Quick question, from a fellow Catholic (only needing a short, short answer, I think… like even just “yes” or “no”, if sufficient):
Do you push the view that, in order to follow Protestantism, you have to accept that its core differentiating beliefs were nowhere to be practiced in the entire history of the Earth, until the 15th century? (when a MAN brought them about, for the first time) ...in other words, pushing the question: “Why would God allow all Christianity to be misled for 1,500 years, then finally introduce the “truth” in some “new beliefs package”?” As I understand it, even the Jews never thought you needed to believe in God to get to Heaven, and they certainly allowed non-written tradition (ie, they didn’t follow anything like Sola Scriptura, if I’m not mistaken))...Or does that not entirely make sense? (or maybe Protestants still just present some reasoning against all that (quite obviously)).
I’m mostly just curious if that argument is ever used, or if it’s mistaken, etc…
I think Protestantism is way too complex a phenomenon to offer such simplistic diagnoses as a sort of one size fits all dismissal. There are, to be sure, aspects of the various Protestantisms that are completely novel. But different Protestantisms have different novelties and many of them quarrel with one another. Anabaptists, for instance, reject infant baptism but many Reformation traditions sternly rejected this. Some Protestantisms rejected earlier forms of Protestantism and embraced more “Romish” ideas—only to be attacked by other Protestants. Some were influenced by Eastern Orthodoxy. Some resurrected old heresies that were emphatically not native to the 16th Century. Some took sayings of the Fathers in isolation from the patristic tradition and used them as proof texts to back up notions like sola scriptura. They would argue (erroneously, but plausibly to their audience) that their idea was not a novelty but is drawing (sort of) from the early Church. Early Protestants tended to attack the Church for being legalistic. Some Protestant sects today champion a return to the Old Testament dietary laws and even to keeping the whole ceremonial law of Moses (essentially attempting to carry forward the program of the Judaizers that Paul and the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) condemned. They argue the Church went wrong, not during the “Dark Ages” but with the acceptance of Paul as an apostle.
In short, the various Protestantisms are not something utterly new in the life of the Church. They are a resurgence of a phenomenon that has been with the Church since the start: the insistence that one’s private judgement is wiser than the Church. It is a phenomenon still with us today on both the Pelvic-Obsessed Progressive Dissenting Left and the Bitter More Catholic Than the Pope Reactionary Dissenters, both of whom pose much more of a threat to the Church than the many Protestants who, after five centuries, no longer know what the quarrel is and who are, a great many of them, seeking reunion with Holy Church even as many Catholics are rebelling in order to pursue their own private judgements and the chaos these will surely continue to foster.
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I grew up in the Methodist Church and joined a fundamentalist, evangelical church in college during the “Jesus freak” era of the 70s. The focus of our little church, like that of so many evangelical churches of the time, was to return to the “pure” church of the New Testament. We believed the early church was just like us until it was corrupted by the Catholic Church some time after Constantine and remained darkened for a thousand years until Luther freed it. So Protestantism, then, was a recovery of the church, not a discovery of something new. I believed this until I started reading what the Church fathers actually believed and practiced and then I realized that the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic” church of the creed was the Catholic Church—the Holy Mother Church of the ages. Soli Deo Gloria
Tangential, but: my all-time favorite Protestant belief was Archbishop Cranmer’s statement that when the king’s conscience was moved, God was speaking to the nation through him. This about Henry VIII. This is the foundational theorem for the belief that the king/queen is the head of the Church of England. The corollaries of this thesis can be even more hilarious. But to go back to the thrust of the article: when David was king of Israel, he was NOT a prophet. NONE of the kings of Israel were prophets. So if prophecy is a property of Christian kingship, it first emerged with the man Luther referred to as “Junker Heinz.”
Mary, David was indeed a prophet and a king and a priest. He was a prophet because He wrote Scripture, which is prophetic even if the Psalms aren’t included among the writings of the prophets (Moses, who is traditionally understood as having written the Torah, is also called a prophet). He was a king because he was so anointed by God to follow Saul. He was a priest because he became king of Jerusalem, inheriting the role of Melchizedek (Melchizedek’s city, Jebus, became Jerusalem when David conquered the Jebusites, and Melchizedek’s role as priest was implicitly tied to his kingship). David is the type of Christ cited most in the Scriptures and this three-fold role they shared is one reason.
