quote=NewMan99;With respect, I don't think it is ambiguous or vague at all, unless a person refuses to look at it from a Catholic POV or insists upon imposing one's own definition on Catholic terms and then arguing against that.
Catholic definitions
are the issue, not 'the problem with agreeing on the issue'. Definitions of terms like "Church", "authority", etc. That is why I refused to look at it from an RC view even as I was being raised RC.
Never. Nada. Nil. Plenty of references to, but no links to documents of any kind. No outright, plain & simple, here-it-is-I'm givin'-it-right-to-ya-&-you-don't-have-to-look-for-it-or-even-blink presentations.
Never.
I see citations all the time.
m,hmm...
In fact, I gave one of them in my very last post (which I was writing while you made your last post...in other words...I was giving CJ an example before I knew you would say that we "never" give citations of this "official virtue" (actually, the correct term is "charism").
Sure ya did. "Official virtue" is correct enough for
this conversation, partner.
Peter's initial custom was to EAT with Gentiles. That's all it says. It wasn't a council (as per Acts 15) or any official Church function where Peter was formally teaching for the benefit of the whole Church
And yet paradoxicaly (he said with pained irony), we read about it in the most formal form of teaching tradition - scripture.
This is not to say Peter wasn't talking to his companions about the Christian faith while they were eating, but there is a gigantic difference between Peter's "eating" habits changing and something else along a grander scale which is what you are reading into the text.
You are bleaching out of the text, the inerrancy of Peter's walk which is our judged testimony & witness of our faith - our justification. We're talkin' about works that get burned, tho we get saved. Errors.
And Peter's many errors are a teaching tool of scripture.
Denying one's own errors is a fast-track to hypocracy.
Well..."teaching by example" is not the same thing as "fomally teaching" -
Scripture formalized it.
and our definition of "infallibility" does not include how any given teacher happens to live out what they formally teach.
Obviously.
In YOUR definition of "infallibility" you are including "teaching by example" along with "formal teaching"...therefore you are imposing your definition on our terms and then arguing against that.
No sir, I imposing your own claims of inerrancy & infallability upon you, & you can only try to complicate & sophisticate the simple truth that inerrancy in teaching (Magesterial Inerrancy)is an infallability in teaching anything & everything, and Papal Infallibility is an as yet, uncited virtue from the undefined circumstances that add up to infallable definitions being from "Peter's Chair".
Peter didn't have a chalk board at his tableside while eating (although rumor has it he had a couple of nuns with really wicked rulers just waiting to smack the knuckles of anyone with their elbows on the table - that'll teach 'em proper table manners)
I felt that ruler many a time.
- nor did he set up a classroom or preach from the pulpit that hypocrisy is okie-dokie.
No, he settled for merely parading his error of hypocracy in the eternal words of scripture.
So Paul rightly confronted Peter in front of all (during dinner? at a church meeting? at a gathering? who knows?)
I do. In front of anybody who reads scripture
(& you know who you are!)lol
for changing his personal habit - not for changing his formal teaching (which can be found in Acts 15).
Their Acts are now formal teaching in that they are scripture.
Yes - but he was not "binding" anyone to this as if it was an actual and official teaching of the Church...much less binding the ENTIRE Church to it...which is how WE define the term "infallible". And therein lies the rub, Rick.
He was binding everyone who watched what he did to learn what to do, how to be. He did it in the site of God & man & everyone who reads scripture. Jesus didn't say, "And by this gesture & that document, ye shall be understood to be actualy using the keys instead of just carrying them around at dinner parties."
Worse yet, nether have you.
Name the unquestioned location of unquestionable teachings.
As important as they sound like they should be, they are nowhere to be found.
That's right, but he was not offering his actions in Antioch as an official Church teaching nor was he telling the entire Church that insincerity with Gentiles was an official Church doctrine.
Yes he was. You have a conveniently narrowed definition of "official". I suscribe to the Melchezedek model, not the vastly more popular Levitical model.
So...what is "hypocrisy"? It is not DOING what you TEACH. Therefore, in any kind of incident like this you have to ask the question, what is the TEACHING that is being contradicted? Since the charism of infallibility is only applied in cases where something is TAUGHT (and not contradicted by actions), you cannot say that Peter's personal actions (as bad as an example as they were) in any way negates the infallible teaching he proclaimed (along with the other elders and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit) in Acts 15.
That's a
long block to walk just to deny actions are the loudest teachers.
