename Simon Peter? I don’t believe He renamed Him. 18 And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, 13 and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. 14 Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." I am curious as to how one could read this another way than him being called Peter. And note..your argument falters further in the next verse. The 2nd person pronoun is used and no evidence that Jesus has switched the person being addressed from Peter to someone/thing else. In case you didn’t know, Peter was his name. Matthew 4:18 And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.
In other words..Peter was his nickname. Which Jesus turned into his actual name. At the same time Jesus said that Peter would be rock upn which He would build his Church..and who would receive the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Again..no sigin of a pronoun shift. dnp bardi
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – These may be some really naive questions, but where in the bible does it say anything about a Pope and that faith has anything to do with the structure that exists in the catholic church? I know very little about the structure of the catholic church other than it seems to be quite elaborate. What’s the basis for that structure? If the bible doesn’t define what it should be, does that mean that someone just made the whole thing up? You are under the misconception that the Bible contains the complete and sole sum of revealed truth. You’ll have to show me where in the Bible it says that everything is in the Bible. OK, what is/are the other mediums of revealed truth? Oral tradition, for one.
For one… and the others? Catholics don’t follow the Bible, we follow the Apostles (much like they did immediately after Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascention into heaven. Many "Bible Christians" seem to think that the Bible dropped bound from heaven about 1500AD. Don’t follow the Bible? Not even a little bit? What are the records from the Apostles that are used as guidance, and why are they so uncompelling to these "Bible Christians" you described that they choose to not follow them? I should have put it a different way. Don’t follow JUST the Bible. We follow everything in the Bible, we just don’t believe that’s where it ends.
*You* don’t *believe* that’s where it ends. Sorry, but what makes that more right than what Bible Christians believe? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The short answer is: You don’t find it in the Bible. So what? Another question: It seems like the catholic church made some really, really major errors over the course of its history and that many if not most of them were based on what turned out to be interpretations of the bible and the edicts of the church that, in retrospect, were at best way off base and at worse a self-serving exercise of power. How does anyone know whether what the catholic church authorities are saying now don’t fall in this same category? That is, if someone looks back at what the church is saying now, how do we know that everyone in the future won’t recognize that current positions are as absurd as those we now recognize to have been major errors in the past? The interesting part about all of this is that God reveals His Truth to us in His time. That means that errors are correctable as God reveals more of His Truth to us. I suspect that the people who suffered because of these errors wouldn’t find it quite so "interesting." Man, back in the days when the Catholic chruch had real power the last place you’d want to find yourself is on the wrong end of a position that people would later find to be "interesting." In any case, it seems like you’re saying that yes, indeed, we could quite well later find out that current positions of the Catholic chuch might later be recognized as wrong because God will have revealed more Truth to us. It’s happened. Note the problem with indulgences that bothered Martin Luther. But the revealed truth is right and correct for *now*. And God knows what He will reveal in the future.
This sounds like pretty much a free pass for the chruch to do whatever they want. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Yet another question. One often hears about an individual quoting the bible to justify a certain ethical/moral position (e.g. homosexuality), but then someone else quotes some other part of the bible that is so patently absurd in a modern society (stoning your neighbor to death for mowing his lawn on a Sunday, or something along those lines) that it demonstrates that using biblical quotes is so fraught with contradictions that doing so merely smacks of self-serving selectivity. So, do such contradictions exist, and if they do, who gets to decide which ones are supposed to apply to modern society? I’m sure there aren’t any expiration clauses attached to teachings in the bible, or are there? This is why we have 2000 years of Biblical scholarship helping us to interpret these so-called "inconsistencies". We don’t run into the same problem that people who interpret their own Bible (already translated with the translator’s biases) to determine the Truth. That’s why we come up with one truth, and other Christians come up with 33,000 different "Truths". (If you think about it, 32,999 of those contradicting truths have to be wrong.) So, are you saying that these so called inconsistencies are all the result of misinterpretations? Inconsistencies between Bible verses? One of the problems is that the Bible needs to be taken in totality, not snipped piece by piece. What would happen if someone who only followed the Bible read only … say … Leviticus?
So some parts of Leviticus are not appropriate but others are? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I read recently that the concept of the Pope being infallible is a fairly recent decision (late 1800s or so). How does something like that get decided? Was there something in the bible about papal infalibility that the church scholars missed all those years before the decision? Does infallibility apply retrospectively? That is, if a modern Pope is infallible, then weren’t all prior Popes also infallible, even if they didn’t realize it at the time? Aren’t there a lot of "pre-infallibility" edicts (or whatever you call them) made by early Popes that we now recognized as being patently absurd, and if so, what does that say about actual infallibility of the Pope? It gets decided by an Ecumenical Council, just like all Catholic Dogma. And the Pope has always been infallible, we just had it revealed to us by Almighty God fairly recently. Was it "decided" by the Council or revealed by God? And, how did Almighty God reveal this? Not to sound mocking, but this seems pretty important, so any idea of why He waited so long to let the Church know about it? Both. And as to why He waited so long, why don’t you ask *him*?
In other words, just take it on faith? Many misunderstand infallibility. If the Pope likes Raisin Bran, it doesn’t automatically become the official breakfast cereal of the Catholic Church. Infallibility only applies to matters of faith and morals. Also, "infallibility" (ex-cathedra pronouncement) has only been invoked twice in the history of the Church. If you’re interested, I’ll tell you which two those were. Yes. I’m interested in hearing about them. The immaculate conception of the Blessed mother (Mary being conceived without sin to be the perfect vessel for our Savior) The bodily assumption of Mary to heaven.