Protestantism offered nothing new in the sixteenth century. In fact, Christ said to Simon when He changed his name to Peter or Cephas, and said that upon this rock He would build His Church and the gates of Hell would not prevail. Prevail they will not, but you must give them credit for constantly trying!
When Protestant acquaintances want to talk about the Bible, I like to explain how the Bible did *not* come to be. At the end of six days of creation, God was not on an adrenaline rush that He could not relax. He spent Saturday after sundown and all day Sunday writing a book. On Monday morning He did not open the pearly gates of Heaven, fling out the Book, hit Martin Luther in the back of the head and ask Martin to correct the errors He probably made in His haste. Martin and Satan had one thing in common-overwhelming pride.
I often ask, “If the Bible is the inspired word of God, as you say you believe, how dare *any* human being add or reduce it by so much as a jot or tittle?” I never get a reasonable answer, or for that matter any answer at all.
No this is all old, old arrogance. It goes back to “Non serviam”- “I will not serve
Mary:
I certainly appreciate your spot on remarks about the dubiousness of Anglican divine right theory and the apologetics for Henry VIII. However, it is inaccurate to say that David was not a prophet. The New Testament says he was (Acts 2:29-30). Indeed, the Psalms are seen in the New Testament as profoundly prophetic.
Remember the Bishop Sheen’s statement concerning the vast majority of people that reject what they THINK the Catholic Church teaches because they are ignorant of what she really teaches.
I have 9 siblings, poorly catechized by the post-Vatican II liberal, know-it-all dissidents, who have left the Catholic Church because some protestant was able to convince them that he knew what the Catholic church taught, and it wasn’t Jesus! I try to offer the perspective that it is impossible for a protestant to understand the Catholic Church because if he truly understood, he’d be a Catholic!
Do you breath when you write?
I really loved this article. It shines light on the problems with Catholics today, that most of out problems are self inflicted and are internal of sorts. But I thought that the persons remark, “even the Jews never thought you needed to believe in God to get to Heaven” was interesting…and would love to see a discusion on it!?!
bob cratchit:
My take on the reader’s remark is that the Jews believed national/ethnic identity as a Jew automatically put them in the “chosen” category—no need for a “personal relationship” with God. In fact, a personal relationship with God was probably a blasphemous concept to them. Remember, it was Jesus who introduced the idea of God as “Our Father.”
I would be very cautious about making such blanket statements. Jesus did not introduce the concept of God as Father to the Jews. What he introduced was a particular refinement on that idea. God is called “Father” in the Old Testament too.
Mark—OK, but I’ll wager the Jews never called YHWH “Abba.”
Mark, love your last sentence. It might be megalithic, but it is jam-packed with wit, truth and wisdom.
Mark, love your last sentence. It might be megalithic, but it is jam-packed with wit, truth and wisdom.
Sorry for the unintended double post- though it does emphasize my enthusiasm…..!
Protestants all want to be their own pope. They say they are guided by the Holy Spirit and don’t need some “man” (the pope)to tell them what to do, yet they never seem to notice that the “Holy Spirit” is extremely inconsistent, telling one truth to one Protestant and a totally different or opposite “truth” to another.
You can reduce it all down to rebellion from doing what God wants to doing what a particular person wants. I find it interesting, e.g., that King Henry VIII was honored by the pope as “Defender of the Faith” after he took on the errors of Martin Luther, who shot back that Henry was less than a maggot anyway. But then “Catholic” Henry suddenly found the church’s teaching on divorce not to his liking when he became enamored by Anne Bolyn, so he decided the church was wrong on that one and made himself head of the church in England. Protestants have been splitting from each other whenever they find a “doctrine” they can’t live with, to the point we have something like 30,000 different Christian denominations in the world! Hardly the unity Jesus prayed for!
However, those who don’t know any better and seek the truth can find it. Scott Hahn is a great example of a Protestant (one-time Presbyterian Minister) who studied his way back to the Church Fathers and rejected both Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide as unbiblical.
I wonder how many Protestants even bother to question their beginnings. So many of these denominations began within the last hundred years, never mind the middle ages!
