Your basic premise, that the "lettered" have superior spiritual discernment continues to be one which is contrary to the NT church.
As is the fundamental premise of Rome for discernment and assurance of Truth, that being the novel and unScriptural premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility as per Rome (and basically in primary cults). And which is actually contrary to the former premise.
For the intellectual tradition that was second to none was the very one which rejected prophets and the unlettered itinerant preachers who showed up in Galilee 2,000 years ago, and which was believed by the uneducated masses as a whole.
Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, Why have ye not brought him? The officers answered, Never man spake like this man. Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived? Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him? But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed. (John 7:45-49)
For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: (1 Corinthians 1:26-28)
And with popes using the sword of men to gain power and suppress dissent, then the absence of Protestant competition to men as Augustine - which Calvinism much look to, is not surprising since Rome was in control.
Yet you even have Jerome wresting Scripture in order to support his perverse views on marriage vs virginity. But God did promise to send prophets, scribes and wise men to reprove proud Jewish elitists, (Mt. 23:34) and consistent with that, and since we are to heed RC intellectuals, let us heard the words of the great Catholic historian Joseph Lortz on a certain Doctor of Theology (though he concluded he also was a heretic as per Rome):
"...Luther is an intellectual giant, or, to use a word from Paul Althaus, an "ocean. " The danger of drowning in him, of not being able to come to grips with him satisfactorily, arises from his tremendous output, but no less from his own original style... It sounds banal, but cannot be left unsaid: Luther belongs in the first rank of men with extraordinary intellectual creativity. He is in the full sense a genius, a man of massive power in things religious and a giant as well in theological interpretation. Because of this, he has in many respects shaped the history of the world--even of our world today."
In addition, it was not Catholics which founded Harvard, Yale etc. and produced so many wise leaders in the past, while evangelical intellectuals as Ravi Zacharias manifest that one need not a lot of (or nay) university credentials to be a manifestly wise man. Finally, if it is the weight of sanctioned Catholic scholarship that we are to look to, then we must believe such things as that historical accounts such as Noah and the Flood, the Tower of Babel, Balaam and the talking donkey, Jonah and the fish, Joshua's long day, etc. were fables, and things like Joshua's conquests were mainly folk tales, and the sermon on the Mount may not have been where it says. And this is the church RCs tell us to look to for interpretation of Scripture, versus searching the Scriptures. Thank God that kind of reliance was not how the church began.
And then we have the findings of RC scholars and researchers such as,
Klaus Schatz [Jesuit Father theologian, professor of church history at the St. George’s Philosophical and Theological School in Frankfurt] in his work, “Papal Primacy ,” pp. 1-4:
“New Testament scholars agree..., The further question whether there was any notion of an enduring office beyond Peter’s lifetime, if posed in purely historical terms, should probably be answered in the negative.
That is, if we ask whether the historical Jesus, in commissioning Peter, expected him to have successors, or whether the authority of the Gospel of Matthew, writing after Peter’s death, was aware that Peter and his commission survived in the leaders of the Roman community who succeeded him, the answer in both cases is probably 'no.”
If we ask in addition whether the primitive church was aware, after Peter’s death, that his authority had passed to the next bishop of Rome, or in other words that the head of the community at Rome was now the successor of Peter, the Church’s rock and hence the subject of the promise in Matthew 16:18-19, the question, put in those terms, must certainly be given a negative answer.” (page 1-2)
[Schatz goes on to express that he does not doubt Peter was martyred in Rome, and that Christians in the 2nd century were convinced that Vatican Hill had something to do with Peter's grave.]
"Nevertheless, concrete claims of a primacy over the whole church cannot be inferred from this conviction. If one had asked a Christian in the year 100, 200, or even 300 whether the bishop of Rome was the head of all Christians, or whether there was a supreme bishop over all the other bishops and having the last word in questions affecting the whole Church, he or she would certainly have said no." (page 3, top)
• Catholic theologian and a Jesuit priest Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops (New York: The Newman Press), examines possible mentions of “succession” from the first three centuries, and concludes from that study that,
“the episcopate [development of bishops] is a the fruit of a post New Testament development,” and cannot concur with those (interacting with Jones) who see little reason to doubt the notion that there was a single bishop in Rome through the middle of the second century:
Hence I stand with the majority of scholars who agree that one does not find evidence in the New Testament to support the theory that the apostles or their coworkers left [just] one person as “bishop” in charge of each local church... — Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops , pp. 221,222,
• American Roman Catholic priest and Biblical scholar Raymond Brown (twice appointed to Pontifical Biblical Commission), finds,
“The claims of various sees to descend from particular members of the Twelve are highly dubious. It is interesting that the most serious of these is the claim of the bishops of Rome to descend from Peter, the one member of the Twelve who was almost a missionary apostle in the Pauline sense – a confirmation of our contention that whatever succession there was from apostleship to episcopate, it was primarily in reference to the Puauline tyupe of apostleship, not that of the Twelve.” (“Priest and Bishop, Biblical Reflections,” Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur, 1970, pg 72.)