That it? That was sure anticlimatic. I thought they might be something that actually had something to do with how people live their lives. What are the criteria for invoking infallibility? As I asked the other poster, if infallibility isn’t invoked then does that mean that a pronouncment *might* be wrong? If not, why not? Am I safe in assumming that infallibility has not been declared for any church positions that resulted in somebody on the wrong end of an "interesting" situation? You’re safe in that assumption, unless you can find me a case where someone was on the wrong end of the above two situations.
I don’t see how. These aren’t exactly declarations that really have much consequence, like many of the other things on which the Catholic church takes stances and that actually affect people’s lives. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – -Tony
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Jesus collected and taught a group of people, and of these He made Simon, renamed Peter, the leader. He also said He would build His Church upon Peter. Sorry but he He didn’t say that. He said "upon this rock" not referring to Peter but to his statement "thou art the Christ the son of the living God". If it was based on the statement than why did He feel the need to rename Simon Peter? I don’t believe He renamed Him.
18 And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, 13 and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. 14 Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." I am curious as to how one could read this another way than him being called Peter. And note..your argument falters further in the next verse. The 2nd person pronoun is used and no evidence that Jesus has switched the person being addressed from Peter to someone/thing else. Even so, how much is tea in China these days?
In what currency. dnp bardi who is beginning to get used to attempts at changing the subject.
Response:
Jesus collected and taught a group of people, and of these He made Simon, renamed Peter, the leader. He also said He would build His Church upon Peter. Sorry but he He didn’t say that. He said "upon this rock" not referring to Peter but to his statement "thou art the Christ the son of the living God".
If it was based on the statement than why did He feel the need to rename Simon Peter? dnp bardi
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – [snip] anything about a Pope [snip] The Catholic answer is that the papacy we see now is a development of the Petrine office created by Jesus. So, are you saying that there isn’t anything in the bible that is the basis for the Catholic church, but that it is based on this non-biblical "Petrine Office"? I’ve never heard of the Petrine Office. You say Jesus started this? Were there some sort of written records about how that helped people organize the church in accordance with what Jesus wanted? I thought the entire written history of Jesus’ teachings was all in the bible. I’ve never heard of any other record.
Scripture citations are problematic if the nature and authority of Scripture aren’t clearly understood and agreed to in advance. For that reason I didn’t give you any *proof-texts* of the special authority and responsibility of Peter (which is sometimes called *the Petrine office*). You yourself adverted to difficulty in reconciling differing interpretations of Scripture in your first post. So my first point was, maybe we should discuss the nature, source and authority of Scripture before discussing specific interpretion issues. Put another way: do you insist on some Scriptural evidence and, if so, why? A proper discussion of the Scriptural basis for the continuing office of Peter should be book-length. So I’ll start by recommending a couple of books that go into the kind of detail that would do justice to the issue: Stephen K. Ray, Upon This Rock, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1999. and Scott Butler , Norman Dahlgren , David Hess, Jesus, Peter and the Keys: A Scriptural Handbook on the Papacy, Queenship Publishing Company, Santa Barbara, 1997. The, again, short-and-sweet version is that there is a lot of Scriptural evidence of the special position of Peter amongst Jesus’ first followers and in the Church after the Resurrection. The idea of continuing authority, including Petrine, in the Church is also evidenced in Scripture (including the Matthew citation I gave you previously) and in the Church Fathers. [snip] Wow! Are you saying that the entire structure of the Catholic church is predicated on this? I guess I can see where *a* church could be construed, but I don’t see where it specifies *the* church, and I don’t see where it dictates any particular structure nor any concept of the current hierarchy.
It’s not clear to me what you’re surprised about. Jesus founded *a* *church* not many churches or He founded no *church* at all. I see no evidence to the contrary. If that church still exists then it is *the* church not simple *a* church in the context of Jesus. It is *His* Church, His *Body* as Paul wrote in the mid-First Century. Any Church that departs from the Apostolic, Jesus-founded one is, to that extent, not *the* church. (And maybe not even *a* church). [snip] And so the "correctness" of this development is based on the many years of proper interpretation of what Jesus and his Apostles would have wanted? Are there sufficient teachings to actually justify what the church eventially became? Where are the records of that, and what do all of the non-Catholic Christian religions have to say about those records? If such records exist, I don’t see how they can justify their existence as church’s.
There are a multiplicity of communities that call themselves a *church* and some may even describe themselves as being or being in *the* *church*. The community founded by Jesus (called *ecclesia* in Greek and *church* in English) is the normative, seminal community. Few Christians reject that community and still consider themselves fully *Christian*. With thousands of competitors for this title (*the* church) you have some heavy lifting to do. This is not a drive-through window type of operation (*two big macs and the identity of the *true* church founded by Jesus Christ, please*). Again, the short answer is that the correctness or falsity is based on what the Holy Spirit (and Jesus) *wants* (present tense). (see Acts citation below). [snip] For someone who *doesn’t know much* you sure have a closet full of *information* you’re not sharing. Could you be more specific? Not really, and I didn’t want to be specific because my point wasn’t to debate the details of any one event. I’m referring to things like persecution of people for saying that the Earth isn’t the center of the universe, the atrocities of the crusades (I’m not trying to start a Christina vs. Islam debate–I’m just making a point that some pretty awful things that were done in the name of Jesus), pretty much the whole dark ages, condoning the burning of Joan of Arc at the stake and then later "Sainting" her, things like that.
Again, I’m concerned that you want an easy, simple, every-agrees-that kind of answer. This is Big Stuff. Lots of people will present initially plausible kinds of answers. Some of those answers will contain falsehoods (*the Church persecuted people who denied the earth is at the center of the universe*), half-truths (*the Church killed Joan of Arc and then sainted her*) and poorly understood truths (*there were atrocities committed by Christians during the Crusades*). The net effect of using poorly understood premises (as above) is to lead to false conclusions. Thinking correctly is hard work. But don’t despair, practice makes you better! [snip] But doesn’t that contradict the authority of the Catholic church? It seems like you’re saying that the Catholic church might indeed be wrong and an individual would know it’s wrong because of a living relationship with Jesus. Isn’t that exactly what the Catholic church says you can’t do and the entire reason for the Protestant religions?
