Where does the Pope get his authority?

[RedFan]

So let's step back and see where we are.

@Peterlag compares the teachings of the Catholic Church to the Bible; sees discrepancies (real or imagined); and concludes that Catholicism is not faithful to Scripture. I am not faulting him for that conclusion (at least not here). But then he makes the further inference that

I think it boils down to this... God created one Church and the Catholics took it over early and corrupted it . . .

Is this further inference a necessary corollary of the aforementioned discrepancies? Logically there are a number of steps to take before we can so conclude. @Peterlag hasn't made those strides yet. (Perhaps he doesn't think they are needed.)

I am prepared to lay out the missing steps to see if they can be spanned -- not because I want to help @Peterlag make his case (he hasn't asked for my help, although he knows I am not Roman Catholic), but because it is a worthwhile exercise.

The first missing step is something I have alluded to in earlier posts: Why would Jesus Christ allow his Church to be co-opted in this way, for so many centuries? If Matt. 16:18 is to be believed, he promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against his Church. So how could this corruption have happened?

The second missing step is also something I have alluded to earlier: Are we able to discount apostolic traditions that grew up along side the developing NT canon, simply because they didn't make their way into a writing later deemed canonical? If John 21:25 is to be believed, the four canonical gospels record a tiny fraction of what Jesus said and did during his earthly ministry with the apostles at his side. So why not allow for the validity of oral transmission of his other teachings?

The third missing step, and likely the most controversial, is whether we can allow for doctrines, rituals and practices not explicitly outlawed by Scripture to be instituted through the Church's teaching authority inherited from Jesus Christ's own authority? If Luke 10:16 is to be believed, those who hear the apostles hear Christ, and those who reject the apostles reject Christ. So why reject any teachings of the apostles, or those instructed by them -- in short, why reject the apostolic Church as a "magisterium" (to use the Catholic word)?

Reasonable minds can differ on the answers to these questions. The stridency, even vitriol, with which some posters attack the Catholics' answers to them is disheartening, and certainly an obstacle to rational discourse. I hope it improves.

(But I am guilty too. I myself find it almost impossible to engage with sola scriptura denizens on this site, so incredulous am I that anyone could ever hold to this galactically stupid tenet (from Luther, not from Paul). Perhaps this disqualifies me from the very debate I have just set up. So be it. I'll step aside, and let @Augustin56 and @Peterlag, and others of like mind, grapple with these missing steps in the argument.)

 

[Peterlag]

Peter, if the Scriptures were so easy to interpret, there would be one (1) Protestant denonmination, with everyone believing the same thing. However, the opposite is true. there are literally tens of thousands of man-made, doctrinally contradicting/disagreeing denominations, all based on someone's personal interpretation of Scripture and all coming up with different interpretations to the point where they had to make up a different denomination. Nice try, though.

You might want to read Acts 30-31: “So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ And he said, ‘How can I, unless some one guides me?’ And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.”

This pretty well seems to fly in the facer of your "The Scriptures are simple and even a child could understand them" comment, does it not?

No it does not. It's just another Catholic concept of handling the Word of God deceitfully. The new covenant had not yet been taught and was not in print because it was bran new. So Philip needed to teach it to him. This is yet another example as to how the Catholics have corrupted the Bible so bad that not even 10 thousand new Protestant groups have been able to untwist it back to the simple truth.

 

[Peterlag]

I don't think that "The Scriptures are simple and even a child could understand them." I doubt you really think so either. According to what you said in Post #354,


Why would you "search[] the Scriptures day and night to be able to piece it together so that I could make sense out of it" if even a child could make sense out of it?

I had to search the Scriptures day and night to try to untwist the corruption that the Catholics have put in the world. They have their stuff ingrained in the culture world wide. Trying to dig out of their nonsense has taken me many years. Here's an example...

