The Biblical Basis for Catholic Distinctives

[BreadOfLife]

Ugh!
I see you are still following the wrong rock.
And you should know better...you know what happened when Israel wanted a man as king. I guess the warning never occurred to you??

Like @Illuminator statrd - Apostolic Succession is not about "Kings".
It's about servants.

In fact - one the the Pope's titles, as successor or Peter is, "Servant of the Servants of God."

 

[BreadOfLife]

Sorry for your difficulties.

Thank you for your illuminating - albeit, empty responses . . .

 

[BreadOfLife]

Get off your high horse. You are not qualified to dictate what applies to me.
AND BTW....Historically it was Catholics who challenged the Catholic Church’s Corruption.....AND again most recently Catholics who again challenged the Catholics Church Corruption of .... those sex scandals.
That’s your “fathers”.... not mine.
I know who my fathers are.

Yup - SOME of your Protestant Father challenged corruption within the hierarchy of the Church.

Unfortunately - they spawned far more corruptoin with the Scriptures and doctrine that is STIL resonating to this day, as the perpetual splintering and doctrinal invention continues . . .

 

[Curtis]

Jesus says the contrary in John 20:23 and Matthew 16:19! And your fundamentalist bias has blinded you to the force of these texts. Jesus teaches the importance of human mediation of divine forgiveness through the pronouncement of absolution. So deal with it!

You are implying forgiveness of sins of Christians is dependent on some human priest forgiving them, and telling them to say a bunch of Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s.

If you concede that Christians can go right to the Father in Jesus’ name as a son/daughter, then you are admitting there’s no need to have another mediator but Jesus in going boldly to the throne of grace, and I pass on using a mortal priest, when scripture says Jesus is our one great high priest forever.

I’d rather pray wholesale, not retail, and eliminate the middle man of some priest, or Mary.

And all scholarship I’ve checked on your John 20:23 proof text, essentially said the following:

“The meaning of the passage is not that man can forgive sins that belongs only to God, but that they should be taught by the Holy Spirit to declare on what terms, to what characters, and to what temper of mind God would extend forgiveness of sins. It was not authority to forgive individuals, but to establish in all the churches the terms and conditions on which men might be pardoned, with a promise that God would confirm all that they taught; that all might have assurance of forgiveness who would comply with those terms; and that those who did not comply should not be forgiven, but that their sins should be retained. This commission is as far as possible from the authority which the Roman Catholic claims of remitting sin and of pronouncing pardon.”

 

[Curtis]

I have a better question:
Can you show me a SINGLE ministry in the OT or NT that wasn't successive?

The OT Levitival (inisterial) priesthoos was successive.
The same if true for the NT Ministerial proesthood.

In the Old Testament, there were THREE levels of Priests:
- The High Priest
- The Levitical/Ministerial Priesthood
- The rest of the people were a general priesthood of believers.

In the New Testament, there are also THREE levels of Priests:
- Jesus, our High Priest (1 Tim. 2:5, Heb. 7:22-25)
- The Ministerial Priests (James 5:14-15)
- The general priesthood of all Christians (1 Peter 2:5-9).

Just as with all New Testament fulfillments, the fulfillment is always more glorious than the Old Testament type.

The problems the RCC has with their claim that The Pope has Peters apostleship, are:

1. Peter was never Pope in Rome. The Orthodox Church, who was right there to witness events, say that Linus was the first bishop of Rome, not the second.
2. The list of claimed apostolic succession is very problematic, with all kinds of what they call antipopes , and other problems such as when the Roman Empire was split in two, and each half had its own Pope who claimed to be the authentic pope, and they excommunicating each other.
3. If the pope really had Peters apostleship he would be doing what peter did, which included many miraculous healings of people, to the point his shadow falling on someone healing them.
None of the popes in the claimed apostolic succession went about doing what Peter did.
All of the apostleship would transfer over, not just part of it.
4. If there is apostolic succession, you’re missing 11 of them. Where’s all the others at?
There are none.