*If* Jesus was the extraordinary person He claimed to be and *if* He founded a continuing community (let’s call it the *church*) and *if* Jesus promised to protect that church until the end of time and *if* His church is most completely respresented in the Catholic Church in communion with the Bishop of Rome, *then* a person in communion with Jesus on a personal level will (eventually) recognize Jesus in His Body, the Church. What part of the Church teaching might be *wrong* that you’re concerned about? It’s teachings about Jesus and His Resurrection? If those are false, then the Church is false and you have nothing to be worried about. It’s teaching that it is *the* Church founded by Jesus? Where is that Church? Quick, go find it! It’s teaching about the meaning and application of Scripture? If not the Church guided and protected by Jesus, then whom? It’s teachings about the meaning of the Moral Law? If you’ve already identified the Catholic Church as that founded and protected by Jesus then you’ve got a problem. Either Jesus lied or you have to listen to His Body when it explains the ramifications of the Law of God in our lives. No middle ground here that I can see. What’s left to worry about? [snip] Another Wow! So the Catholic church has the competence to "weigh" teachings from the bible because it was founded by Christ? What are the guiding principles for the church’s weightings other than it’s origins? What you said sounds an awful lot like they have final authority simply because they say they should.
Listen to the conclusion of the first controversial gathering of the Apostles after the Resurrection: For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us… Acts 15:28 Note there are no Scripture citatons: *the Holy Spirit and we got together and decided that…* You’re right: Wow! That is the Church I would be looking for today if I wanted to find the Church founded by Christ: not simply a system of logic and documentation, but a living relationship with God through Jesus; a teaching with authority, just like Jesus (cf. Matthew 7:28f). That’s why I’m Catholic. [snip] You didn’t address the main point: Are the any examples of a past pope making decisions of the faith that have been later recognized as off base? Maybe not?
Your question is very good. The answer is that the Catholic Church is unaware of previously *infallible* teachings being later found to be erroneous. *Erroneous infallible* statements are oxymoronic. To assert such a thing is to deny infallibility in the first place. Affirming infallibility, I deny that any infallible teaching of the Church was later found or might later be found to be erroneous. If you’re aware of such a thing, you would be doing me a favour by pointing it out. The problem, for the logicians I would think, is that a simple, definitive list of such teachings has not been gathered together by the *Church* (some theologians have tried). But start with the Creeds (Apostolic and Nicene anyway): if anything in these is materially false, then the Church has erred and is *not* infallible in any meaningful sense. Anything taught by *all* the bishops in communion with Rome as binding in faith (not simple a common opinion, but something that being contradicted would result in expulsion from the Church) at a given time (and theoretically, then, forever after) is (or should be) infallible according to the Second Vatican Council. Find a profess-this-or-be- excommunicated (world-wide) type of teaching that has since been *dropped* as compulsory and you’ve defeated the claim to infallibility of the Church (never mind the Pope). – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – [snip] That a pope, fulfilling the criteria recognized by the Vatican I, has taught error in the past is a simple refutation of the Council’s teaching. Do you have an example? No. It seems like excercising this infallibiliy is far less common that I
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Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – These may be some really naive questions, but where in the bible does it say anything about a Pope and that faith has anything to do with the structure that exists in the catholic church? I know very little about the structure of the catholic church other than it seems to be quite elaborate. What’s the basis for that structure? If the bible doesn’t define what it should be, does that mean that someone just made the whole thing up? You are under the misconception that the Bible contains the complete and sole sum of revealed truth. You’ll have to show me where in the Bible it says that everything is in the Bible. OK, what is/are the other mediums of revealed truth?
Oral tradition, for one. Catholics don’t follow the Bible, we follow the Apostles (much like they did immediately after Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascention into heaven. Many "Bible Christians" seem to think that the Bible dropped bound from heaven about 1500AD. Don’t follow the Bible? Not even a little bit? What are the records from the Apostles that are used as guidance, and why are they so uncompelling to these "Bible Christians" you described that they choose to not follow them?
I should have put it a different way. Don’t follow JUST the Bible. We follow everything in the Bible, we just don’t believe that’s where it ends. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The short answer is: You don’t find it in the Bible. So what? Another question: It seems like the catholic church made some really, really major errors over the course of its history and that many if not most of them were based on what turned out to be interpretations of the bible and the edicts of the church that, in retrospect, were at best way off base and at worse a self-serving exercise of power. How does anyone know whether what the catholic church authorities are saying now don’t fall in this same category? That is, if someone looks back at what the church is saying now, how do we know that everyone in the future won’t recognize that current positions are as absurd as those we now recognize to have been major errors in the past? The interesting part about all of this is that God reveals His Truth to us in His time. That means that errors are correctable as God reveals more of His Truth to us. I suspect that the people who suffered because of these errors wouldn’t find it quite so "interesting." Man, back in the days when the Catholic chruch had real power the last place you’d want to find yourself is on the wrong end of a position that people would later find to be "interesting." In any case, it seems like you’re saying that yes, indeed, we could quite well later find out that current positions of the Catholic chuch might later be recognized as wrong because God will have revealed more Truth to us.
