- seigneur
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Re: What is marriage? Is the Pope errant?
Alexander wrote:
Well, how about "the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth"? That sums up the locus of authority for most Catholics.
Why do you say this by quoting scripture? Maybe because scripture has authority?
Er... I wasn't quoting scripture. Sure, I was alluding to that line, but what I wrote is not a quotation, and was intended merely as an encapsulation of what Catholics believe about the Church.
If you weren't quoting 1 Timothy 3:15, then you are not saying anything authoritative in the relevant sense. If you are merely repeating what Catholicism teaches, you are being circular and question-begging.
So while we could go into scriptural niceties (well, maybe you could - I'm no theologian), it seems a little unnecessary. I also wasn't referring to the church in Rome, but rather the Catholic (i.e. universal) Church, so a few of your other arguments are entirely irrelevant.
And the supposedly universal Church you are talking about, it has no pope? If it has, then it is the same church all along.
Non-papist Christians make a clear distinction between the Church of Rome and the universal church. Catholics do so in words, sometimes, never in reality.
If you think the papal authority has been abused, you might be correct, but you will have to give reasons to believe for any particular case (1) that you are correct, and (2) that it matters - because, except in pronouncements ex cathedra, the Pope is fallible, so it is entirely consistent with the truth of Catholicism that papal authority has been abused. As, at times, I believe it has.
If you meant your last words seriously here, then I am clearly correct. Except, I see, it doesn't matter to you.
If the pope is really fallible, then the doctrine of infallibility is pointless. And as I have indicated, within the infallibly defined doctrines there are things, such as the Marian dogmas, that have no support other than from the pope. How can these doctrines be true? Unless you now make a distinction between infallible things and true things...
Again, I don't know why you keep mentioning that some doctrine "caused trouble" or was "hotly contested", since this is probably true of every doctrine ever taught by anyone. Either give a reason why we should go with your side of the controversy, or don't mention the controversy at all.
The point is of course to see if, for you, there exists a standard other than the fallible pope to settle a doctrinal controversy. The answer is rather clear by now.
The most depressing part of this discussion is your repeated claims with no substance to back them up. If the Popes contradicted scripture, give the contradictions, don't just say "the Popes contradicted scripture, as should be obvious". If it were obvious, I wouldn't be Catholic.
Should we re-enact the entire Reformation? That would be depressing indeed, even if it were only for the theological part, not the political part.
But perhaps the worst is the historical part. History is written by the winners, they say. Reformation won, but Catholics don't acknowledge it, so we have two incompatible versions of history. Which is why I'd prefer to have a discussion on scriptural basis, but I'm getting only Catholic historico-political indoctrination in return, which is rather question-begging. A case in point,
I also note you did not actually respond to my point that asking a non-Protestant how anyone can fail to accept sola scriptura is a little silly.
I never said anything about sola scriptura. On your part, you evidently don't permit scripture to have much place in this discussion. Thus you will forever be arguing from sola ecclesia, which means papacy alone, which is specific to Catholicism, not universal to Christianity.
(4) "church" in terms of "congregation" doesn't even come close to being a rival concept to "Church" as I tend to use it here, though it is certainly a different concept (the Oratory of St Phillip Neri is "a church" in your sense, which differs from the sense in which the Catholic Church is "a church").
And you don't see the importance of the difference? Congregations are ruled by elders, not by the pope. The original NT church at large (Church in your sense) was administered by all the apostles, not by Peter alone. Do the congregations set up by Paul have less validity? After the apostles, only the elders remain, with the instruction they received from the apostles. And that instruction is the New Testament, no? Unless one of us claims to be God-inspired right now over the other one...
But I don't see why the Scripture should be considered to explicitly hold all; that is, why all that cannot be explicitly taken from the Scripture is to be rejected, even if very well supported by the sources mentioned.
The questions are: What if the doctrine being promulgated has nothing to do with the scripture (as opposed to not explicitly in it)? And what if it has no pragmatic value either? And, again, what other sources are there besides scripture? If you say Christ or Holy Spirit, then that seems to be in the scripture, whereas the pope isn't.
- Jeremy Taylor
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Re: What is marriage? Is the Pope errant?
The questions are: What if the doctrine being promulgated has nothing to do with the scripture (as opposed to not explicitly in it)? And what if it has no pragmatic value either? And, again, what other sources are there besides scripture? If you say Christ or Holy Spirit, then that seems to be in the scripture, whereas the pope isn't.