Sin Nature: The concept of the original sin was first alluded to in the second century by Irenaeus, (Bishop of Lyon) who was working for the Catholics and not for the apostle Paul. Some two hundred years later another church father who went by the name of Augustine, (Bishop of Hippo) whose writings shaped and developed the doctrine of sin as he considered that humanity shared in Adam's sin. Augustine's formulation of the original sin after the year of 412 was popular among protestant reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, who equated the original sin with a hurtful desire meaning that it persisted even after baptism and therefore completely destroyed the freedom to do good. At first Augustine, said that free will was weakened, but not destroyed by the original sin. But after the year of 412 this concept changed to a loss of free will except to sin, and it's this Augustine's concept that influenced the development of the western church and western philosophy and indirectly all of western Christianity.

 

[RedFan]

I had to search the Scriptures day and night to try to untwist the corruption that the Catholics have put in the world. They have their stuff ingrained in the culture world wide. Trying to dig out of their nonsense has taken me many years. Here's an example...

Sin Nature: The concept of the original sin was first alluded to in the second century by Irenaeus, (Bishop of Lyon) who was working for the Catholics and not for the apostle Paul. Some two hundred years later another church father who went by the name of Augustine, (Bishop of Hippo) whose writings shaped and developed the doctrine of sin as he considered that humanity shared in Adam's sin. Augustine's formulation of the original sin after the year of 412 was popular among protestant reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, who equated the original sin with a hurtful desire meaning that it persisted even after baptism and therefore completely destroyed the freedom to do good. At first Augustine, said that free will was weakened, but not destroyed by the original sin. But after the year of 412 this concept changed to a loss of free will except to sin, and it's this Augustine's concept that influenced the development of the western church and western philosophy and indirectly all of western Christianity.

I'm sure you had a point to make about Catholics screwing up the notion of original sin thanks to Augustine, but I can't figure it out. And I have no clue what Irenaeus "working for the Catholics and not for the apostle Paul" means.

Long before Augustine, St. Cyprian, in discussing infant baptism, wrote that we ought not "shrink from hindering an infant, who, being lately born, has not sinned, except in that, being born after the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the ancient death at its earliest birth, who approaches the more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sins— that to him are remitted, not his own sins, but the sins of another." That's a succinct description of original sin. Do you disagree with him? Or was he "working for the Catholics" too?

 

[Brakelite]

The pope would have no authority if the catholic church didn't give it to him. But they do, they revere him even.

Goes further than that. Haven't read the entire thread, so apologies if the following is a repeat.
Revelation reveals the source of Catholic authority.

KJV Revelation 13:2
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

Of course the above doesn't actually name the Catholic church. But it does identify the dragon in the previous chapter...

KJV Revelation 12:9
9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

And what was Satan, the dragon doing at this time? He was...

KJV Revelation 12:4
4 ...and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

In prophecy, women are metaphor, types, or depictions of God's people. The faithfulness or otherwise of Israel and/ or the church, governed whether the woman was innocent/holy and chaste, or unfaithful, a harlot or prostitute. The chaste woman in revelation 12 depicted a church in expectation of the Messiah. Not everyone, perhaps not even the majority were waiting on expectation or hope, but there were some faithful true followers who did recognise Jesus when he came... These comprised God's true disciples, which included John the Baptist. So we have a pure church waiting for the Messiah, and we have the dragon also waiting to kill the child immediately He comes. Who was the literal power waiting to kill the Messiah at His birth? None other than pagan Rome. Therefore, in a worldly literal sense, the dragon, that is pagan Rome, have the beast his power, God throne, and great authority. The question is, does history bear this out? Yes indeed. The Bishop of Rome for over 1200 years was the legal recipient of Roman authority granted him by no-one other than the emperor, Justinian in a proclamation in 533ad. Justinian was one of, of not the, greatest expositors of law and jurisprudence of the ancient world. That system of law, Justinian's code, endured for 1200 years, until Napoleon's general Berthier took the Pope captive in 1798, disbanded the college of Cardinals and proclaimed Rome a republic. So ended Justinian's code and law, and so began Napoleon's. So the pope's authority was totally legal, even though the premise was deeply flawed. Incidentally, the Pope at the time in 533ad was unable to exercise that authority due to time being under the present authority of the Goths, and the King of the Goths at that time, I think Theodoric, required that any appointee to the office of bishop in Rome had to be approved by the King. The Bishop therefore could not and died not exercise authority or independence. Not until 538ad, when after appeals to Constantinople, Justinian sent an army to oust the Goths from Rome, which they did in 538, freeing the bishop to exercise the autonomy granted to him by Justinian 5 years previous. Incidentally, for those with a penchant for numbers, from 538ad to 1798ad, is precisely 1260 years. Remember that number from Daniel and and Revelation? The time period the church (that same chaste woman who had given birth) would be in the wilderness. Also, the same time period spoken of as pertaining to the Antichrist, the beast, who would persecute that same woman.
Coincidence? Must be right? The beast Antichrist being the Catholic church granted power from pagan Rome and ultimately the dragon? Who would think such a thing.