The remark “even the Jews didn’t think you had to believe in God
to get into Heaven?” Say what???? Jews at the time did not really
believe in Heaven, an after-life, as we Christians think of this…so
what is your point??? The Church has fought against dissidents since its
inception ( someone has said Judas was the first to dissent )albeit was
called heresy up until recently (post Vatican II.) Jesus told us that
thus it will always be until the Son of Man comes again. And then…
there will be ample crow for everyone to eat! Meantime Paul tells us to persevere, run the race to the finish…and never look back! Truth in all its glory will prevail! We don’t have to answer for all those who have
gone astray…just our own defections should concern us. To defend the faith and reject evil should keep us busy enough. To try and “straigten out” the tangled history of Protestantism is like trying to wrestle an octopus with one hand tied behind your back…and is usually not worth the effort. Only God can soften their hearts and minds…and He will, in His own good time! As the psalmist say Be patient, and wait on the Lord!”
I think, throughout history, everytime a group of people become unholy, they breakoff and create their own church! Not that Catholics are always all-holy, but at least we keep trying within the help of the mystical body….and now we, ourselves, see some of the earliest to revolt (i.e. the Anglicans) returning to the fold. Blessed be God for hearing our prayers!
The Divine Liturgy we celebrate as a community every day, and especially on Sundays, has two distinctive parts: The Liturgy of the Word and The Liturgy of the Eucharist. In the first part of the Mass we hear selected readings of Sacred Scriptures, in the second phase we are nourished by the Bread of Life. Both have their origin in the Word of God, Jesus Christ, made present by the power of the Holy Spirit. It was always understood that the human authors of Scripture were inspired by the Holy Spirit. As St. Peter taught “Know this first of all, that there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation, for no prophecy ever came through human will; but rather human beings moved by the Holy Spirit spoke under the influence of God.” (2 Peter 1:20-21). The Gospel of St. John records Jesus teaching us the true meaning of the Eucharist: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” [They] quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent Me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on Me will have life because of Me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.” These things He said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. (John 6:51-59).
The Sacred Tradition of the Church is similar in that the mystical body of Christ is still led by the Holy Spirit today, not only in the interpretation of Sacred Scripture, but also in the Magisterium or teaching authority of the Church. Some Christians cannot accept this truth, espousing a philosophy of Sola Scriptura instead; but what is different from the Holy Spirit inspiring many individual authors over a period of a thousand years and keeping them free from theological error in their sacred writings and the Holy Spirit guiding the Church for the past two millennium and keeping her doctrine free from error in matters of faith and morals? Notice that this truth states that the dogma of the Church will be kept free from error, not its past, current, and future members. The Spirit allows individual freewill to remain intact and members of the Church can sin, which unfortunately we do, just as human authors of Scripture have sinned, King David, the anointed of Yahweh, coming foremost to mind.
Sola Scriptura assumes that an individual’s interpretation of Sacred Scripture is sufficient to know the will of God for our lives and that the Bible alone is the sole authority of the Christian faith. To understand Sola Scriptura it is important to know how the philosophy developed. During the 16th Century, and into the 17th Century, the great advances in technology, notably the printing press, allowed a culture of enlightenment and individualism to sweep the European continent causing significant protest against authority and tradition in general, especially against the Church, which enabled this movement by her human errors, much like the mistakes of the 20th Century undermine her teaching authority today. Abandoning the Church and its apostolic succession, the Protestant Reformation created a vacuum in Christianity that some thought could be filled with a new ideology suggesting that a self-interpretation of Scripture was sufficient for leading the populace to the Way, the Truth and the Life. There is no doubt that the Reformation did a great deal of good for the Christian faith. Besides creating an emphasis on the Sacred Word in the newly educated masses, it forced the Church to examine its practices and renew its commitment to live the mystical life of Christ. Unfortunately the new interpretation of Christianity removed millions of believers from the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist initiated by Christ Jesus at His Last Supper as all three Synoptic Gospels record.