It’s happened. Note the problem with indulgences that bothered Martin Luther. But the revealed truth is right and correct for *now*. And God knows what He will reveal in the future. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Yet another question. One often hears about an individual quoting the bible to justify a certain ethical/moral position (e.g. homosexuality), but then someone else quotes some other part of the bible that is so patently absurd in a modern society (stoning your neighbor to death for mowing his lawn on a Sunday, or something along those lines) that it demonstrates that using biblical quotes is so fraught with contradictions that doing so merely smacks of self-serving selectivity. So, do such contradictions exist, and if they do, who gets to decide which ones are supposed to apply to modern society? I’m sure there aren’t any expiration clauses attached to teachings in the bible, or are there? This is why we have 2000 years of Biblical scholarship helping us to interpret these so-called "inconsistencies". We don’t run into the same problem that people who interpret their own Bible (already translated with the translator’s biases) to determine the Truth. That’s why we come up with one truth, and other Christians come up with 33,000 different "Truths". (If you think about it, 32,999 of those contradicting truths have to be wrong.) So, are you saying that these so called inconsistencies are all the result of misinterpretations?
Inconsistencies between Bible verses? One of the problems is that the Bible needs to be taken in totality, not snipped piece by piece. What would happen if someone who only followed the Bible read only … say … Leviticus? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I read recently that the concept of the Pope being infallible is a fairly recent decision (late 1800s or so). How does something like that get decided? Was there something in the bible about papal infalibility that the church scholars missed all those years before the decision? Does infallibility apply retrospectively? That is, if a modern Pope is infallible, then weren’t all prior Popes also infallible, even if they didn’t realize it at the time? Aren’t there a lot of "pre-infallibility" edicts (or whatever you call them) made by early Popes that we now recognized as being patently absurd, and if so, what does that say about actual infallibility of the Pope? It gets decided by an Ecumenical Council, just like all Catholic Dogma. And the Pope has always been infallible, we just had it revealed to us by Almighty God fairly recently. Was it "decided" by the Council or revealed by God? And, how did Almighty God reveal this? Not to sound mocking, but this seems pretty important, so any idea of why He waited so long to let the Church know about it?
Both. And as to why He waited so long, why don’t you ask *him*? Many misunderstand infallibility. If the Pope likes Raisin Bran, it doesn’t automatically become the official breakfast cereal of the Catholic Church. Infallibility only applies to matters of faith and morals. Also, "infallibility" (ex-cathedra pronouncement) has only been invoked twice in the history of the Church. If you’re interested, I’ll tell you which two those were. Yes. I’m interested in hearing about them.
The immaculate conception of the Blessed mother (Mary being conceived without sin to be the perfect vessel for our Savior) The bodily assumption of Mary to heaven. What are the criteria for invoking infallibility? As I asked the other poster, if infallibility isn’t invoked then does that mean that a pronouncment *might* be wrong? If not, why not? Am I safe in assumming that infallibility has not been declared for any church positions that resulted in somebody on the wrong end of an "interesting" situation?
You’re safe in that assumption, unless you can find me a case where someone was on the wrong end of the above two situations. -Tony — For fairly troll free Catholic discussion, join on the web at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/romancatholic/ "Rome has spoken, the debate is ended." — St. Augustine
Response:
These may be some really naive questions, but where in the bible does it say anything about a Pope and that faith has anything to do with the structure that exists in the catholic church? I know very little about the structure of the catholic church other than it seems to be quite elaborate. What’s the basis for that structure? If the bible doesn’t define what it should be, does that mean that someone just made the whole thing up? You are under the misconception that the Bible contains the complete and sole sum of revealed truth. You’ll have to show me where in the Bible it says that everything is in the Bible.
OK, what is/are the other mediums of revealed truth? Catholics don’t follow the Bible, we follow the Apostles (much like they did immediately after Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascention into heaven. Many "Bible Christians" seem to think that the Bible dropped bound from heaven about 1500AD.
Don’t follow the Bible? Not even a little bit? What are the records from the Apostles that are used as guidance, and why are they so uncompelling to these "Bible Christians" you described that they choose to not follow them? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The short answer is: You don’t find it in the Bible. So what? Another question: It seems like the catholic church made some really, really major errors over the course of its history and that many if not most of them were based on what turned out to be interpretations of the bible and the edicts of the church that, in retrospect, were at best way off base and at worse a self-serving exercise of power. How does anyone know whether what the catholic church authorities are saying now don’t fall in this same category? That is, if someone looks back at what the church is saying now, how do we know that everyone in the future won’t recognize that current positions are as absurd as those we now recognize to have been major errors in the past? The interesting part about all of this is that God reveals His Truth to us in His time. That means that errors are correctable as God reveals more of His Truth to us.
I suspect that the people who suffered because of these errors wouldn’t find it quite so "interesting." Man, back in the days when the Catholic chruch had real power the last place you’d want to find yourself is on the wrong end of a position that people would later find to be "interesting." In any case, it seems like you’re saying that yes, indeed, we could quite well later find out that current positions of the Catholic chuch might later be recognized as wrong because God will have revealed more Truth to us. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Yet another question. One often hears about an individual quoting the bible to justify a certain ethical/moral position (e.g. homosexuality), but then someone else quotes some other part of the bible that is so patently absurd in a modern society (stoning your neighbor to death for mowing his lawn on a Sunday, or something along those lines) that it demonstrates that using biblical quotes is so fraught with contradictions that doing so merely smacks of self-serving selectivity. So, do such contradictions exist, and if they do, who gets to decide which ones are supposed to apply to modern society? I’m sure there aren’t any expiration clauses attached to teachings in the bible, or are there? This is why we have 2000 years of Biblical scholarship helping us to interpret these so-called "inconsistencies". We don’t run into the same problem that people who interpret their own Bible (already translated with the translator’s biases) to determine the Truth. That’s why we come up with one truth, and other Christians come up with 33,000 different "Truths". (If you think about it, 32,999 of those contradicting truths have to be wrong.)