 

[Peterlag]

I'm sure you had a point to make about Catholics screwing up the notion of original sin thanks to Augustine, but I can't figure it out. And I have no clue what Irenaeus "working for the Catholics and not for the apostle Paul" means.

Long before Augustine, St. Cyprian, in discussing infant baptism, wrote that we ought not "shrink from hindering an infant, who, being lately born, has not sinned, except in that, being born after the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the ancient death at its earliest birth, who approaches the more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sins— that to him are remitted, not his own sins, but the sins of another." That's a succinct description of original sin. Do you disagree with him? Or was he "working for the Catholics" too?

Yep, another Catholic. Cyprian was a bishop of Carthage in 258 AD. It was Augustine that influenced the development of the western church and western philosophy and indirectly all of western Christianity. Everything that you know about our sin nature was taught to you by them.

 

[amigo de christo]

Goes further than that. Haven't read the entire thread, so apologies if the following is a repeat.
Revelation reveals the source of Catholic authority.

KJV Revelation 13:2
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

Of course the above doesn't actually name the Catholic church. But it does identify the dragon in the previous chapter...

KJV Revelation 12:9
9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

And what was Satan, the dragon doing at this time? He was...

KJV Revelation 12:4
4 ...and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

In prophecy, women are metaphor, types, or depictions of God's people. The faithfulness or otherwise of Israel and/ or the church, governed whether the woman was innocent/holy and chaste, or unfaithful, a harlot or prostitute. The chaste woman in revelation 12 depicted a church in expectation of the Messiah. Not everyone, perhaps not even the majority were waiting on expectation or hope, but there were some faithful true followers who did recognise Jesus when he came... These comprised God's true disciples, which included John the Baptist. So we have a pure church waiting for the Messiah, and we have the dragon also waiting to kill the child immediately He comes. Who was the literal power waiting to kill the Messiah at His birth? None other than pagan Rome. Therefore, in a worldly literal sense, the dragon, that is pagan Rome, have the beast his power, God throne, and great authority. The question is, does history bear this out? Yes indeed. The Bishop of Rome for over 1200 years was the legal recipient of Roman authority granted him by no-one other than the emperor, Justinian in a proclamation in 533ad. Justinian was one of, of not the, greatest expositors of law and jurisprudence of the ancient world. That system of law, Justinian's code, endured for 1200 years, until Napoleon's general Berthier took the Pope captive in 1798, disbanded the college of Cardinals and proclaimed Rome a republic. So ended Justinian's code and law, and so began Napoleon's. So the pope's authority was totally legal, even though the premise was deeply flawed. Incidentally, the Pope at the time in 533ad was unable to exercise that authority due to time being under the present authority of the Goths, and the King of the Goths at that time, I think Theodoric, required that any appointee to the office of bishop in Rome had to be approved by the King. The Bishop therefore could not and died not exercise authority or independence. Not until 538ad, when after appeals to Constantinople, Justinian sent an army to oust the Goths from Rome, which they did in 538, freeing the bishop to exercise the autonomy granted to him by Justinian 5 years previous. Incidentally, for those with a penchant for numbers, from 538ad to 1798ad, is precisely 1260 years. Remember that number from Daniel and and Revelation? The time period the church (that same chaste woman who had given birth) would be in the wilderness. Also, the same time period spoken of as pertaining to the Antichrist, the beast, who would persecute that same woman.
Coincidence? Must be right? The beast Antichrist being the Catholic church granted power from pagan Rome and ultimately the dragon? Who would think such a thing.

