We disagree whether Peter is pope due to the language diferences ie or the very thought of one man being infallible etc etc.
Catholics u may wish to defend the Vicar of Christ
for your edification... in case you missed it earlier.....
“In this connection I must say something about Rome’s doctrine of the papacy and papal infallibility, declared to be church dogma in 1870 at the first Vatican Council, which is a major aspect of its more recent tradition and which contributes in a very significant way, for Roman Catholic belief, to the authority of its Tradition.
The Roman Catholic Church since the Middle Ages has contended that in Matthew 16:18 Jesus declared that Peter was the first pope (of Rome of course) and as such the supreme leader of Christendom, and that his supremacy would be transmitted in seamless succession to each bishop of Rome who would succeed him. This contention is dramatically captured by the Latin inscription around the entablature just below the great dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome: Tue s Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam. Accordingly, the Roman Catholic Baltimore Catechism states:
`Christ gave special powers to His church to St. Peter by making him the head of the Apostles and the chief teacher and ruler of the entire church. Christ did not intend that the special power of the chief teacher and ruler of the entire church should be exercised by St. Peter alone, but intended that this power should be passed down to his successor, the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, who is the Vicar of Christ on Earth and the visible head of the church.’
And the Roman Catholic Church has employed this dogma to claim for itself the authority to bind men’s consciences by its interpretation of Scripture, to add new doctrines not taught in Scripture. It has done so…. by first distinguishing Peter from the other Apostles, and then by claiming that his Apostolic authority is continued in the single unbroken line of the Bishops of Rome.
Now it is true that in the early years of the New Testament era Peter was a leader among the apostles. A case can even be made that he was the first among equals’ (prim inter pares) in some sense. Consider the following data. There are around one hundred and forty references to Peter in the four Gospels, some thirty more times than all the references than all the references to the other disciples combined. He stands at the head of the list of the twelve apostles in each of the lists given in the New Testament (Matt. 10:2 {note Matthew’s first here}; Mark 3:16; Luke 6:14; Acts 1:13), and he is included among that `inner circle’ of disciples (Peter, James and John) which alone witnessed certain miraculous events such as Jesus’ transfiguration; he is the spokesman for the disciples on many occasions (Matt 15:15; 17:24-25; 19:27; John 6:68-69); it is he who walked with Jesus on the sea (Matt 14:28-29); it is he whom Jesus specifically charged to `strengthen your brothers’ (Lk 22:32). He was in charge in the selection of the one to take Judas’ place in Acts 1; it was he who preached the first Christian sermon’ on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2, converting many Jews to the Way; it was his activities (along with John’s) which Luke recounts in the first half of Acts; it was he whom God chose to be the missionary who would take who would take the special action with regard to Cornelius’ household in behalf of Gentile salvation in Acts 10; his was the first testimony to be recounted by Luke at the Assembly in Jerusalem in Acts 15; his name appears first in Paul’s `official list’ of those to whom Christ appeared after his resurrection (1 Cor 15:5); and Paul even refers to him (along with James and John) as a `pillar’ (stulous) in the church at Jerusalem (Gal 2:9). All this is beyond dispute. But to derive Rome’s understanding of Peter’s priority, which goes beyond what the New Testament actually teaches about it, from Matt 16:18 (Rome bolsters its position with a few related verses such as Luke 22:31-32 and John 21:16) forces the verse to say something which it does not say. For the verse to bear such heavy doctrinal weight, the Roman Catholic apologist must demonstrate the following things EXEGETICALLY and not simply assert them dogmatically:
1. That by his reference to `this rock’ in his explanation Jesus referred to Peter personally and exclusively in his office as an apostle to the total exclusion of the other apostles;
2. That the unique authority which belongs to the apostolic office in the New Testament and in this case to Peter in particular COULD be transmitted, that is, was TRANSMISSIBLE, to his `papal successors’ and was IN FACT transmitted to his successors; and that the unique apostolic authority which the other apostles also possessed could NOT be and in fact was NOT transmitted, that is to say, was NON-TRANSMISSIBLE, to their successors;
3. That Jesus intended his promise to Peter IN FACT to extend in a repetitive way to Peter’s `papal successors’ throughout the entire period of the church to the end of the age; and
4. That Jesus’ promise to Peter, while it could and should be CHRONOLOGICALLY extended to his papal successors,’ cannot be geographically extended but must rather be restricted in its transmissibility only to one (at a time) bishop who ministers in ONE particular city among many cities in Rome. John Calvin made this point this way ` by what right do [the Roman apologists] bind to a [specific] place this dignity which has been given without mention of place?’ (Institutes, IV. Vi.11).