So, are you saying that these so called inconsistencies are all the result of misinterpretations? I read recently that the concept of the Pope being infallible is a fairly recent decision (late 1800s or so). How does something like that get decided? Was there something in the bible about papal infalibility that the church scholars missed all those years before the decision? Does infallibility apply retrospectively? That is, if a modern Pope is infallible, then weren’t all prior Popes also infallible, even if they didn’t realize it at the time? Aren’t there a lot of "pre-infallibility" edicts (or whatever you call them) made by early Popes that we now recognized as being patently absurd, and if so, what does that say about actual infallibility of the Pope? It gets decided by an Ecumenical Council, just like all Catholic Dogma. And the Pope has always been infallible, we just had it revealed to us by Almighty God fairly recently.
Was it "decided" by the Council or revealed by God? And, how did Almighty God reveal this? Not to sound mocking, but this seems pretty important, so any idea of why He waited so long to let the Church know about it? Many misunderstand infallibility. If the Pope likes Raisin Bran, it doesn’t automatically become the official breakfast cereal of the Catholic Church. Infallibility only applies to matters of faith and morals. Also, "infallibility" (ex-cathedra pronouncement) has only been invoked twice in the history of the Church. If you’re interested, I’ll tell you which two those were.
Yes. I’m interested in hearing about them. What are the criteria for invoking infallibility? As I asked the other poster, if infallibility isn’t invoked then does that mean that a pronouncment *might* be wrong? If not, why not? Am I safe in assumming that infallibility has not been declared for any church positions that resulted in somebody on the wrong end of an "interesting" situation? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – -Tony
Response:
These may be some really naive questions, but where in the bible does it say anything about a Pope and that faith has anything to do with the structure that exists in the catholic church? I know very little about the structure of the catholic church other than it seems to be quite elaborate. What’s the basis for that structure? If the bible doesn’t define what it should be, does that mean that someone just made the whole thing up?
Jesus collected and taught a group of people, and of these He made Simon, renamed Peter, the leader. He also said He would build His Church upon Peter. Thus the Church, until Jesus’ return, has had a visible leader. As far as structure, it developed as needs required. The NT tells us that there were various offices, Apostles (bishops), Presbyters, deacons. We see in Acts the election of someone to replace Judas, and know through history that the process continued. Bishops were in charge of areas, and as the faith spread, they needed more than the original 12. It grew by the actions of men, but we also believe that it grew with the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Another question: It seems like the catholic church made some really, really major errors over the course of its history and that many if not most of them were based on what turned out to be interpretations of the bible and the edicts of the church that, in retrospect, were at best way off base and at worse a self-serving exercise of power.
Unless you’re talking about some of the favorite anti-Catholic attacks like Galileo, then I’m not sure what incidents you mean. Want to give an example? How does anyone know whether what the catholic church authorities are saying now don’t fall in this same category? That is, if someone looks back at what the church is saying now, how do we know that everyone in the future won’t recognize that current positions are as absurd as those we now recognize to have been major errors in the past?
The Catholic Church (unlike just about any other church that I’ve heard of) knows the difference between what it teaches, what it just says, and what rules it enforces upon itself. The rule grew up (supported, but not required by Scripture) that bishops and priests should be unmarried. It is a rule imposed upon itself for certain reasons (again, both scriptural and social), but the Church doesn’t profess any "truth" to that ruling. When the Church decides questions of morality or faith – there are rules for how these things are decided. For example, the Personhood of the Holy Spirit – there were questions on that in the early Church and so a coucil was called, and the matter decided under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Abortion has been taught as immoral back to the time of the apostles. And there’s another part of the Catholic faith – that truth is not time dependant; if it was immoral in the first century, it is still immoral. Yet another question. One often hears about an individual quoting the bible to justify a certain ethical/moral position (e.g. homosexuality), but then someone else quotes some other part of the bible that is so patently absurd in a modern society (stoning your neighbor to death for mowing his lawn on a Sunday, or something along those lines) that it demonstrates that using biblical quotes is so fraught with contradictions that doing so merely smacks of self-serving selectivity. So, do such contradictions exist, and if they do, who gets to decide which ones are supposed to apply to modern society? I’m sure there aren’t any expiration clauses attached to teachings in the bible, or are there?
Jesus said "I will send the Holy Spirit to lead you to all truth, and to remind you of all I have said." Catholics believe the faith lives in the Church, that the Bible is part of it, but not the whole thing. The deposit of faith contains the Bible, the Bible doesn’t contain the whole deposit of faith handed down by the apostles (after all, the Church existed for 15-20 years before the first book of the NT was written, and almost 50 years before the last one was written). There are contradictions in the Bible (just read the first two chapters of Genisus, was humanity created first or last in the order of creation.) But the contradictions don’t matter too much because the Church does not read the Bible literally – we read it in context including the cultural context it was written in. Also, we have the example in Acts of Peter acting as interpreter of the Bible, so we have the Church to decide questions that arise. As to expiration clauses, yes. The Law (the rules of the Old Testatement) have been shown to be unable to save; they have been replaced by the Law of Love enacted by Jesus through His death and ressurrection. I read recently that the concept of the Pope being infallible is a fairly recent decision (late 1800s or so). How does something like that get decided? Was there something in the bible about papal infalibility that the church scholars missed all those years before the decision? Does infallibility apply retrospectively? That is, if a modern Pope is infallible, then weren’t all prior Popes also infallible, even if they didn’t realize it at the time? Aren’t there a lot of "pre-infallibility" edicts (or whatever you call them) made by early Popes that we now recognized as being patently absurd, and if so, what does that say about actual infallibility of the Pope?