what i say next , i have a hunch you already know ........
NEVER HEED the R double C .
what you might not know or maybe do know is that the whore has invaded the entire realm of protestant too .
YEAH . inclusive unity we are one crap . its from her . and it be a lie too .

 

[amigo de christo]

any who heeds a harlot and enters into her bed chambers is gonna be filled with her disease
no matter how well she decked her bed with taperstries and alloes and perfumes .
YOU SEE its a bed chamber of death . ITs like a man
who entered into the most decked out well carved building , ITS OUTSIDE looked great
BUT BEWARE THE INSIDE for it is naught but a chamber of death leading all unto the second death .

 

[amigo de christo]

a harlot cannot free a man , she can only make him feel as though he be free ............
BUT JESUS CAN SET A MAN FREE .

 

[amigo de christo]

all who are slaves to the harlot
are as men
who daily walk about in chains and heavy irons binding them and keeping them and yet
they holler we aer not bound , we are free ............................
it is a delusion . a HO , a harlot cannot set a man free , a lie cannot set a man free .
For though it can make him believe he is free , HE IS IN BONDAGE TO ITS LIE , ITS SIN and it not free .
BUT JESUS , HE CAN FREE .

 

[RedFan]

Yep, another Catholic. Cyprian was a bishop of Carthage in 258 AD. I

Yet Cyprian told Pope Stephen to go pound sand when rejecting Stephen’s view regarding the efficacy of baptism by heretics -- and rejecting Papal authority in the process: “For neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience; since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another.” CHURCH FATHERS: On the Baptism of Heretics (Council of Carthage)

Still say Cyprian was "working for the Catholics?"

 

[Cassandra]

Facts!!! I have nothing but facts... as an expert in understand all of the New Testament and being able to see how it all fits together is why I disagree with you.

I'm totally amazed at the hubris displayed here!!! And upthread I read that you said "I hate Catholics."-you didn't say religion, you didn't say practices, you said you hated them.
You need to reread the part where Jesus said. By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another.
And make darn sure your heart is right with God--we all need to. But saying what you said,well, if i were you, I'd sure do some prayer and ask the Lord to show me where i need to grow.

1Cor 13:1"If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing"

Oh, you do! Great! Then you can answer RedFan's post above with the facts! Who, where, when, and how did these Catholics supposedly corrupt Christ's Church?

RedFan asked you, "...Your thesis that "the Catholics" took over and corrupted "the Church" presumes that "the Church" wasn't always in line with Catholicism. That's a proposition you need to back up. You say it happened. You don't know when, you don't know how, you don't know why, you don't know who was involved -- and you can't explain why Christ would allow his Church to be stolen for over a thousand years."

Let's have the facts, please!

BTW, many Protestant theologians claimed to be experts and formally studied Scripture in universities for years. Yet, they discovered through honest study that they were wrong and because they were intellectually honest, they became Catholic. I can name several, including some with PhD's from Protestant seminaries. For example, Dr. Scott Hahn. A very strong anti-Catholic in his younger years, probably more so than you. In fact, he set out to show how wrong Catholicism was and was honest enough to find out what the Catholic Church actually taught (vs. the common lies he always heard that it taught). He even asked his professors and friends to answer questions he couldn't overcome and they had no answers. Listen to Dr. Hahn's personal testimony when you have time, here:

If you are sincerely seeking Jesus, your time may yet come to enter into the fullness of the faith given mankind by Christ. I am praying for you, that the anti-Catholic scales fall off of your eyes, so that you may be surprised by Christ's gift to us, His Mystical Body, the Church.

