Craig represents the Mere Christianity approach, proudly so. This approach looks for the least common denominator to include as much of Christendom as possible. Usually that ends up with too much.

A more consistent approach would be to determine what doctrines are fundamental and what are not in order to distinguish false teachers from true ones. While this is more in line with the scripture, it is extremely difficult to follow through in practice, because you need actual procedures to exclude pastors/denominations from the fold and a protocol for when they have been excluded.

And, all along, everybody will disagree on the actual list of the fundamentals. The list better be short so as to avoid complications, but when short, it will be rather trying for Christian patience to tolerate whatever is not on the list - because whatever is not on the list of the fundamentals is not fundamental and non-fundamental disagreements must be tolerated.

One aspect that makes Catholicism fundamentally problematic is that it overstretches the list of fundamentals (called dogmas), such as including the Marian dogmas and papal infallibility which have no foundation. This already makes it questionable what exactly catholics are worshipping and based on what or on whose authority.

Not sure if the Mere Christianity approach can detect that as a serious difference and yield a program on how to treat the difference. Simple Christianity and watered down Christianity are not the same. Watered down Christianity would not even be Christianity.

Craig's Christianity still is Christianity, but more of a philosophically informed kind, instead of scripturally inspired kind. Some day one might have to draw a sharper line between these two kinds too.

Last edited by seigneur (10/05/2018 3:41 am)

Charlie,

You might find some of the Reformation disputes over the "rule of faith" interesting. Catholics tend to be massively overrepresented on here, to the point that a lot of protestants' arguments get completely ignored (e.g. Calvin's point about circularity arising from the Church deriving its authority from certain passages in the bible). I know we have protestant members, but they seem to have been cowed into silence.

My own view is that the dispute over the "rule of faith" amounts to variations on the old Pyrrhonian problem of the criterion and that neither Catholic nor protestant, ultimately, succeeds in blocking every argument against them.

"Protestantism was probably brought about by G-d explicitly to present Catholicism with the same charges and attitude that Catholicism had been showing to Judaism for fifteen hundred years. Protestantism's arguments against Catholicism are identical to Catholicism's arguments against Judaism; Judaism's answers to Catholicism are identical to Catholicism's answers to Protestantism. In other words -- Catholicism preaches Protestantism to Jews and Judaism to Protestants."

A Primer on Fundamentalist Protestants
 

And the obvious catholic retort simply asserts what it has to prove. Does this sound like a "man-made innovation":

If a matter eludes you in judgment, between blood and blood, between judgment and judgment, or between lesion and lesion, words of dispute in your cities, then you shall rise and go up to the place the L-rd, your G-d, chooses. And you shall come to the Levitic kohanim and to the judge who will be in those days, and you shall inquire, and they will tell you the words of judgment. And you shall do according to the word they tell you, from the place the L-rd will choose, and you shall observe to do according to all they instruct you. According to the law they instruct you and according to the judgment they say to you, you shall do; you shall not divert from the word they tell you, either right or left. (Deuteronomy 17:8-11)

It sounds like a G-d-made innovation. HaShem is explicitly giving someone the authority to interpret Torah Law (like a Mosaic equivalent of the Apostolic Church). Wouldn't wise judges compare case X with similar cases? That's how courts work. The Divine Standard is the Torah; a specific group of judges are given the authority to interpret it. Wouldn't this necessarily involve something akin to innovations? "Case X1 differs from case X and case X2, so X1 is judged differently." Am I supposed to believe this is illigitimate, or intrinsically unlike the Eternal Catholic Church passing its never-changing [sic] judgments?   

In general, it helps to have some understanding of the Pharisee's side, rather than accepting the new testament's vicious slander as truth. Repeating lies doesn't make them true, not even after thousands of years.

***
Relevant to the thread: Why Do Catholics & Protestants Pretend It's One or the Other?

The Zionist Conspirator wrote:

Most of the things Protestants associate with Roman Catholicism are common to all the ancient historical churches that existed and continue to exist in the original chrstian heartland and the original chrstian ethnic groups.
 
There are at present four ancient historical liturgical traditions. Catholicism (both Roman and Eastern) are only one of those four. The other three are Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Nestorianism. Every one of these ancient churches has a priesthood, the sacraments, "the holy sacrifice," bishops who are venerated, rituals, rites, ceremonials, and of course good works, since every one of them pre-existed the Reformation invention known as penal substitution.
 
I'm sorry, but monks did not suddenly appear from nowhere in the mountains of Ethiopia in 313 because of Constantine. All the ancient manuscripts are products of these ancient communities and are written in their languages.
 
The Armenian Church became a state church in 301, seventeen years before chrstianity was so much as legalized in the Roman Empire (it didn't become the official Roman state religion till much later in the fourth century). The Armenian Church is not Protestant.
 
There were already monks and nuns long before Constantine. The pre-Constantinian Egyptians started monasticism. The Egyptians were also praying to Mary in the third century (before Constantine).
 
The apostle Thomas is supposed to have founded the chrstian community in southwestern India in the year 52. Guess what? When they were discovered by the rest of the world in the fifteenth century they had sacraments, priests, rituals, commandments, "the holy sacrifice"--the whole schmeer. There are Protestants among them now, but only because they were planted there after the Reformation.
 
I grew up believing the "Constantine founded baptized heathenism" thing too, but history simply does not bear this out. There is absolutely no record of there being anything even remotely similar to a Protestant church in the ancient, pre-Constantinian world. I'm sorry. It's not there. The only reason so many people believe it is because they are convinced the "new testament" was meant to contain absolutely everything one would ever need to know--a blatant and unexamined assumption. It is thus held for purely dogmatic reasons, and although I hope everyone understands that I respect dogmas and dogmatism, this is simply a dogma that began in the sixteenth century.
 
Still, both Catholics and Protestants like to pretend it's either one of them or the other. ... While the ancient churches have far fewer "denominations" than radical Fundamentalist Protestantism, they still have four of them, each of which makes perfect sense until you listen to one of the others.

Last edited by 119 (10/13/2018 3:10 am)