There turns out to be a lot of evidence in the Bible that Peter, the apostle to the Jews, was never a bishop in the gentile Roman church - Paul was the apostle to the gentiles - which explains why he wrote the book of Romans to instruct that church, instead of Peter.

Peter hung out in the Jewish Christian church in Jerusalem, from 33 AD until it was destroyed in 70 AD, and it, not the Roman church, was the preeminent church during that time.

The Roman church was not the first church, and Peter was never part of that church, despite RCC revisionist claims to the contrary.

 

[Curtis]

In the evangelical church of my youth no less than 3 pastors got on trouble for inappropriate sexual behavior! Fundamentalist sexual misconduct is appallingly common, but irrelevant to the merits or lack of same of their theology. You are committing 2 standard fallacies of apologists untrained in logic:
(1) the use of ad hominens as an excuse to avoid the biblical issues in question; (2) the bigotry of judging a whole movement by its worst exemplars. In logic that's called "the fallacy of hasty generalization." Now let's actually get into the Word! Kindly season your penchant for bluster with a modicum of intellectual rigor and address the arguments from the cited texts.

The Protestants haven’t paid out over a billion dollars to victims, as the RCC has.

The Protestants weren’t caught moving molesting priests from parish to parish after their molesting came to light, thus giving those priests a continuing fresh supply of unsuspecting victims.

Catholic priests in other nations are known for sexually harassing nuns and forcing them into sexual relations, then forcing them to get abortions - there’s nothing comparable to that with any Protestant churches that I’ve ever heard of.

Here’s the NY Post discussing priests raping nuns in 23 countries:
VATICAN CONFRONTS CLERGY NUN-RAPE CRISIS

Here’s another news report: Priests sexually abuse nuns, admits Pope Francis

And this: Vatican confirms nuns' reports of sexual exploitation by priests

 

[Mink57]

Much of the fundamentalist screed directed against Catholics here consists of mindless unbiblical generalizations. These fundamentalists lack the integrity to actually study the biblical basis for Catholic doctrinal distinctives and practices. Informed Catholics might justifiably issue this challenge, 'Let's get into the Word!" This thread will enumerate and methodically explore the biblical basis for several Catholic distinctives so that readers might understand why some evangelicals in my town have fled their evangelical churches to find God real in our local Catholic church.

My thread will initially focus on these 9 Catholic distinctives:
(1) priestly confession (2) the priestly pronouncement of absolution (3) prayer to saints
(4) the Catholic perspective on holy relics (5) Catholic use of holy water (6) Purgatory
(7) Transubstantiation (8) the Catholic doctrine of justification (9) the Catholic view of the authority of Scripture and tradition

To avoid incoherent chaos, please limit your discussion to the distinctive currently under discussion. So let's begin.

(1) PRIESTLY CONFESSION
"
Confess your sins TO ONE ANOTHER...so that you may be healed (James 5:16)."

Most evangelicals imagine that once they get their ticket punched to Heaven, post-baptismal sin is a minor issue because it is automatically forgiven by virtue of God's grace. So they presumptuously cheapen God's grace by ignoring His command to regularly confess their sins not just to God, but to each other. If they confess their sins at all, they do so in a cursory, vague, and generalized manner like, "Lord, forgive me all my sins." Unlike Catholics, they are unwilling to do the hard work of discerning introspection to penetrate their defense mechanisms and unearth the hidden sins they actually need to confess. Thus, they make a mockery of repentance! By contrast, Catholics are willing to air their dirty linen by confessing embarrassing sins to a priest. This is important because of the need for confidentiality and the need for a mature and discerning listening ear who can offer constructive feedback. In a local restaurant some time ago, I overheard 2 Catholics who had just returned from confession. They were discussing a book their priest had given them about how to recognize unknown sins and sins of omission. I felt like I was in the presence of true saints.

In the 19th century, Methodists required weekly confession of sins to each other in class meetings. As a result, in 1870 Methodist spirituality was so powerful that 40% of all Americans were Methodist! Then around 1900, they were no longer willing to air their dirty linen and Methodism has endured a slow steady decline ever since.