The other sources are the sacred tradition of the Church, the early Fathers, the Councils and teaching authority of the Church. We only have the Scripture because of these sources. The canon comes from them. It is they who preserved it and defined it. It doesn't make much sense to make the Scriptures the sole judge of the tradition of which it is a part. I think we can also give some authority to the unfolding of implicit doctrine by the Church, especially the Ecumenical Councils and Fathers.
I do not know if there is any doctrine subsequently revealed that was not revealed by Christ, but I do think it may well be the case that some doctrines were implicit or not discursively developed that have been so since. The Nicene Creed, for example, can be shown to be based on implicit statements in Scripture and the early Fathers, but is not explicitly so. Whether there is not sometimes something lost in this process of unfolding (whether some of the profundity of spiritual truths cannot be captured in the formulas of dogmatic theology), whatever pragmatic benefits it has for many, is another matter.
- seigneur
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Re: What is marriage? Is the Pope errant?
There is a pretty obvious distinction between "the universal Church, with a head honcho in Rome" and "the particular Church you find in Rome".
Correct, but here it's clear how we are making the distinction in a totally different way. The way you express it, whether universal or particular, the church must be in Rome and nowhere else. The way I mean "the universal church," it is either papist or congregationalist, regardless where the pope resides.
What I am saying is that the universal church as described in NT is congregationalist, deciding disputes in council of elders, not by papal bull.
There's certainly nothing in the Bible that denies a universal Church with the successor of Peter at its (Earthly) head, even if you don't believe scripture so much as suggests such a view.
Assuming that scripture suggests Peter as the earthly head of the church, there's the further question whether it suggests that residence must be in Rome and not, say, in Antioch. But of course, scripture doesn't place Peter's residence in Rome. Nor does history. Tradition does.
You are, I believe, correct in some cases - papal authority has been abused, there have been wicked popes. I deny that this is an argument against any point of Catholic doctrine, and the burden is on you to show that it is.
Abuse of papal authority that involves statements ex cathedra would disprove the doctrine of papal infallibility, wouldn't it? My point is that if there's abuse of papal authority (which you admit), then there's logically chance of abuse of papal authority involving statements ex cathedra. You may deny that the latter ever occurred, but the former types of abuses are bad enough, e.g. popes accusing each other of heresy is bad enough. It's not a healthy church when popes ban each other and there's no other authority to correct them.
And the additional problem, which I have mentioned before, is that the doctrine of papal infallibility was promulgated rather late in church history, long after the worst abuses, so if the doctrine is to be interpreted retroactively, the question arises whether it is intended to excuse the abuses or not. If yes, it's a moral problem that the Roman Church has taken on itself. If not, then the Roman Church keeps changing itself along the way, evolving via "new light" like Jehovah's Witnesses.
Either way, you miss a crucial point: whether or not you are correct - whether or not I even disagree with you - you aren't backing up your side of the argument, which seriously damages your credibility.
Back up how? By RC doctrine or by historical facts? If I don't accept the former and you don't accept the latter and you also reject the scripture as arbiter between us, then your charge is irrelevant.
You are going in circles. "If the pope is fallible, the doctrine of infallibility is pointless". I've already laid out the doctrine of infallibility, and it fairly clearly has meaning given normal papal fallibility. The doctrine, as defined, can only apply in very specific situations.
Not just specific situations, but in so narrowly limited situations that the doctrine is irrelevant, and the word "infallibility" given "normal fallibility" as you put it makes it an ambiguous (at best) or self-contradictory doctrine. Plus it's an unscriptural doctrine. Church is better without such doctrines. And lo and behold, the church in fact survived most of its history without this doctrine. These are some of the reasons why it's a pointless doctrine.
As for the Marian doctrines, I would again deny that they have "no support other than from the pope" - though I couldn't trace the precise history, I am aware of the doctrines in question existing for a long time before the infallible declaration of their truth.
So here we see your standard of backing up your side of the argument. Are you saying I am performing worse than this in terms of backing up my arguments?
The Marian doctrines most likely come from the Infancy Gospel of James. It remains a mystery why Rome never made it part of scripture while promulgating its teachings. But again, Rome dogmatised these doctrines so late that it makes the whole Marian business doubtful.