Just because a Pope can be personally guilty of hypocrisy and thereby make an error in judgment (or make an error of teaching by a bad example...the word "teaching" being used very loosely here) is NOT the same thing as imposing that hypocrisy on the entire Church *in the form of a formal teaching which all are bound to obey and assent to*.
Not to
you, anyway.
I tend to follow the
example of people I pick to be leaders.
I am not sure I understand what you mean by this...but...assuming I do understand...I agree that making "a mistake" in judgment (in the form of a sinful deed) will not be enough for the gates of hell to prevail. If, however, the "mistake" is in the form of binding the flock to false teachings presented as Truth, then that is an entirely different thing. Satan would rejoice at that.
Does rejoice at that.
A list? The examples are too numerous to begin to list them out.
ROFL! Other RC friends tell me it was only used once or twice.
Neither bother to give even just one or two examples. Go figure. You wrote thirteen words that
could've expressed just
one example.
When Peter wrote the letters that are included in the Bible...do they contain any error?
Yes. They
record errors.
But only in the sense they are offered.
Therefore, there is an example of a Pope teaching the flock in a manner that is binding universally and the Holy Spirit prevented him from making any errors.
Not exactly. The Holy Spirit was inerrant in using the Church's errors instructively.
There are literally hundreds if not thousands of examples of Popes teaching infallibly. Sometimes they come in the form of encyclicals, sometimes in statements read into various documents from Church councils, and so on.
So I've heard & keep hearing. Where's the
beef?
But here I will throw you a bone and offer a (hopefully constructive) critique I have of my fellow apologists who oftentime overstate or understate the limitations of the doctrine.
Don't waste your time. Give up just
one thing on "the list". I double-dare ya. (lol)
What about Pope Benedict XII's definition of the state of the departed souls viz. a viz. not having to wait until Judgment day to see God? Pope Benedict XII issued a constitution defining this matter in 1336.
Wow. I'm impressed! Now yer talkin'... let's see,... we got
Teaching #1. No waiting policy on throne room audiences.
I've seen that in scripture. MamaZ knows exactly where it's at.
What about Pope Boniface VIII's definition at the end of Unam Sanctum in 1302?
Yeah! Pay dirt. I've always asserted that a Papal Bull was dignified enough to merit "from the chair status" & the 2 Swords Doctrine defined therein is a controversy of magnificent proportion. A GT favorite.
What about Pope Leo the Great's definition of the two persons of Christ in 449 with his famous Tome?
I dunno. I'm askin'
you.
Was the latter only infallible by virtue of being enshrined in the decrees of Chalcedon in 451 or was it infallible when Leo issued the decision itself two years earlier?
That's what I'm sayin'... it's a 'crapshoot' (respectfully). Whose to say when scripture doesn't?
Si
milarly Pope Celestine's judgment in 430: a year prior to the Council of Ephesus at which he instructed Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria to pronounce before the assembly in Pope Celestine's name the judgment the Pope had already settled by papal epistle? Many others could be cited - hundreds of examples no doubt.
But what is the standard(s) by which they attain the status?
As I have said elsewhere in this thread, the doctrine of papal infallibility is merely an extension of the long-accepted (by us Catholics and by the Orthodox) belief that the Church herself is Infallible.
Infallable,... or Inerrant? See what I mean? The difference is only significant when its convenient for Rome.
Just as we see the Holy Spirit guiding the Council of Jerusalem (see Acts 15:28) - preventing the elders from making an error in what they bound the Church to - so too we believe that the Spirit continues to guide the Church perpetually from error. And since the Pope has a thing or two to say about what is taught and bound to the flock, it is only logical that he, too, would be protected by the same charism that protects the Church in Council (particularly since a Council's documents are not official or binding until the Pope ratifies them). Of course, our Orthodox brothers disagree with us about papal infallibility.
So they teach error & the Church isn't Inerrant. If they aren't in the Church - submitted to the pope, Unam Sanctum defines them as unsaved.
As I said above, the fact that we fallen humans often act contrarily to what we teach does not mean that the teaching itself (which IS the thing we are bound to follow and obey and believe) is therefore negated or false.
Yeah, I know. That is the mistake Pelagius made. He judged the doctrine of Original Sin by the way the Romans acted & concluded the fall wasn't complete. We are left with a redeeming quality - free will, by exercise of which we secure salvation. The Church first declared it heresy & then reversed itself ipso facto by defining the "co-operative grace" phraseology of salvation by merit & mercy instead of mercy alone (sola gratia).
Good talkin' to ya, bro. Gotta walk before they make me run...