Scripture itself may prove the Holy Spirit never intended the inspired writings to be the ultimate authority of the Christian faith, because in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians St. Paul states that there are traditions other than scripture; “Brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.” (2 Thess 2:15). The adherents of Sola Scriptura usually support their theory with St. Paul’s instruction to Bishop Timothy; “all scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16). Interestingly the Greek word for scripture in verse 16, which can also be translated as writings, is not qualified with the Greek word meaning holy or sacred as it is in verse 15 when Paul reminds Timothy “from infancy you have known sacred scriptures, which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ” (2 Tim 3:15). The simplest explanation for the use of “sacred scriptures” in verse 15 and “all scripture” in verse 16 is that Paul was referring to the Hebrew Scriptures in verse 15, knowing that Timothy was a son of a Jewish woman (see Acts 16:1) and also the Christian writings in verse 16, which were not yet formally canonized by the Church. The best support for this view is found in the next chapter of the same letter: “Luke is the only one with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is helpful to me in the ministry. I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak I left with Carpus in Troas, the papyrus rolls, and especially the parchments.” (2 Tim 4:11-13). Distinguishing between the papyrus rolls and the parchments is notable. What writings do they represent? To this day Hebrew Scriptures are contained in scrolls as they were in Jesus’ day: “He unrolled the scroll” (Luke 4:17) and it is feasible that the Jewish disciples would replicate that tradition in their earliest recordings of Jesus’ life and teachings. Christians were also the first to use the codex form of scriptures recorded on parchment or vellum. The presence of Mark and Luke is also significant since both became Gospel writers. Luke actually stating he used other Gospels in the construction of his own, see Luke 1:1-4. Does this suggest that the Christian scriptures were formed within the Tradition, not separate or superior to it? While Paul’s statement in 2 Timothy 3:16 is completely correct, nowhere does it state that scripture is the sole authority of Christian doctrine, rather it recognizes scripture as part of the Tradition.
Sola Scriptura does not lead to the fullness of truth mostly because the deficiencies employed by the persons interpreting the sacred text, forcing the word of God into their framework of belief rather than listening to the Holy Spirit’s inspirations. Sacred Scripture is extremely important for learning what God expects from us as Christians and how we are to live our lives in the world as professed Catholics. As St Paul aptly exhorts in his 2nd letter to Timothy, but the Scriptures alone is not enough to come to a full understanding of the Christian faith. Sacred scripture illuminates God’s plan for our lives, shows how God intervenes in our lives, and what God wants for our lives, but we do not come to a complete understanding of our faith by exclusively reading and studying the Bible. There are many reasons for stating this but the common evangelical interpretation of the beginning of the Book of Genesis and their understanding of Jesus’ sermon in the Synagogue of Capernaum recorded in John’s Gospel is the best reason to refute this philosophy as insufficient. How can anyone insist that God must have created the world in six days 6000 years ago because the Bible states so while at the same time ignoring the need to receive the Lord as the Bread of Life in the Eucharist because their strand of Christianity has separated themselves from the apostolic priesthood and no longer believes in the Real presence even though Jesus repeated that teaching three times in front of an un-refutable audience. To understand and live the Christian faith, we need the Scriptures and the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist, as Jesus stated in the Scriptures, “my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink” (John chapter 6)the Eucharistic discourse of the New Testament.
God bless the World!!!
The answer is to lie about history so that it fits your ideas. Apparently the early church were a lot like 20th century evangelicals. LOL. It requires a liberal application of the big black marker to the writings of the early church that don’t fit their world view—the same big black marker used to cross out those Scripture verses that conflict with their world view—especially the Catholic verses. It’s the equivalent of squeezing your eyes shut tightly and sticking your fingers in your ears and singing la la la la la at the top of your voice to vigorously avoid the full testimony of Scripture and history. Look, if we believe Jesus is God and can fulfill His word—when he makes his high priestly prayer “Father, may they be ONE as we are ONE so that the world may believe” and “Upon this Rock (Kepha) I will build MY CHURCH and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it”—to be anything but Catholic is to make Jesus out to be a liar. Lying is a sin and Jesus did not sin—God cannot sin. Jesus is NOT a liar!!!
All Scripture verses are Catholic. The Catholic Church gave God’s inspired book to the world.
It would be useful to have a list somewhere of the top Protestant denominations, showing which of their main non-Catholic-sharing beliefs were “novel/new to the scene”.
Also, what about Sola Scriptura for example? Was that a new thing that should theoretically be difficult for Protestants justify suddenly introducing? (assuming that the early Jews and all Christianity up until Luther had no such belief)
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