Catholic vs. Protestant – why is there so much animosity?"

[Goatee]

I once tried on a pair of protestant glasses. They were very blurry and cloudy. They failed to let me see into the past. They only let me see from the time of Luther! They skewed scripture too. They edited scripture and miraculously removed sections of the Bible!

Was I glad to remove them!

 

[seeking.IAM]

Not when the differences are over distinctives which members are bound to hold to but which are not manifest in the inspired record of what the NT church believed. Meanwhile, despite tribal divisions, embracing each other as brothers and sisters in Christ is actually what evangelicals manifest overall, as seen in the many ministries staffed by a variety of such, and even in church hopping.

So what are the Christian groups worthy and unworthy of your fellowship? It sounds like you have thought it out pretty well and have the definitive list.

 

[PeaceByJesus]

Yes, I am a Jehovah’s Witness secretly masking myself as a Catholic. Your brilliant investigative work has finally exposed me.

Yet both RCs and so-called "JWs" look to leadership as possessing ensured veracity which it is be implicitly submitted to, and thus boast of their unity (and they beat you in that), so at least you have that in common.

 

[PeaceByJesus]

But it is found in Scriptures, in the Gospel of John, from our Lord's own Holy lips. What is not in Scripture is the teaching that Scripture is the highest authority.

Wrong. What is not found in Scripture is the novel and unScriptural premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility, and John 16 does not teach it despite egregious ecclesiastical extrapolation, nor was it ever needed or possessed in that sense in Scripture, though judicial authority is.

But what is manifest is that of Scripture being the highest authority, to which even the veracity of apostolic preaching was subject to testing by. (ACts 17:11)

First, writing is God's chosen means of reliable preservation of authoritative Truth:

• And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book.. (Exodus 17:14)
• And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. (Exodus 34:27)
• And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing.. (Deuteronomy 10:4)
• And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites: (Deuteronomy 17:18)
• And thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law,..(Deuteronomy 27:3)
• And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, (Deuteronomy 31:24)
• Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever: (Isaiah 30:8; cf. Job 19:23)
• But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name. (John 20:31)
• And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. (Revelation 20:12)
• And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:15)

And thus it was not because of faithful oral transmission being and effectually preserving the word among people, but it was in the absence of this that the king of Israel ripped his clothes in repentance over upon the hearing of the written word, this being the standard for obedience and testing Truth claims, upon which the NT church established its claims.

And Shaphan the scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes. (2 Kings 22:10-11)

Go ye, enquire of the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found: for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is written concerning us. (2 Kings 22:13)
For as is abundantly evidenced, the word of God/the Lord was normally written, even if sometimes first being spoken, and that as written, Scripture became the transcendent supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the wholly Divinely inspired and assured, Word of God.

 

[PeaceByJesus]

But it is found in Scriptures, in the Gospel of John, from our Lord's own Holy lips. What is not in Scripture is the teaching that Scripture is the highest authority.

Wrong. What is not found in Scripture is the novel and unScriptural premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility, and John 16 does not teach it despite egregious ecclesiastical extrapolation, nor was it ever needed or possessed in that sense in Scripture, though judicial authority is.

But what is manifest is that of Scripture being the highest authority, to which even the veracity of apostolic preaching was subject to testing by. (ACts 17:11)

First, writing is God's chosen means of reliable preservation of authoritative Truth:

• And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book.. (Exodus 17:14)
• And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. (Exodus 34:27)
• And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing.. (Deuteronomy 10:4)
• And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites: (Deuteronomy 17:18)
• And thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law,..(Deuteronomy 27:3)
• And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, (Deuteronomy 31:24)
• Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever: (Isaiah 30:8; cf. Job 19:23)
• But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name. (John 20:31)
• And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. (Revelation 20:12)
• And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:15)

And thus it was not because of faithful oral transmission being and effectually preserving the word among people, but it was in the absence of this that the king of Israel ripped his clothes in repentance over upon the hearing of the written word, this being the standard for obedience and testing Truth claims, upon which the NT church established its claims.

And Shaphan the scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes. (2 Kings 22:10-11)

Go ye, enquire of the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found: for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is written concerning us. (2 Kings 22:13)
For as is abundantly evidenced, the word of God/the Lord was normally written, even if sometimes first being spoken, and that as written, Scripture became the transcendent supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the wholly Divinely inspired and assured, Word of God.

 

[PeaceByJesus]

Hmm. The belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist goes back well before those dates. And the Catholic Church did not define the canon of Scripture until after those dates. Your argument fails.

Wrong The Catholic belief in the Real Presence (apparently originally an Anglican term is not what is manifest in the only wholly inspired record of what the NT church believed (including how they understood the gospels). See here to save typing, by the grace of God.

 

[PeaceByJesus]

The critical Truth found in the Bible is accessible only by the teaching of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit guides the True Church, as indicated in Scripture, and is present in this Church: .

That is what the other contestant here for the coveted title of the One True Church , versus the Orthodox Church.

►Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam: “We declare, say, define, and pronounce [ex cathedra] that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”

"If, therefore, the Greeks or others say that they are not committed to Peter and to his successors, they necessarily say that they are not of the sheep of Christ, since the Lord says that there is only one fold and one shepherd (Jn.10:16). Whoever, therefore, resists this authority, resists the command of God Himself. " — Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam (Promulgated November 18, 1302) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/b8-unam.html

►Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ no man can be or remain who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors. Did not the ancestors of those who are now entangled in the errors of Photius [the eastern “Orthodox” schismatics] and the reformers, obey the Bishop of Rome, the chief shepherd of souls?...Let none delude himself with obstinate wrangling. For life and salvation are here concerned...” Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, PTC:873) The Promotion of True Religious Unity)

Few Catholics realize that Eastern Orthodoxy, especially as represented by Palamite theology, represents a systematic and comprehensive attack upon Catholic doctrine. Catholic and Orthodox theology are not only in opposition to one another in their understanding of God (theology), but also in the various disciplines of philosophy – in Cosmology, Psychology, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Theodicy, and Ethics. They posit radically different views of God, of man, and of the relationship between God and His creation. Finally, and very crucially, they embrace radically different views of the final destiny of man. In this respect they both employ the concept of "deification", but possess very different understandings of what this term signifies. - http://www.waragainstbeing.com/partiii[Traditionalist]

What other Church is there that has existed from the beginning, and which has not overthrown the teaching authority of the Holy Spirit and replaced it with some other, whether it be the infallible papal office held by fallible men, or infallible Scripture being read and interpreted by fallible men?

But according to RCs, history is whatever they say it is:

It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine...

I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity. It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness. Its past is present with it, for both are one to a mind which is immutable. Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves. — Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, “The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation,” (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, reprinted with no date), pp. 227-228

Yet as said, both hold to distinctives which are not manifest in the only wholly inspired substantive record of what the NT church believed.

There is a Church that is the "pillar and foundation the of Truth" (1 Timothy 3:15).

And so I dare you to prove to us from the few Greek words in that text that this means that the visible (place title here____Church) is uniquely the wholly inspired infallible source and authority on Truth, above Scripture, and not beholden to Scripture for its authority, but superior to it.

This is so whether we accept it or not. It is not the Roman church with her pernicious, "logos biased" deviations from Holy Tradition, nor it's daughter: the widely scattered and doctrinally diverse protestant church along with its many and varied sectarian offshoots.

You mean you dare say

The Orthodox Church opposes the Roman doctrines of universal papal jurisdiction, papal infallibility, purgatory, and the Immaculate Conception precisely because they are untraditional." - Orthodox apologist and author Clark Carlton: THE WAY: What Every Protestant Should Know About the Orthodox Church, 1997, p 135.

Roman Catholicism, unable to show a continuity of faith and in order to justify new doctrine, erected in the last century, a theory of "doctrinal development." Following the philosophical spirit of the time (and the lead of Cardinal Henry Newman), Roman Catholic theologians began to define and teach the idea that Christ only gave us an "original deposit" of faith, a "seed," which grew and matured through the centuries...

On this basis, theories such as the dogmas of "papal infallibility" and "the immaculate conception" of the Virgin Mary (about which we will say more) are justifiably presented to the Faithful as necessary to their salvation. - ORTHODOXY AND ROMAN CATHOLICISM

This is not denominational superiority, or Orthodox triumphalism. Rather, it is the gift of God and the keeping of His promise to send the Holy Spirit to lead us into all Truth

Which is just what they say, with both claiming this text means they can declare that this is what this text means, and that it means just that, because it means they cannot be wrong.

However, all this is refuted in the light of the status that the written word came to have, as show by God's grace.

 

[PeaceByJesus]

You have all of the Sacraments. That is certainly worth being grateful for.

How do you know that the Orthodox Church has held fast to Tradition? Your Protestant friends certainly do not agree.

Neither do you agree, with the difference being it is not because we claim to be popes with the the novel and unScriptural premise of ensured perpetual infallibility, but based upon what ee see manifest (and not manifest) in the only wholly inspired record of what the NT church believed (including how they understood the gospels).

 

[PeaceByJesus]

I know that the Orthodox Church has been kept in Truth by the Holy Spirit because 1 Corinthians 2 defines us, and is confirmed within me by the power of God. .

That is so much esoteric ecclesiastical effluence as an argument, for 1 Corinthians 2 simply affirms the guidance of the Spirit, but does not establish one claimant as having it, including in a unique degree, and which every cult will claim. Instead, we are enjoined ot "try the spirits, whether they are of God," (1Jn. 4:1) and the means of doing by noble mean is by that which is written, and thus Scriptural substantiation in word and in power is what the Lord and His Church established their Truth claims upon thanks be to God.

 

[PeaceB]

Neither do you agree, with the difference being it is not because we claim to be popes with the the novel and unScriptural premise of ensured perpetual infallibility, but based upon what ee see manifest (and not manifest) in the only wholly inspired record of what the NT church believed (including how they understood the gospels).

What?

 

[Goatee]

It's amazing how non-Catholic always attack the church without any true knowledge. They throw darts aimlessly.