Lots of questions. The definition of papal infallibility was made at Vatican I, but the question wasn’t raised before then. Until a question is raised, it can’t be answered 
If it’s an important enough question, a Church Council is called and the bishops decide the answer under the authority given by Jesus, and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. As to papal infallibility in the Bible – it is part of the infallibility given to the Church – "Who hears you, hears me", and the quote about the Holy Spirit given above. It is this infallibility of the Church in her job of going into all the world and preaching the Gospel. This infallibility applies only in matters of faith and morals, and yes, this is a definition of what was always there. I’ve heard that schollars have gone back through the words of the popes from the begining and have found only six instances of where the popes met the conditions for their words to be considered infallible. And none of them are patently absurd. After all, by definition, the pope only speaks infallibly when he addresses the whole Church as leader, and is speaking about a matter of faith or morals. Tom A.
Response:
These may be some really naive questions, but where in the bible does it say This is an odd way to start. What *has* to be in the *Bible*? Why? Who decides what the *Bible* is? These seem to be more fundamental questions than the *why isn’t x in the Bible* type.
I don’t understand your point. anything about a Pope Some Christians are offended that other Christians organize themselves and worship in ways that cannot be directly and unambiguously attributed to Jesus’ words in the New Testament (as defined by?). This is a strange problem that people create for themselves. Where in the *Bible* does Jesus say *Thou shalt only organize in the manner I presribe and all others forms of organization are false*? Or did He say *The Church I found shall never change or develop*? Or *My Church shall always be perfectly simple and *never* become elaborate in any way*? The Catholic answer is that the papacy we see now is a development of the Petrine office created by Jesus.
So, are you saying that there isn’t anything in the bible that is the basis for the Catholic church, but that it is based on this non-biblical "Petrine Office"? I’ve never heard of the Petrine Office. You say Jesus started this? Were there some sort of written records about how that helped people organize the church in accordance with what Jesus wanted? I thought the entire written history of Jesus’ teachings was all in the bible. I’ve never heard of any other record. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – and that faith has anything to do with the structure that exists in the catholic church? Do you believe in a *faith* that is utterly opposed to or at least totally unrelated to other people and the structures we use to elaborate our relationships with them? Did Jesus teach this? "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Matt 18:15-18 There you have it: structure, authority, established relationships; all from the First Century witnesses and attributed directly to Jesus Himself.
Wow! Are you saying that the entire structure of the Catholic church is predicated on this? I guess I can see where *a* church could be construed, but I don’t see where it specifies *the* church, and I don’t see where it dictates any particular structure nor any concept of the current hierarchy. I know very little about the structure of the catholic church other than it seems to be quite elaborate. What’s the basis for that structure? If the bible doesn’t define what it should be, does that mean that someone just made the whole thing up? This is a false choice. There are other possibilities, one of which is that the Church’s *elaboration* is an organic development of the primitive structures created by Jesus and His Apostles. Just as the zygote doesn’t look anything like the mature adult, yet has all those possibilites within it.
And so the "correctness" of this development is based on the many years of proper interpretation of what Jesus and his Apostles would have wanted? Are there sufficient teachings to actually justify what the church eventially became? Where are the records of that, and what do all of the non-Catholic Christian religions have to say about those records? If such records exist, I don’t see how they can justify their existence as church’s. Another question: It seems like the catholic church made some really, really major errors over the course of its history and that many if not most of them were based on what turned out to be interpretations of the bible and the edicts of the church that, in retrospect, were at best way off base and at worse a self-serving exercise of power. For someone who *doesn’t know much* you sure have a closet full of *information* you’re not sharing. Could you be more specific?
Not really, and I didn’t want to be specific because my point wasn’t to debate the details of any one event. I’m referring to things like persecution of people for saying that the Earth isn’t the center of the universe, the atrocities of the crusades (I’m not trying to start a Christina vs. Islam debate–I’m just making a point that some pretty awful things that were done in the name of Jesus), pretty much the whole dark ages, condoning the burning of Joan of Arc at the stake and then later "Sainting" her, things like that. How does anyone know whether what the catholic church authorities are saying now don’t fall in this same category? Without a living relationship with Jesus you can’t know. The whole exercise is futile: Jesus first, then His Church.
But doesn’t that contradict the authority of the Catholic church? It seems like you’re saying that the Catholic church might indeed be wrong and an individual would know it’s wrong because of a living relationship with Jesus. Isn’t that exactly what the Catholic church says you can’t do and the entire reason for the Protestant religions? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – That is, if someone looks back at what the church is saying now, how do we know that everyone in the future won’t recognize that current positions are as absurd as those we now recognize to have been major errors in the past? Some specifics on the *major errors* would be helpful. It’s difficult to read you mind over my connection. I hope to upgrade next year. Yet another question. One often hears about an individual quoting the bible to justify a certain ethical/moral position (e.g. homosexuality), but then someone else quotes some other part of the bible that is so patently absurd in a modern society (stoning your neighbor to death for mowing his lawn on a Sunday, or something along those lines) that it demonstrates that using biblical quotes is so fraught with contradictions that doing so merely smacks of self-serving selectivity. So, do such contradictions exist, and if they do, who gets to decide which ones are supposed to apply to modern society? I’m sure there aren’t any expiration clauses attached to teachings in the bible, or are there? Whoever defined the *Bible* for Christians is entitled to interpret it imho. Historically that would be the Catholic Church or so I would argue. (I love the stoning-people-for-mowing-lawns-on-Sunday bit. Maybe I could start a petition.) Seriously, not every word of the Bible has exactly the same *weight*. And weighing each word, phrase and so on is finally in the competence of the Church. If that Church is not founded by Christ or if He isn’t who He says He is, then this whole discussion is moot.