• Paul Johnson, educated at the Jesuit independent school Stonyhurst College, and at Magdalen College, Oxford, author of over 40 books and a conservative popular historian:
Eusebius presents the lists as evidence that orthodoxy had a continuous tradition from the earliest times in all the great Episcopal sees and that all the heretical movements were subsequent aberrations from the mainline of Christianity.
Looking behind the lists, however, a different picture emerges. In Edessa, on the edge of the Syrian desert, the proofs of the early establishment of Christianity were forgeries, almost certainly manufactured under Bishop Kune, the first orthodox Bishop, and actually a contemporary of Eusebius...
Orthodoxy was not established [In Egypt] until the time of Bishop Demetrius, 189-231, who set up a number of other sees and manufactured a genealogical tree for his own bishopric of Alexandria, which traces the foundation through ten mythical predecessors back to Mark, and so to Peter and Jesus...
Even in Antioch, where both Peter and Paul had been active, there seems to have been confusion until the end of the second century. Antioch completely lost their list...When Eusebius’s chief source for his Episcopal lists, Julius Africanus, tried to compile one for Antioch, he found only six names to cover the same period of time as twelve in Rome and ten in Alexandria. (“A History of Christianity,” pgs 53ff; http://reformation500.com/2014/01/17/historical-literature-on-the-earliest-papacy)
More .
Springfielder, please the Catholic Church beats no one into submission. Indeed, it is Benedict and theologians like Aquinas who belief that reason and faith must be braided together.
That depends on whether you are a RC or not, and on who you listen to.
For while the use of reason in seeking to ascertain the veracity the veracity of RC teaching by examination of evidences is allowed for potential converts (though they cannot even know what Scripture consists of without faith and reliance upon Rome, and in seeking to persuade faith in Rome then Scripture is appealed to as merely historically reliable document), yet a faithful RC is not to do so, as that would mean doubting the claims of Rome to be the assuredly infallible magisterium by which a RC obtains assurance of Truth
Cardinal Avery Dulles: People cannot discover the contents of revelation by their unaided powers of reason and observation. They have to be told by people who have received in from on high. - Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ, “Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of the Faith,” p. 72;
It is the living Church and not Scripture that St. Paul indicates as the pillar and the unshakable ground of truth....no matter what be done the believer cannot believe in the Bible nor find in it the object of his faith until he has previously made an act of faith in the intermediary authorities..." - Catholic Encyclopedia>Tradition and Living Magisterium; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15006b.htm
...when we appeal to the Scriptures for proof of the Church's infallible authority we appeal to them merely as reliable historical sources... - Catholic Encyclopedia>Infallibility; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07790a.htm
—in all cases there is a margin left for the exercise of faith in the word of the Church. He who believes the dogmas of the Church only because he has reasoned them out of History, is scarcely a Catholic......in all cases the immediate motive in the mind of a Catholic for his reception of them is, not that they are proved to him by Reason or by History, but because Revelation has declared them by means of that high ecclesiastical Magisterium which is their legitimate exponent.” — John Henry Newman, “A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation.” 8. The Vatican Council lhttp://www.newmanreader.org/works/anglicans/volume2/gladstone/section8.html
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....Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves...The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour. . — Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, 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.
It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of per sons, the Pastors and the flock...the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors. - VEHEMENTER NOS, an Encyclical of Pope Pius X promulgated on February 11, 1906.
“All that we must do [as must be patent enough now] is to submit our judgment and conform our beliefs to the authority Almighty God has set up on earth to teach us; this, and nothing else.”
“Absolute, immediate, and unfaltering submission to the teaching of God's Church on matters of faith and morals-----this is what all must give..”
“The Vicar of Christ is the Vicar of God; to us the voice of the Pope is the voice of God. This, too, is why Catholics would never dream of calling in question the utterance of a priest in expounding Christian doctrine according to the teaching of the Church;”
“He is as sure of a truth when declared by the Catholic Church as he would be if he saw Jesus Christ standing before him and heard Him declaring it with His Own Divine lips.”
