continued from post #47
Therefore, if our opponents would prove what they maintain, it behoves them first of all to show that this economy was instituted by Christ.
Gladly:
50 New Testament Proofs for Petrine Primacy & the Papacy
The Biblical Argument for Papal Succession
Papal Succession: A Straightforward Biblical Argument
Protestant Scholars on Matthew 16:16-19 (Nicholas Hardesty)
Armstrong vs. Collins & Walls #10: St. Peter & the Papacy
Bible on Papal & Church Infallibility
Papal Infallibility Doctrine: History (Including Luther’s Dissent at the Leipzig Disputation in 1519)
Inspired & Infallible Prophets: Analogy to Infallible Popes
For this purpose, they refer to the office of high priest under the law, and the supreme jurisdiction which God appointed at Jerusalem. But the solution is easy, and it is manifold if one does not satisfy them. First, no reason obliges us to extend what was useful in one nation to the whole world; nay, the cases of one nation and of the whole world are widely different.
Calvin often makes analogies from ancient Israel to the present Church, as we have seen several times thus far in this very examination of his views. Yet when Catholics do so, all of a sudden it is improper, simply because we draw conclusions he
disagrees with? He may disagree with our explanations for the papacy, but it is far different to go after the very
mode of argument that we use (in this case, analogy to ancient Israel). He is applying two standards, based on what he agrees and disagrees with.
That won’t do, and so I have called him on it. For my part, I think the better analogy of popes is to the
prophets, as I argued in one of the papers above.
Because the Jews were hemmed in on every side by idolaters, God fixed the seat of his worship in the central region of the earth, that they might not be distracted by a variety of religions; there he appointed one priest to whom they might all look up, that they might be the better kept in unity. But now when the true religion has been diffused over the whole globe, who sees not that it is altogether absurd to give the government of East and West to one individual? It is just as if one were to contend that the whole world ought to be governed by one prefect, because one district has not several prefects.
The Church is in no less need of unity because it is more universal.
That is fallacious logic. If anything, the need for unity by virtue of a central figure, would be even
more necessary, the large an entity becomes. But there are still bishops, who have a local jurisdiction. It’s not “either/or.”
Calvin has neither bishops nor a pope, so I fail to see how that is a superior state of affairs.
Hence, the absurd sectarianism and denominationalism that has flourished ever since in Protestantism. Orthodoxy has not fragmented to nearly that extent in its rejection of the papacy (only about 17 major divisions), because it retains Holy Tradition, the sacraments, and bishops.
But when Protestantism mostly rejected all these things, the way was opened for rampant chaos and doctrinal relativism. And indeed that has come to pass.
But there is still another reason why that institution ought not to be drawn into a precedent. Every one knows that the high priest was a type of Christ; now, the priesthood being transferred, that right must also be transferred. To whom, then, was it transferred? certainly not to the Pope, as he dares impudently to boast when he arrogates this title to himself, but to Christ, who, as he alone holds the office without vicar or successor, does not resign the honour to any other. For this priesthood consists not in doctrine only, but in the propitiation which Christ made by his death, and the intercession which he now makes with the Father (Heb. 7:11).
But this misses the whole point. God is always the Head and reigns supreme. That was true under the Old Covenant and it is in the New Covenant.
That never changes. So why have human figureheads in the Old and then suddenly we have no need of same in the New??? God was the King then, and had high priests and patriarchs and prophets, and he made covenants with folks like Noah and David, and gave the Law to men like Moses.
He is the king now and has bishops and popes. Why should there be any radical change? Men are involved in both covenants. It doesn’t go from “concrete leadership” to, all of a sudden, “no leadership of men because this clashes with God.”
The common sense law of analogy mitigates against that.
And this is why we see all sorts of indications of human leadership in the New Testament. Why would Jesus, for example, bother to say that He was building His Church upon
Peter (of
all people to choose: a vacillating, impulsive weak reed!)?
If Jesus alone were the head of the Church, in the sense that no created human being is also a head, in human, jurisdictional, administrative (etc.) terms, then it seems clear to me that He would not have said that. He would have simply said that He was building His Church, and would have left Peter or any other man out of it. Would that not follow if Calvin were correct?
Rejection of Petrine primacy and leadership makes no sense at all, from a biblical perspective.
3. Arguments for primacy from the New Testament. Two answers.
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That example, therefore, which is seen to have been temporary, they have no right to bind upon us as by a perpetual law.
But, as I have said, the high priest was but one sort of leader or authority figure in the Old Covenant, so this is a red herring.
In the New Testament there is nothing which they can produce in confirmation of their opinion,
There are all sorts of things, detailed in my papers above, that Calvin seems to have overlooked. Plenty of Protestants can see that the arguments are at least legitimate and respectable, though they may personally disagree in the end with the papacy as an ongoing office.
but its having been said to one, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church” (Mt. 16:18).
This is simply untrue. Calvin greatly underestimates the power of the Catholic argument. He consistently does this; it is nothing new. As for what this saying meant, in context, incorporating the literary and historical background, see my relevant paper above.