Another Wow! So the Catholic church has the competence to "weigh" teachings from the bible because it was founded by Christ? What are the guiding principles for the church’s weightings other than it’s origins? What you said sounds an awful lot like they have final authority simply because they say they should. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I read recently that the concept of the Pope being infallible is a fairly recent decision (late 1800s or so). How does something like that get decided? Was there something in the bible about papal infalibility that the church scholars missed all those years before the decision? Does infallibility apply retrospectively? That is, if a modern Pope is infallible, then weren’t all prior Popes also infallible, even if they didn’t realize it at the time? Aren’t there a lot of "pre-infallibility" edicts (or whatever you call them) made by early Popes that we now recognized as being patently absurd, and if so, what does that say about actual infallibility of the Pope? This seems to be a hypothetical problem for you. What if…? If Jesus is who He said He was; if He gave His authority to His Apostles and especially to Peter; if they, in turn, passed that authority on to their successors; then those successors have Jesus’ authority to decide questions for the faithful.
OK, fair enough. This infallibility is derived from the long line of succession from Jesus. Then the fact that one person inherits infallibility based on how a group of people happened to vote when a pope needs to be selected is, I guess, the product of some divine guidance? I’m not mocking what happens, I’m just trying to extend the concept you described to an interpretation of what the process is of bestowing infallibility upon a normal human. You didn’t address the main point: Are the any examples of a past pope making decisions of the faith that have been later recognized as off base? Maybe not? The history of the discussion of *papal* infallibility is far older and more interesting that your summary. Suffice it to say that the Church actually has some intellectual credendentials and has a coherent, logical understanding of it’s own teaching.
That doesn’t really say much. The church understands what it teaches. I would hope so! – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Briefly: the special infallibility of the petrine office (papacy) having been declared, the Church simultaneously and logically declared that it always existed. The first unabiguous use of this office recognized by all Catholics, including those
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Response:
These may be some really naive questions, but where in the bible does it say anything about a Pope and that faith has anything to do with the structure that exists in the catholic church? I know very little about the structure of the catholic church other than it seems to be quite elaborate. What’s the basis for that structure? If the bible doesn’t define what it should be, does that mean that someone just made the whole thing up? Another question: It seems like the catholic church made some really, really major errors over the course of its history and that many if not most of them were based on what turned out to be interpretations of the bible and the edicts of the church that, in retrospect, were at best way off base and at worse a self-serving exercise of power. How does anyone know whether what the catholic church authorities are saying now don’t fall in this same category? That is, if someone looks back at what the church is saying now, how do we know that everyone in the future won’t recognize that current positions are as absurd as those we now recognize to have been major errors in the past? Yet another question. One often hears about an individual quoting the bible to justify a certain ethical/moral position (e.g. homosexuality), but then someone else quotes some other part of the bible that is so patently absurd in a modern society (stoning your neighbor to death for mowing his lawn on a Sunday, or something along those lines) that it demonstrates that using biblical quotes is so fraught with contradictions that doing so merely smacks of self-serving selectivity. So, do such contradictions exist, and if they do, who gets to decide which ones are supposed to apply to modern society? I’m sure there aren’t any expiration clauses attached to teachings in the bible, or are there? I read recently that the concept of the Pope being infallible is a fairly recent decision (late 1800s or so). How does something like that get decided? Was there something in the bible about papal infalibility that the church scholars missed all those years before the decision? Does infallibility apply retrospectively? That is, if a modern Pope is infallible, then weren’t all prior Popes also infallible, even if they didn’t realize it at the time? Aren’t there a lot of "pre-infallibility" edicts (or whatever you call them) made by early Popes that we now recognized as being patently absurd, and if so, what does that say about actual infallibility of the Pope?
Response:
These may be some really naive questions, but where in the bible does it say
This is an odd way to start. What *has* to be in the *Bible*? Why? Who decides what the *Bible* is? These seem to be more fundamental questions than the *why isn’t x in the Bible* type. anything about a Pope
Some Christians are offended that other Christians organize themselves and worship in ways that cannot be directly and unambiguously attributed to Jesus’ words in the New Testament (as defined by?). This is a strange problem that people create for themselves. Where in the *Bible* does Jesus say *Thou shalt only organize in the manner I presribe and all others forms of organization are false*? Or did He say *The Church I found shall never change or develop*? Or *My Church shall always be perfectly simple and *never* become elaborate in any way*? The Catholic answer is that the papacy we see now is a development of the Petrine office created by Jesus. and that faith has anything to do with the structure that exists in the catholic church?
Do you believe in a *faith* that is utterly opposed to or at least totally unrelated to other people and the structures we use to elaborate our relationships with them? Did Jesus teach this? "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Matt 18:15-18 There you have it: structure, authority, established relationships; all from the First Century witnesses and attributed directly to Jesus Himself. I know very little about the structure of the catholic church other than it seems to be quite elaborate. What’s the basis for that structure? If the bible doesn’t define what it should be, does that mean that someone just made the whole thing up?
This is a false choice. There are other possibilities, one of which is that the Church’s *elaboration* is an organic development of the primitive structures created by Jesus and His Apostles. Just as the zygote doesn’t look anything like the mature adult, yet has all those possibilites within it. Another question: It seems like the catholic church made some really, really major errors over the course of its history and that many if not most of them were based on what turned out to be interpretations of the bible and the edicts of the church that, in retrospect, were at best way off base and at worse a self-serving exercise of power.
For someone who *doesn’t know much* you sure have a closet full of *information* you’re not sharing. Could you be more specific? How does anyone know whether what the catholic church authorities are saying now don’t fall in this same category?
Without a living relationship with Jesus you can’t know. The whole exercise is futile: Jesus first, then His Church. That is, if someone looks back at what the church is saying now, how do we know that everyone in the future won’t recognize that current positions are as absurd as those we now recognize to have been major errors in the past?