“So if God [via Rome] declares that the Blessed Virgin was conceived Immaculate, or that there is a Purgatory, or that the Holy Eucharist is the real Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, shall we say, "I am not sure about that. I must examine it for myself; I must see whether it is true, whether it is Scriptural?"
“..our act of confidence and of blind obedience is highly honoring to Almighty God,..” —“Henry G. Graham, "What Faith Really Means", (Nihil Obstat:C. SCHUT, S. T.D., Censor Deputatus, Imprimatur: EDM. CANONICUS SURMONT, D.D.,Vicarius Generalis. WESTMONASTERII, Die 30 Septembris, 1914 )]
"The intolerance of the Church toward error, the natural position of one who is the custodian of truth, her only reasonable attitude makes her forbid her children to read or to listen to heretical controversy, or to endeavor to discover religious truths by examining both sides of the question. This places the Catholic in a position whereby he must stand aloof from all manner of doctrinal teaching other than that delivered by his Church through her accredited ministers."
The reason of this stand of his is that, for him, there can be no two sides to a question which for him is settled; for him, there is no seeking after the truth: he possesses it in its fulness, as far as God and religion are concerned. His Church gives him all there is to be had; all else is counterfeit... (John H. Stapleton, Explanation of Catholic Morals, Chapters XIX, XXIII. the consistent believer (1904); Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor Librorum. Imprimatur, John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York )
Thus while the use of reason is sanctioned for a RC in seeking to see whether Rome is of God and worth believing in, yet it is not allowed that one can discern the Scripture is of God apart from some faith in Rome. Thus while reason is appealed to as able to find that Rome is of God, it is disallowed finding that Scripture is of God but that Rome is no worthy of the faith-submission she presumes she is and requires.
In addition, while in real life RCs must interpret their supreme authority (which Prots engage in towards theirs), and her teaching can change, the use of reason by her faithful is only sanctioned by Rome under the premise that she defines reality, that Scripture, tradition and valid historical accounts only consist of and mean what she says, thus requiring implicit faith.
Which logically means what Pius X says, to simply follow the pastors, as to seek to ascertain the veracity of teaching by Scripture, or present teaching by past RC teaching, results in division, which we now see. Which is contrary to the cultic unity that RCs imagine they have, and popes under sola ecclesia sought, Thus even conservative SSPX and SSPX type RCs are likened to Protestants because they engage in interpretation of evidences to ascertain the veracity of V2 and modern teaching, as their are obvious contrasts , even as regards EENS .
Which allowance of reason and type of confusion Pius X warned against (according to a SSPV source, arguing against "resist but recognize" the pontiff):
To the shepherds alone was given all power to teach, to judge, to direct; on the faithful was imposed the duty of following their teaching, of submitting with docility to their judgment, and of allowing themselves to be governed, corrected, and guided by them in the way of salvation.
if it should happen that those who have no right to do so should attribute authority to themselves, if they presume to become judges and teachers, if inferiors in the government of the universal Church attempt or try to exert an influence different from that of the supreme authority, there follows a reversal of the true order, many minds are thrown into confusion, and souls leave the right path...
Similarly, it is to give proof of a submission which is far from sincere to set up some kind of opposition between one Pontiff and another. Those who, faced with two differing directives, reject the present one to hold to the past, are not giving proof of obedience to the authority which has the right and duty to guide them; and in some ways they resemble those who, on receiving a condemnation, would wish to appeal to a future council, or to a Pope who is better informed.....
But obedience must not limit itself to matters which touch the faith: its sphere is much more vast: it extends to all matters which the episcopal power embraces ...
when we love the Pope, there are no discussions regarding what he orders or demands, or up to what point obedience must go, and in what things he is to be obeyed ; when we love the Pope, we do not say that he has not spoken clearly enough, almost as if he were forced to repeat to the ear of each one the will clearly expressed so many times not only in person, but with letters and other public documents ; we do not place his orders in doubt, adding the facile pretext of those unwilling to obey – that it is not the Pope who commands, but those who surround him; we do not limit the field in which he might and must exercise his authority ; we do not set above the authority of the Pope that of other persons, however learned, who dissent from the Pope, who, even though learned, are not holy, because whoever is holy cannot dissent from the Pope. (Pope Saint Pius X, Allocution Vi ringrazio to priests on the 50th anniversary of the Apostolic Union, November 18, 1912, as found at: (“Love the Pope! ” – no ifs, and no buts: For Bishops, priests, and faithful, Saint Pius X explains what loving the Pope really entails.)- http://christorchaos.com/?q=content/choosing-ignore-pope-leo-xiii-and-pope-saint-pius-x (Pope Saint Pius X, Allocution Vi ringrazio to priests on the 50th anniversary of the Apostolic Union, November 18, 1912, as found at: (“Love the Pope! ” – no ifs, and no buts: For Bishops, priests, and faithful, Saint Pius X explains what loving the Pope really entails.)- http://christorchaos.com/?q=content/choosing-ignore-pope-leo-xiii-and-pope-saint-pius-x
But this unScriptural model of effectively placing men above Scripture (since it only consists of and means what they say) under the premise of ensured magisterial veracity, which fosters blind submission to a wider scope of teaching that the "infallible" class damage control RCs point to as unchanging, means that when leadership goes South to varying degrees, then so do the people.