The Roman Catholic apologist must also be able to demonstrate HISTORICALLY that Peter in fact became the first bishop of Rome and not simply assert it dogmatically. But what are the facts? Irenaeus and Eusebius of Caesarea both make Linus, mentioned in 2 Tim 4:21, the first bishop of Rome. That Peter may have died, as ancient tradition has it, Rome is a distinct possibility (see 1 Pe 5:13 where Babylon has been rather uniformly understood by modern commentators as a metaphor for Rome), but that he ever actually pastored the church there is a blatant fiction which the more candid scholars in the Roman communion will acknowledge. Jerome’s Latin translation of Eusebius (not Eusebius’ Greek copy) records that Peter ministered in Rome for twenty five years, but if Philip Schaff (as well as many other church historians) is to be believed, this is a colossal chronological mistake. Consider: Paul wrote his letter to the church in Rome in early A.D. 57, but he did not address the letter to Peter or refer to him anywhere in it as its pastor. And in the last chapter he extended greetings to no less than twenty-six friends in the Imperial city but he makes no mention of Peter which would have been a major oversight, indeed an affront to Peter, if in fact Peter, were ruling the Roman church at that time. Then later when Paul himself was in Rome, from where he wrote both his four prison letters during his first imprisonment in A.D. 60-62 when he was `welcoming all who came to him’ (Acts 28:30), and his first pastoral letter during his second imprisonment around A.D. 64, in which letters he extended greetings to his letters recipients from ten specific people in Rome, again he makes no mention of Peter being there. Here is a period of time spanning around seven years (A.D. 57-64) during which time Paul related himself to the Roman church both as a correspondent and as a resident, but he says not a word which would suggest hat he believed Peter was in Rome. What are we to make of Paul’s silence? And if Peter was at Rome and was simply not mentioned by Paul in any of these letters, what are we to conclude about him when Paul declares to the Philippians: `I have no one else [besides Timothy] of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare. For they all seek after their own interests not those of Christ Jesus.’ (Phil 2:20-21) , or when he writes to Timothy later and says: `Only Luke is with me….. At my first defense no one supported me, but all deserted me’ (1 Tim 4:11, 16)? And what are we to make of an extended alleged ministry on Peter’s part in Rome in light of Paul’s statement in Galatians 2:7-8 that the apostolate had entrusted Peter with missionary efforts to the Jews? Are we to conclude that Peter had been disobedient to that trust? I think not. For just as Paul wrote several of his letters to churches he had founded, so that it would appear that Peter also, writing from Babylon to dispersed Jewish Christians (see his use of diaspora in 1 Pe 1:1) in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, was writing to people he had evangelized in those places. The one glimpse we have from Paul’s writings concerning Peter’s whereabouts and ministry is found in 1 Corinthians 9:5 where he suggests that Cephas, his wife with him (see Matt 8:14), was an iterant evangelist carrying out the trust which the other apostles had given him. From this data we must conclude, if Peter did in fact reach Rome as tradition says, that his purpose more than likely would have been only to pay the church there not much more than a casual visit, and that he would have arrived there only shortly before his death which, according to tradition, occurred during the Neronic persecution.
The Roman Catholic Apologist must also be able to address, to the satisfaction of reasonable men, the following twenty two questions:
Why do Mark (8:27-30) and Luke (9:18-21), while they also recount the Caesarea Philippi conversation between Jesus and Peter, omit all reference to that part of Jesus’ conversation which grants Peter his alleged priority over the other Apostles, the point which for Rome is the very heart and central point of our Lord’s teaching ministry?
Why does the New Testament record more of Peter’s errors after the Caesarea Philippi confession than of any other of the apostles? I am referring to (1) his satanic and `man-minding’ rejection of Jesus’ announcement that he would die, Matt 16:22-23; (2) his `leveling’ or `Arian’ comparison with Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration, Matt 17:4-5; (3) his ignorant and impetuous refusal to let Jesus wash his feet and then his self willed dictating the terms according to which Jesus would wash him, John 13:8-9; (4) his sleepiness while Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, Matt 26:36-45; (5) his precipitous use of the sword, Matt 26:51-54; (6) his prideful protestation of unfailing faithfulness and then his three denials of Jesus, recorded in all four Gospels; (7) his impulsive curiosity about John’s future, expressed no sooner than Jesus had restored him to fellowship, which netted him Christ’s stern 1thats none of your business’ John 21:21-22; and finally (8) even after Christ’s resurrection, the Spirit’s outpouring at Pentecost, and the role that he himself played in the Cornelius incident, his betrayal of the truth of the pure gospel of grace at Antioch by his compromising action called for Paul’s public rebuke in which Paul condemned him because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group, `because his actions led the other Jewish Christians at Antioch, including even Barnabas, to join him in his 1hypocricy’, and, most significantly, because he was not acting in line with the gospel (Gal 2:11-14)