I hope that God will enlighten them and bring them over to Catholicism. The true church of Christ

 

[Albion]

It's amazing how non-Catholic always attack the church without any true knowledge.

It's no more amazing than that Catholics will almost always use that same excuse, even on
non-Catholics who know more about the Catholic Church than the Catholic loyalists do.

 

[PeaceByJesus]

PeaceByJesus said: ↑
That is just one of the many examples of variant beliefs among RCs. One most weighty than thee concedes that reason, as in personal judgment, is actually the means by which a souls converts to Rome, even though it is also fallaciously held that one cannot assuredly ascertain what is of God except by an act of faith in "The Church."

Therefore in attempting to persuade souls to converts while avoiding circular reasoning, Scripture is appealed to as a merely accurate historical document as it is allowed that while souls can recognize "The Church" therein, yet they cannot ascertain what Scripture consists of and means apart from faith in her.

But after conversion, a faithful RC is not to ascertain the veracity of RC teaching by examination of evidences (for that reason). For to do so would be to doubt the claims of Rome to be the assuredly infallible magisterium by which a RC obtains assurance of Truth.

But which is not how the church began.

Could someone in the forum please translate this into something comprehensible?

If you cannot comprehend this then what are doing here?

 

[PeaceByJesus]

PeaceB said: ↑

You have all of the Sacraments. That is certainly worth being grateful for.

How do you know that the Orthodox Church has held fast to Tradition? Your Protestant friends certainly do not agree.

PeaceByJesus said: ↑

Neither do you agree, with the difference being it is not because we claim to be popes with the the novel and unScriptural premise of ensured perpetual infallibility, but based upon what ee see manifest (and not manifest) in the only wholly inspired record of what the NT church believed (including how they understood the gospels).

What?

If you are serious (rather than feigning in the absence of any real counter argument) cannot comprehend that then you have no business in apologetics, except as an argument against being a RC.

 

[PeaceByJesus]

PeaceByJesus said: ↑

That is mere parroted polemical propaganda, for the reality is that, unlike liberals (which most of almost the majority of RCs are in the West), the most basic distinctive of the Reformation and thus what constitutes a Protestant is that of holding to the 66 books of Scripture as the wholly inspired, substantive and thus authoritative word of God. And which manner of souls are overall the the most unified in basic beliefs, in contrast to those Rome manifestly considers members in life and in death.

For contrary to a "system that allows system that allows interpret Scripture however we like, all the while feigning that we have Jesus as our authority while in reality we are our own pope," it is Ted Kennedy-type liberals who can fell quite at home in your church, while evangelicals are charged (even on this forum) with being intolerant of variant beliefs.

Thus even our accusers have variant beliefs about us, while rather than being as "our own pope" - which no one but Christ is to be be - we are not to presume we possess a charism of ensured veracity, which is cultic, but instead the veracity of what we say must rest upon the degree of evidential warrant for it. Which is how the NT church began, versus under the novel and unScriptural premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility as per Rome (and basically in primary cults).

Friend, I think that we should stop conversing. I do not understand your version of English.

Then you also need to understand what "conversing" means as well as the nature of polemics. Go find another poster who also cannot comprehend this polemic, or one who can help you to.

 

[Albion]

Anglican church does!

So does Catholic Church, so I suggest you drop this now and we can all return to talking about how unfortunate it is that there is animosity between Catholics and Protestants as per the title of this thread.

 

[truefiction1]

That is so much esoteric ecclesiastical effluence as an argument, for 1 Corinthians 2 simply affirms the guidance of the Spirit, but does not establish one claimant as having it, including in a unique degree, and which every cult will claim. Instead, we are enjoined ot "try the spirits, whether they are of God," (1Jn. 4:1) and the means of doing by noble mean is by that which is written, and thus Scriptural substantiation in word and in power is what the Lord and His Church established their Truth claims upon thanks be to God.

Yes, we've done this now for at least a couple thousand years (both the testing of the spirits and the Scriptural substantiation). How long has your faith denomination been doing it for?

 

[Albion]

Catholic church doesn't have openly gay clergy or women priests.

Some do, just like some Anglicans. But mine does not.

 

[Goatee]

Is Anglican protestant?

 

[redleghunter]

Keep reading. Or do not, if you want to stay Protestant.

I have read Against Heresies and consider the work of a giant in theology.

That's why what you posted from Irenaeus has absolutely no rebuttal unless your point was he contradicts his previous words.

He doesn't as the scope of his argument is defending the foundation of Christian beliefs:

The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciplesthis faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophetsthe dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father to gather all things in one, Ephesians 1:10 and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confessPhilippians 2:10-11 to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send spiritual wickednesses, Ephesians 6:12 and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortalityon the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning [of their Christian course], and others from [the date of] their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.

CHURCH FATHERS: Against Heresies, I.10 (St. Irenaeus)

That's the apostolic tradition Irenaeus defended. I'm sure some would want to pack in a lot more. But thanks to New Advent, they provide the NT references drawn by Irenaeus.