Or they do what Rome forbids, but which Scripture commands and evangelicals do, which is to separate from such, though in the case of many RCs they simply separate to a more extreme RC errors.
As one poster wryly commented: The last time the church imposed its judgment in an authoritative manner on "areas of legitimate disagreement," the conservative Catholics became the Sedevacantists and the Society of St. Pius X, the moderate Catholics became the conservatives, the liberal Catholics became the moderates, and the folks who were excommunicated, silenced, refused Catholic burial, etc. became the liberals. The event that brought this shift was Vatican II; conservatives then couldn't handle having to actually obey the church on matters they were uncomfortable with, so they left. — Nathan, http://www.ratzingerfanclub.com/blog/2005/05/fr-michael-orsi-on-different-levels-of.html
a short-list of independent minds that after serious study, and contemplation converted to Catholicism.
Islam can claim as much, as can we. Scripture is the judge of what is right, and the NT church began with souls discerning what was of God, both men and writings, without an infallible mag. which Rome presumes is essential for this. and in dissent from the historical mag.
, empowered it with a “binding” authority and assured that the gates of hell shall never prevail against it.
You tried this exclusive refuted assertion before.
Likewise, metmom goes off tangent and off over the cliff to think that Catholic doctrine is not inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Name one teaching outside Scripture that is wholly inspired of God as Scripture is, "infallible" or not."
a book written by a convert to Catholicism- Dave Armstrong- a former Protestant campus missionary who offers to meet his request.
Who found the oft-stated (perhaps including you) 33,000 different Prot. denominations to be fallacious:
As for 33,000, I renounced that number years ago (about eight), having been convinced of the faulty criteria used, by Eric Svendsen. I usually say, now, “hundreds of Protestant denominations.”
Thus the “Protestant” traveler has the option of hopscotching from one denomination to another until he/she finds “a” truth that he/she finds confortable with. This is the rotten heresy bequeathed us by Protestantism that allows for a menu of “truths” for grandma to choose from.
Actually, as a raised devout RC who later became born again with its profound changes, i went to different RC churches/masses looking for one that had some real preaching and life, versus the perfunctory professions and congregations who did not want to talk about Christ in their life and the Bible afterward (not for evangelism), the closest being charismatic movement types back then (late 1970's, early 80's).
After 6 years of faithful RC attendance (during which i served as a lector and CCD teacher) I had no problem finding a conservative evangelical church. I listened to evangelical radio, and sincerely prayed to God to show me if you would have me leave the Catholic church, and the Lord promptly told me thru an impromptu meeting with a believer somewhat outside the RC area i was in.
Hence the swarm of Joel Osteens, “Bishop” TD Jakes and pastors of first AME Churches.
Your reasoning is invalid, as its premise is that since souls without an infallible mag see division and bad fruit, then it must be wrong, but which only ignores that God often raised up non-ordained men to reprove those in power, and thus the church began under such, and that division produced Godly men such as Matthew Henry, Spurgeon, Wesley, Moody, Edwards, etc. Which are desperately needed today.
Meanwhile, as early as the 4th c. you have pope Damasus 1 employing murderous thugs in seeking to ensure to seat from his rival, and a litany of unholy popes and political elections, and the conditions which preceded the needed if faulty Reformation:
"For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form--the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution.
"It is against this background of a profoundly shaken ecclesial consciousness that we are to understand that Luther, in the conflict between his search for salvation and the tradition of the Church, ultimately came to experience the Church, not as the guarantor, but as the adversary of salvation. (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for the Church of Rome, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” trans. by Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p.196). http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2012/06/13/whos-in-charge-here-the-illusions-of-church-infallibility/)< /font>
Some of THE most intellectual and intelligent people in the entire history of humanity have been Atheists. I would think those enamored by such human prowess have their priorities in the wrong place. They seem to have forgotten this important lesson from God's word:
Interesting thing for the "theological Einstein of the 20th century" to state! At least he was being honest.