you wrote:
“I didn’t at all. I quoted from the catechism saying that salvation is “achieved” not by grace, but through baptism, obedience and works.”
Grace is received through baptism, for instance. Thus, salvation is through grace alone. What will save you, grace or faith? I will be saved by grace alone. Some of that grace I will have received through baptism, but I will still be saved by grace alone.
“It’s interesting you dodged it completely and accused me of doing the same thing.”
I didn’t dodge it. It wasn’t pertinent. Again, you FALSELY claimed that the Catholic Church said St. Paul was wrong. The Church did no such thing. I corrected you. You then tried to change the argument and are still wrong.
“No Protestants I care for, and I doubt there are many that even do who would still go forward to embrace the Roman abuse of it, which make Peter out to be infallible, and possessing an authority above all the Apostles.”
It doesn’t matter what you care for. It only matters that you were wrong, again. Jesus founded the Church on Peter and many men who are greater scholars of scripture than you apparently are agree.
“Suppose the rock is Peter, ...building up a Holy House.”
‘Suppose’ really means nothing.
“Certainly the other Apostles established their churches across the world, and there is no evidence in the Bible that the Apostles never considered themselves as all equal ministers of the Gospel. In fact, on more than one occasion the “authority” and “infallibility” of Peter is challenged, at least in the sense if he were actually the Pope at that time.”
No, not once. Yes, Peter was challenged and rebuked by Paul - as he should have been - and tha had nothing to do with “the sense if he were actually the Pope at that time.” The problem with Protestant assumptions is that they’re not only assumptions, which are always a problem, but that they are faulty in their premise.
“I already gave the example of Paul. Another example is in Acts 15, where the advice of James, and not of Peter, is followed.”
Again, false. Peter’s advice is followed first. That’s why everyone there held their tongue immediately after he spoke.
“The Roman abuses, therefore, have no basis of scripture, aside from a tortured interpretation from Matthew. It’s more reading into the scripture what the Catholics want, and less what is in the scripture itself.”
Again, false. Protestantism didn’t exist for nearly 1500 years. Then Luther had his tower experience while emptying his bowels in the cloaca (seriously, look it up), and Protestantism as a theory - a bad one - was born. Born on the toilet. How fitting.
“Ignatius wrote to every Bishop in the letters he sent, except in his letter to the Romans, where he wrote to no Bishop at all. Probably because there wasn’t one.”
But we know that there was one. We already have the letter of Clement to the Corinthians, for instance. Ignatius would not be interested in endangering the life of the pope by mentioning him by name.
“Ignatius says that the head of Bishop is God, and does not reference anything still yet between them.”
Because the pope doesn’t stand between them, but leads them instead. That’s just Protestant thinking.
“Not once in any of his epistles does Ignatius reference any one higher than a Bishop, aside from God Himself.”
Again, the pope is a bishop.
“So your big argument is just to quote, but with more text, the same argument wherein Gregory declares: :”..See of one, and one See, over which by Divine authority three bishops now preside.””
No, my argument is that the context shows you were taking it out of context.
“That doesn’t help the Papal cause, which says the seat of Peter is in Rome only, and only has one who possesses the authority of Peter.”
That isn’t the “Papal cause”. Honestly, it’s as if you have no idea of what you’re talking about. Did being in Avignon for 70 years stop popes from being popes? No, it did not.
“lol, again, you ignore the argument, which is that Theodoret placed the “See of Peter” in three places also, placing the “Throne of Peter” under the Bishop of Antioch.”
There was no argument to ignore. You never made an argument. You merely posted a quote from Theodoret - which clearly had no context so I posted more information.
“Says the guy who argues against mist and shadows.”
Says the guy who claims he made an argument when all he did was post a quote or two which in no way go against the idea of a papacy.
“Grace is received through baptism, for instance. Thus, salvation is through grace alone. What will save you, grace or faith? I will be saved by grace alone. Some of that grace I will have received through baptism, but I will still be saved by grace alone.”
At no time is baptism linked with grace in the scripture. In fact, the concept itself negates what “grace” even is. It is not an inanimate object. It is not something one “achieves” through a certain act of obedience. God’s grace is bestowed on man by God directly, who, through His own sovereign right, has grace on whom He will and judges whom He will. It is a free choice of God.
The Apostle Paul does not attain grace by being baptized. He is called by God’s grace:
Gal_1:15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace,
It is a power wrought by God, outside of human activity.
Eph_3:7 Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power.
It is God’s sovereign grace by which a man is chosen by God, is called, has His eyes opened, confesses Christ, is justified, sanctified, and glorified.
Eph 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
Rom 8:29-30 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. (30) Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
The scripture from Romans is interesting, because it makes it clear that God calls, God justifies, God glorifies. It is not God calls, Man answers, Man with God justifies, and God, as a reward to man, justifies man.