Some specifics on the *major errors* would be helpful. It’s difficult to read you mind over my connection. I hope to upgrade next year. Yet another question. One often hears about an individual quoting the bible to justify a certain ethical/moral position (e.g. homosexuality), but then someone else quotes some other part of the bible that is so patently absurd in a modern society (stoning your neighbor to death for mowing his lawn on a Sunday, or something along those lines) that it demonstrates that using biblical quotes is so fraught with contradictions that doing so merely smacks of self-serving selectivity. So, do such contradictions exist, and if they do, who gets to decide which ones are supposed to apply to modern society? I’m sure there aren’t any expiration clauses attached to teachings in the bible, or are there?
Whoever defined the *Bible* for Christians is entitled to interpret it imho. Historically that would be the Catholic Church or so I would argue. (I love the stoning-people-for-mowing-lawns-on-Sunday bit. Maybe I could start a petition.) Seriously, not every word of the Bible has exactly the same *weight*. And weighing each word, phrase and so on is finally in the competence of the Church. If that Church is not founded by Christ or if He isn’t who He says He is, then this whole discussion is moot. I read recently that the concept of the Pope being infallible is a fairly recent decision (late 1800s or so). How does something like that get decided? Was there something in the bible about papal infalibility that the church scholars missed all those years before the decision? Does infallibility apply retrospectively? That is, if a modern Pope is infallible, then weren’t all prior Popes also infallible, even if they didn’t realize it at the time? Aren’t there a lot of "pre-infallibility" edicts (or whatever you call them) made by early Popes that we now recognized as being patently absurd, and if so, what does that say about actual infallibility of the Pope?
This seems to be a hypothetical problem for you. What if…? If Jesus is who He said He was; if He gave His authority to His Apostles and especially to Peter; if they, in turn, passed that authority on to their successors; then those successors have Jesus’ authority to decide questions for the faithful. The history of the discussion of *papal* infallibility is far older and more interesting that your summary. Suffice it to say that the Church actually has some intellectual credendentials and has a coherent, logical understanding of it’s own teaching. Briefly: the special infallibility of the petrine office (papacy) having been declared, the Church simultaneously and logically declared that it always existed. The first unabiguous use of this office recognized by all Catholics, including those who demur from this teaching, is the papal declaration of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in 1854. What’s interested about this is that it is sixteen years *before* the Vatican I Council recognized papal infallibility per se. That a pope, fulfilling the criteria recognized by the Vatican I, has taught error in the past is a simple refutation of the Council’s teaching. Do you have an example? — The people who hanged Christ never…accused Him of being a bore…It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering person- ality…as a fitting household pet… Dorothy L. Sayers, Creed or Chaos?
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These may be some really naive questions, but where in the bible does it say anything about a Pope and that faith has anything to do with the structure that exists in the catholic church? I know very little about the structure of the catholic church other than it seems to be quite elaborate. What’s the basis for that structure? If the bible doesn’t define what it should be, does that mean that someone just made the whole thing up?
You are under the misconception that the Bible contains the complete and sole sum of revealed truth. You’ll have to show me where in the Bible it says that everything is in the Bible. Catholics don’t follow the Bible, we follow the Apostles (much like they did immediately after Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascention into heaven. Many "Bible Christians" seem to think that the Bible dropped bound from heaven about 1500AD. The short answer is: You don’t find it in the Bible. So what? Another question: It seems like the catholic church made some really, really major errors over the course of its history and that many if not most of them were based on what turned out to be interpretations of the bible and the edicts of the church that, in retrospect, were at best way off base and at worse a self-serving exercise of power. How does anyone know whether what the catholic church authorities are saying now don’t fall in this same category? That is, if someone looks back at what the church is saying now, how do we know that everyone in the future won’t recognize that current positions are as absurd as those we now recognize to have been major errors in the past?
The interesting part about all of this is that God reveals His Truth to us in His time. That means that errors are correctable as God reveals more of His Truth to us. Yet another question. One often hears about an individual quoting the bible to justify a certain ethical/moral position (e.g. homosexuality), but then someone else quotes some other part of the bible that is so patently absurd in a modern society (stoning your neighbor to death for mowing his lawn on a Sunday, or something along those lines) that it demonstrates that using biblical quotes is so fraught with contradictions that doing so merely smacks of self-serving selectivity. So, do such contradictions exist, and if they do, who gets to decide which ones are supposed to apply to modern society? I’m sure there aren’t any expiration clauses attached to teachings in the bible, or are there?
This is why we have 2000 years of Biblical scholarship helping us to interpret these so-called "inconsistencies". We don’t run into the same problem that people who interpret their own Bible (already translated with the translator’s biases) to determine the Truth. That’s why we come up with one truth, and other Christians come up with 33,000 different "Truths". (If you think about it, 32,999 of those contradicting truths have to be wrong.) I read recently that the concept of the Pope being infallible is a fairly recent decision (late 1800s or so). How does something like that get decided? Was there something in the bible about papal infalibility that the church scholars missed all those years before the decision? Does infallibility apply retrospectively? That is, if a modern Pope is infallible, then weren’t all prior Popes also infallible, even if they didn’t realize it at the time? Aren’t there a lot of "pre-infallibility" edicts (or whatever you call them) made by early Popes that we now recognized as being patently absurd, and if so, what does that say about actual infallibility of the Pope?
It gets decided by an Ecumenical Council, just like all Catholic Dogma. And the Pope has always been infallible, we just had it revealed to us by Almighty God fairly recently. Many misunderstand infallibility. If the Pope likes Raisin Bran, it doesn’t automatically become the official breakfast cereal of the Catholic Church. Infallibility only applies to matters of faith and morals. Also, "infallibility" (ex-cathedra pronouncement) has only been invoked twice in the history of the Church. If you’re interested, I’ll tell you which two those were. -Tony — For fairly troll free Catholic discussion, join on the web at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/romancatholic/ "Rome has spoken, the debate is ended." — St. Augustine
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