Though Protestants and Catholics have many points of disagreement, it seems the most fundamental area of conflict has to do with the nature of the Church. Is the Church a visible, physically identifiable reality with an institutional government that keeps guard over doctrine and discipline, or is it a kind of invisible, loose union of various communities of Christians with different opinions on doctrinal questions and no institutional reality beyond the local level? Both Protestants and Catholics acknowledge the Church has an invisible, supernatural element; Catholics, however, assert that in addition the Church has a physical, visible side - that it is physically identifiable on this earth. Protestants, following Luther, tend to view the Church as a fundamentally invisible reality. In this essay, we will examine the biblical passages that point to the Church as a physical, institutional reality in conformity with Catholic Tradition.
Please keep in mind, we do not deny that the Church is also a spiritual-invisible reality, nor do we assert that salvation is strictly predicated only of those who are formally part of the physical Church structure - although we confess such an arrangement to be normative. In emphasizing the physical-institutional aspect of the Church, we do not mean to deny the invisible.
Rather, as Christ Himself was both God and man, divine and human, so the Church, too, is a kind of incarnation, divine and supernatural while also physical and institutional.
"And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matt. 16:17-19)
As Catholics we are extremely used to citing this passage in context of discussions about the primacy of St. Peter and the prerogatives of the papal office. However, we often overlook the broader implications of the verse:
the establishment of a visible hierarchy. When Jesus Christ institutes His Church, He institutes a physical authority structure that will govern that Church. This verse should be read in parallel with Luke 10:16, when Christ says to all the Apostles,
"Whoever hears you hears me, and whoever hears me hears Him who sent me." The point is Jesus establishes His Church not just to preach, but to have a real authority, the very authority with which Christ is sent by the Father. This is why the Apostles, always in union with Peter, have the duty not only to preach but also
the authority to bind and loose.
We will begin in the Gospel of Matthew:
In short, a Church with authority to bind and loose must have a physical presence; an amorphous, spiritual communion of all believers might be able to preach,
but not bind and loose. This 'spiritual Church' model does not fit very well with our Lord's description of the powers the Church is to have. This is why Protestants have traditionally struggled with these verses about binding and loosing; once we presume that the Church is purely spiritual, "binding and loosing" can only have a spiritualized meaning, which is why many Protestants interpret this verse to mean that individual believers have authority to "bind" evil spirits in the name of Jesus.
This makes little sense for a few reasons:
First, it makes sense why one would "bind" and evil spirit, but when would you ever need to "loosen" one? [1]
Second, "binding and loosing" in the rabbinical jargon Jesus is using always refers to the binding and loosing of the faithful to certain disciplines, never to spiritual powers.
Third, Jesus says whatsoever you bind "on earth" shall be bound in heaven; he is not referring to the spirit world, but to the world of men. The traditional understanding, that the power of binding and loosing refers to the authority of the Church's legitimate pastors to bind believers in matters of dogma and discipline, fits the passage much better. Because this binding and loosing is also "bound in heaven", it is authoritative - and only a physically constituted authority structure can bind and loose authoritatively. Otherwise, we are left with mere opinion and interpretation.
"He that hears you, hears me; and he that despises you, despises me; and he that despises me, despises him that sent me" (Luke 10:16).
Like the passage about binding and loosing, this passage denotes that the preaching of the Apostles is authoritative.
To hear the Apostles is to hear Christ; the preaching of the Apostles is the agency through which faith in Christ is born.
"And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in me" (John 17:20); St. Paul says the same,
"Faith then comes by hearing; and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10:17). The word of the Apostles is life-giving; not only this, but despising the message means despising Christ, and thus God the Father.
Jesus do not say,"He who does not believe the Scriptures despises me", but
"He who despises you despises me." The message comes with authority. An invisible Church - a loose spiritual communion of Christians with diverse beliefs about everything from baptism to salvation to the Rapture to the morality of contraception -
cannot preach an authoritative message. There is no common witness. Only a message coming from something that has an institutional nature can possess this kind of authority. (
authority is not a dirty word)
"If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector" (Matt. 18:15-17).
The Church must have a visible structure in order for someone to "tell it to the Church." It could be argued that this simply means to take the problem to the community, but that it says nothing about the nature or structure of that community. We could respond by noting the authority our Lord gives to that community.
"If he refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you as a Gentile and tax collector." Our Lord expresses a kind of disbelief that someone would refuse to listen to the Church and proscribes a kind of excommunication if they refuse their obedience.
A loose spiritual communion cannot command this kind of obedience. The proscription for shunning, "let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector", would make no sense in such a spiritual communion because a person who did not like the judgment of one "church" could just go down the road to another that would give him a favorable judgment.
The authority Jesus invests in the Church is meaningless unless there is one Church and unless it has some sort of physical constitution.
“I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me" (John 17:20-21).
Here we see that the Church's unity is the source of the credibility of her message. The oneness of the Church with the Father and the Son is the reason "that the world may believe." The world is to believe based on the unity of the Church, that unity must be visible - otherwise, how would the world behold it? It is true that the Church could have an internal, moral unity, but this alone is not sufficient. It is true that the essence of the Church's unity is an internal reality based on the union of the Father with the Son that Christ bestowed upon His Church. However, unity as a mark of the Church is not primarily this internal unity; it is the external, visible unity that flows from that inner unity. That is why unity is one of the Four Marks; the marks are supposed to be visible realities that identify the true Church and distinguish it from false sects. A unity that is ultimately invisible is of no use and cannot be the Oneness that Christ gave to the Church.
http://unamsanctamcatholicam.com/apologetics/86-contra-protestantism/461-visible-church.html
Doctrines develop, they cannot change their essence. It's impossible because God promised it would never happen. When I see the reckless accusation "doctrines of men", it's either a gross misunderstanding, ignorance, or blind prejudice. All doctrines flow from the written and/or oral preaching of the Apostles. There are no "doctrines of men" in the CC.
Initial reply
Development of doctrine is common to all kinds of Christians; it happened in history with regard to doctrines agreed upon by all, and it is also seen in the Bible.
Extensive reply
The Catholic Church holds that there was one apostolic deposit, given by Jesus Christ to the apostles, and that there has been no essential change in that. The Catholic Church preserves this apostolic deposit (Jude 3), and is the Guardian of it. But, on the other hand, there is a growth in clarity of those truths, and men’s understanding increases. One must keep this distinction in mind when discussing development.
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