It is the work of God, from start to finish. The Father draws, and those whom He draws come to God inevitably.
Joh_6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
No man who belongs to Christ will refuse to come:
Joh_6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
No Christian can be plucked from the hand of God:
Joh 10:27-30 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: (28) And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. (29) My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. (30) I and my Father are one.
This is necessary, because man is corrupt, and in his natural state cannot seek after God.
Rom 3:9-18 What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; (10) As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: (11) There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. (12) They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (13) Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: (14) Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: (15) Their feet are swift to shed blood: (16) Destruction and misery are in their ways: (17) And the way of peace have they not known: (18) There is no fear of God before their eyes.
No man, therefore, can confess Jesus Christ without the power of the Holy Ghost.
1Co_12:3 Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.
Is God unjust for snatching His own peculiar people from the fires, and not for all humanity? Nay, who are you to reply against God?
Rom 9:14-16 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. (15) For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. (16) So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
Rom 9:20-25 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? (21) Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? (22) What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: (23) And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, (24) Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? (25) As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
To summarize, the Catholic view is totally alien to the scriptures, and without fail makes materialistic and fleshy that which God called spirit.
“It only matters that you were wrong, again. “
Your quotes proved nothing at all, except maybe your inability to defend your own theology.
There is nothing wrong with my summation of the scriptures. It is only you, clinging to Roman theology, that forces you to say these things instead of refuting my argument from the scripture.
“No, not once. Yes, Peter was challenged and rebuked by Paul - as he should have been - “
This is what you said. And then, right after, you pretended that the Apostles “held their tongue” in the presence of Peter.
It was James who pronounced the sentence of the judgment, which the church accepted:
Act 15:19-20 Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: (20) But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.
So who is holding their tongue for Pope Peter? It was not Paul, it was not James.
“But we know that there was one. We already have the letter of Clement to the Corinthians, for instance. Ignatius would not be interested in endangering the life of the pope by mentioning him by name.”
That’s ridiculous. If an institution like the Papacy existed, he would refer to it as naturally as he referred to all the Bishops and the hierarchy of the church. Are they expendable but your mysterious Pope, whom you claim always existed, is conveniently left out? Are all the faithful named in those epistles just fodder? Instead, it ends with the Bishop, and goes no further.
In Clement, the organization is also explained, with no reference to any Pope:
1 Clem. 44:1 And our Apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife over the name of the bishop’s office.
1 Clem. 44:2 For this cause therefore, having received complete foreknowledge, they appointed the aforesaid persons, and afterwards they provided a continuance, that if these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed to their ministration. Those therefore who were appointed by them, or afterward by other men of repute with the consent of the whole Church, and have ministered unblamably to the flock of Christ in lowliness of mind, peacefully and with all modesty, and for long time have borne a good report with all these men we consider to be unjustly thrust out from their ministration.
1 Clem. 44:3 For it will be no light sin for us, if we thrust out those who have offered the gifts of the bishop’s office unblamably and holily.
The Bishops themselves were appointed not by a Pope, but by the church at large. Presumably, using the same requirements as Paul, a Bishop must be a husband to but one wife, and so forth.
Furthermore, in 1 Clement, the only reference to Peter is alongside Paul, as fellow martyrs.
No “Our Pope!” or “First of the Apostles” or “The Bishop of Bishops!”
But you want us to believe that the failure to speak of any authority higher than a Bishop, besides God, was denied on purpose to protect the Pope’s life? And so when Ignatius says the head of the Bishop is God, he strategically left out the Pope?
I’m sorry, but it’s too silly a notion for me to fall into.
“Again, the pope is a bishop.”
Really? Let’s see:
882 The Pope, Bishop of Rome and Peter’s successor, “is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful.”402 “For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.”403
883 “The college or body of bishops has no authority unless united with the Roman Pontiff, Peter’s successor, as its head.” As such, this college has “supreme and full authority over the universal Church; but this power cannot be exercised without the agreement of the Roman Pontiff.”404
884 “The college of bishops exercises power over the universal Church in a solemn manner in an ecumenical council.”405 But “there never is an ecumenical council which is not confirmed or at least recognized as such by Peter’s successor.”406
This makes Acts 15, with James presiding over the “ecumenical council” and declaring his decision, quite interesting to behold. It certainly makes it ridiculous to believe that neither Ignatius nor Clement would mention the office of the papacy.
On the other hand, they do affirm the existence of Bishops appointed by the Apostles, which agrees totally with the Biblical practice.
“No, my argument is that the context shows you were taking it out of context.”
Nonsense. You have no idea what you are talking about. It clearly says that the throne of Peter is presided over by three Bishops. It says nothing else. Please provide what so called “context” denies that truth?