 

[Peterlag]

I'm totally amazed at the hubris displayed here!!! And upthread I read that you said "I hate Catholics."-you didn't say religion, you didn't say practices, you said you hated them.
You need to reread the part where Jesus said. By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another.
And make darn sure your heart is right with God--we all need to. But saying what you said,well, if i were you, I'd sure do some prayer and ask the Lord to show me where i need to grow.

1Cor 13:1"If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing"

I do hate Catholics with all my heart. But when I say Catholics I don't mean the members. I mean the top brass.

 

[Peterlag]

Yet Cyprian told Pope Stephen to go pound sand when rejecting Stephen’s view regarding the efficacy of baptism by heretics -- and rejecting Papal authority in the process: “For neither does any of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience; since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another.” CHURCH FATHERS: On the Baptism of Heretics (Council of Carthage)

Still say Cyprian was "working for the Catholics?"

Yes he was Catholic who told the Pope no. In those days you could do that. Even Luther after he left the Catholics was still considered a Priest by the Catholics and that is why they could not kill him. Today they would just terminate you. But not back then.

 

[The Learner]

We know the Catholics corrupted Christianity because we now have the Bible in English. We can thank Tyndale for that who was strangled to death while tied at the stake and then his dead body was burned. So we can now read the Scriptures for ourselves to see what the Catholics teach is nonsense. We did not need to be there in the beginning to know when it happened and by who.

1611 AD: The King James Bible Printed; Originally with All 80 Books. The Apocrypha was Officially Removed in 1885 Leaving Only 66 Books. 1782 AD: Robert Aitken's Bible; The First English Lan

 

[The Learner]

Give me a verse where it is written that God is a servant?

I am still having problems reading yhour post.

Mark (10:45)"Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

ACTS 17:25
KJ21
Neither is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.
ASV
neither is he served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
AMP
nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, because it is He who gives to all [people] life and breath and all things.

being kicked off.

 

[RedFan]

Yes he was Catholic who told the Pope no. In those days you could do that.

What is it exactly that makes him "Catholic," in your view?

 

[The Learner]

36 Bible Verses About Servants of God

Bible verses about servants of God are very interesting. Look at theese Bible references to servants. Old Testament prophets called themselves servants. New Testament apostles call themselves servants. In revelation, angels are servants. And so, what does the Bible say about servants of God...

www.biblecafe.org

google God serves people

 

[Cassandra]

The second missing step is also something I have alluded to earlier: Are we able to discount apostolic traditions that grew up along side the developing NT canon, simply because they didn't make their way into a writing later deemed canonical? If John 21:25 is to be believed, the four canonical gospels record a tiny fraction of what Jesus said and did during his earthly ministry with the apostles at his side. So why not allow for the validity of oral transmission of his other teachings?

How do we know which apostolic traditions are true? Were they just added --someone thought it sounded good? something done and not necessary nor was it ordered.
We know what the Bible says is true.

 

[Brakelite]

Yep, another Catholic. Cyprian was a bishop of Carthage in 258 AD. It was Augustine that influenced the development of the western church and western philosophy and indirectly all of western Christianity. Everything that you know about our sin nature was taught to you by them.

There was no Catholic church in the 3rd century. There were bishops yes, and while some bishops in Rome thought it a good thing that all other cities come under the authority of Rome, the papacy had not yet fully developed. Not until Constantine's move to Istanbul, renaming that city after himself, leaving Rome vacant of a civil ruler, did the bishops step up and take responsibility for secular and religious rule, but in that city only. They had close relationships with Alexandria, but cities like Antioch, Carthage, Milan, and the cities of Asia minor had their own bishops unconnected to Rome until a little later with the enforcement of Easter dates and Sunday sacredness and Trinitarian creeds.