But even if they had no support apart from papal authority, that isn't by itself an argument against those doctrines. An analogy: If a man asks me "how can the virgin birth of Christ have occurred, since it has no support apart from scripture?" I will rightly respond that he has set up the question so as to assume that scripture has no authority, and is close to begging the question against the virgin birth.
One who denies papal authority is a non-papist. One who denies biblical authority is a non-Christian. For you there is no difference between the two, but for me there is.
In all seriousness, a Papal statement is not the normal method of settling doctrinal controversy, as the history of the Church makes plain. Conciliar decrees seem more common with serious doctrinal issues.
Are conciliar decrees insufficient so that the doctrine of papal infallibility is needed? If yes, then were councils insufficient all along or only since the year the doctrine of papal infallibility was promulgated? If all along, then why was the doctrine of papal infallibility only formulated at the point when it was, and not since the beginning? Etc. As you see, the doctrine only raises a Pandora's box of problems and is hopelessly unhelpful in answering them.
I genuinely don't know whether it is true that the majority of Christians became Protestant after the Reformation.
Why would this be relevant? When I said that Reformation won, I didn't mean that the majority of Christians became Protestant. I meant that the pope became practically, logically, and scripturally rejectable for Christians. The same way as from your point of view (assuming you are a devoted Roman Catholic) it's question-begging when I reject papal authority, from my point of view it's question-begging when you presuppose papal authority. The victory of Reformation was to make Christianity without the pope possible and to make scripture arbiter in matters of dispute and final authority in matters of dogma. Reformation gave the Bible back its proper place in Christianity, I'd say. Even though, I may point out, Christianity without the pope was always possible, in places like Byzantium, Middle East, Armenia, Ethiopia, etc. Reformation had to occur to enable Europeans to put papism into perspective.
As for the rest: I do not believe in "sola ecclesia" (whatever that would mean, since pointing beyond herself is basically the whole purpose of the Church), nor could I equate the Church with the Pope. So your points are (what is becoming a frustrating theme) based entirely on a lack of understanding of Catholic beliefs.
Sola ecclesia means allowing church to define dogmas beyond and in contradiction to scripture. The obvious examples are the doctrine of papal infallibility and the Marian dogmas.
If I can make a suggestion: please clarify what debate you want to have. It started with "does an error on the part of the Pope disprove papal infallibility?" and now seems to have become a question about sola scripture, and what authorities are recognised by Catholics.
Is disputing papal infallibility somehow different from disputing Catholic authority? Maybe if you presuppose that disputing papal infallibility amounts to disputing all things Christian, if you reject the view that there is any legitimate Christianity without the pope.
From some things you have written, it might really be a question of "is the role of the Pope, as Catholics see it, consistent with scripture?" Or it could be something else entirely. I honestly don't know.
Could be that Catholics have as little understanding of Protestant perspective as Protestants have of Catholic perspective, so any accusation of lack of understanding provides no basis for pragmatic progress in the discussion. Just saying.
The questions are: What if the doctrine being promulgated has nothing to do with the scripture (as opposed to not explicitly in it)? And what if it has no pragmatic value either? And, again, what other sources are there besides scripture? If you say Christ or Holy Spirit, then that seems to be in the scripture, whereas the pope isn't.
The other sources are the sacred tradition of the Church, the early Fathers, the Councils and teaching authority of the Church.
Would that involve any of those things to go against scripture, as in case of the doctrine of papal infallibility and the Marian dogmas? If yes, on what basis?
We only have the Scripture because of these sources. The canon comes from them. It is they who preserved it and defined it. It doesn't make much sense to make the Scriptures the sole judge of the tradition of which it is a part. I think we can also give some authority to the unfolding of implicit doctrine by the Church, especially the Ecumenical Councils and Fathers.
All fine and dandy, except for Roman Catholics there seems to be somewhat of an equal sign between historical Christianity as you lay out here and Roman Catholicism. Why would that be? Is it really so, historically? Did Nicaean council need the pope (as Pope the Infallible, not as Bishop of Rome equal to other bishops)? Are Orthodox and Protestant churches not Christian?
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Thread Starter- Jeremy Taylor
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Re: What is marriage? Is the Pope errant?
I am sceptical of the claims of the Roman Church myself. I don't, though, see where most are flatly and definitively contrary to Scripture. Generally, like the claims of post-Hildebrand papacy to absolute primacy, the claims just seem unsupported, not contradicted, by Scripture and the other important early sources.