It’s no cop out Jvette. I’ll just leave you with this. You mention the generations after the apostles as a source of information for beliefs. I’ll point you to the decedents of Noah as an example. Nimrod was the great grandson of Noah. Noah followed God and was chosen as the only person with his family to save from total destruction. Two generations later Noah was the most evil man in the world and started the Babylonian empire which is even used as an example of the total opposition to God at the end of the world.
If you think that quoting the generations after the apostles passed impresses anyone I would suggest you look at how far man can fall from true worship and belief in the example of Noah and Nimrod in just two generations. Why do you think Paul commended the Bereans for “searching the scripture daily to see if these things are true” even with things Paul was teaching? Relying on those “oral traditions” the RCC likes to promote as truth is not only dangerous but it is deadly. Not only doesn’t the CC advise to “search the scriptures daily to see if these things are true” it actually for many, many years kept the scriptures out of the hands of the lay people. It was when the printing press was invented that they could no longer maintain that control and the dissemination of the word of God brought to light the deceit they had been perpetrating all those years was brought to light.
Catholics like to point to the length of time the CC has been in existence and try to claim that Protestants must think that there were no true Christians until Luther. I would simply, once again, point to the example of Noah. He and his family were the only family true to God in the entire world at that time. The false claim of Catholics that they were the only Christians since the apostles is belied by the example of Noah and his family.
Paul referred to it in several of his epistles.
Generations before error crept in?
No. Probably days since the last thing the enemy of men's souls wants is people to hear the truth.
Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Honestly, I nearly stopped reading as soon as I saw Nimrod.
I know he has a special place in the heart of the anti Catholic. BTW, I don’t think you meant to say that Noah started the Babylonian empire.
There is a huge difference between the promises and covenant of the OT and that of the NT.
Jesus made a promise that He has kept. He gave the authority He had to the Apostles, but just as we know that all of the Church’s history is not recorded in the NT, we also know that all of the heresies and conditions which arose are also not.
We look to the Bible as our blueprint, our plan to follow but it does not have the answer to everything that arises. Oh, the answers are there, but not always explicitly.
And, so again, we have the protestant saying that 2,000 years after the fact, they have a better handle on the Church and Scripture than those closest to the Apostles and the writing of those Scriptures.
****Not only doesn’t the CC advise to “search the scriptures daily to see if these things are true” it actually for many, many years kept the scriptures out of the hands of the lay people****
See, it’s exactly that hackneyed garbage I am just fed up with reading. That is not true, there were reasons the Bibles were protected and why the laity could not read it for themselves. But, still, here we have it. The Church chained the Bible and kept it away so that it could fool the laity. NOT TRUE, but still regurgitated ad nauseaum.
You say the CC does not say to “search the Scriptures daily, yet anyone reading the CC will see hundreds of references to Scripture. IOW, look at these Scriptures and see the truth for yourself, we have nothing to hide. The CC is a reference book, a laying out of the Church’s understanding of the faith and the life of the faithful.
Just as the Ten Commandments are a list of what not to do, the Beatitudes are a list of how to be. That is what we have in the Bible and in the catechism. The catechism is a complement to the Bible, a commentary on it and it does include the writings of Christians, because it is a commentary and it shows the development of the beliefs through the centuries.
Whatever, ignore the fact that there are those who believe YOU believe in a faith founded in paganism, which takes for itself the ancient pagan myths. Even the flood story of Noah has a correlating pagan myth.
So, yes, when you throw out the same old same old over and over mindlessly, then it is a cop out.