Hi Berserk!

First of all, I want to thank you for starting this thread. I've read it entirely, and all I can say is, that I hope the rest of your 9 points will be addressed soon!

I am Catholic. Have been all my life. But it's only in the past decade or so that I really started to delve more deeply into Catholicism. And since I just went to Confession two days ago, it seems appropriate for me to share my views about it.

Personally, I have no objection to confessing my sins to a priest. Yes, I do believe what James tells us ("confess your sins to one another"). But how difficult it would be to simply confess our sins to just anyone! So for me, confessing to a priest is more 'safe'.

Hebrews tells us that Jesus is our 'High Priest'. Jesus delegated his 'priestly' authority to the Apostles, including the authority to forgive sins. I understand Apostolic succession, so it makes sense that the Apostle's would in turn, delegate their authority to others, including priests.

Confession is not something to be taken lightly. It takes a real honest and sincere examination of one's conscience...and that's before one even steps foot into a Confession booth! The Catholic Catechism and the Roman Missal both have some valuable information about what constitutes "grave" matters and what is considered to be sinful. And some of these things, the average person doesn't even think about and/or, they don't consider to be "sinful" (such as having too much pride!). While we can make a 'general' confession, we are taught to go into some detail to a priest. It really takes a certain amount of humility in order to do this! Then again, doesn't Jesus teach us to be humble?

Once I leave the Confessional, I feel 'lighter'...like a burden has been lifted. I feel 'cleansed', so to speak, and the feeling is like no other. It really is amazing.

 

[Mink57]

Why do I, an evangelical who has successfully sued the Catholic church, vigorously defend the biblical basis for their distinctives?
Well, there is an old Indian saying, "Walk a mile in another man's moccasins and you'll agree with him." There is a grain of truth in this hyperbolic saying. Evangelicals rarely love people of other faith traditions enough to make the effort to understand their perspective. Rather, they seek to defame the other with false caricatures that make them feel righteously indignant. They have no clue that a loving look at others' spirituality means looking at its best exemplars and the most rational expression of its apologetic case. So I view my advocacy of Catholic rationality as a matter of spiritual warfare against a shallow evangelicalism that utterly lacks intellectual humility and the grace of an empathetic ear.

As expected, fundamentalists here feel the need to get this thread off track because they have no answer to Matthew 16:19, John 20:23, and James 5:16 as a biblical basis for the Catholic practice of confession and priestly absolution. So it seems time to move on to the OP's next topic, "praying to saints." Fundamentalists like to falsely defame this practice by painting it as an end-run around Jesus' role as mediator, and so, they ignore the fact that Catholics are merely asking specific saints to pray for them. Fundamentalists forget that even deceased saints remain members of the Body of Christ who once lived and still live prayerful lives.

Before I make the biblical case for praying to saints, I invite you to ponder the thrilling possibilities raised by these 4 questions:
(1) Does God allow our deceased loved ones to monitor our progress here on earth?
(2) If so, do they still pray for us as they did during their earthly existence?
(3) If Christ's role as our heavenl Intercessor and Advocate does not eliminate our need to pray for each other, why would it eliminate the need to seek prayer support from deceased saints?
(4) Is it possible that great saints now in Christ's presence have a deep faith to effectively petition God on our behalf?

As a Catholic, I don't see myself as praying TO saints as I see myself praying THROUGH saints. To me, it's no different than me asking *you* to "put in a good word for me".

We ask the saints to pray for us, just like we'd ask others to pray for us.

By the way...I've had some wonderful --yet unexpected results praying through various saints!

 

[Taken]

I am Catholic. Have been all my life.

Curious, were you a Catholic the moment you were naturally born?

Personally, I have no objection to confessing my sins to a priest. Yes, I do believe what James tells us ("confess your sins to one another"). But how difficult it would be to simply confess our sins to just anyone! So for me, confessing to a priest is more 'safe'.

Curious,
In the safety of confessing your sins to a priest...
Are you confessing sins Against God ? Or Against other people?

Thanks.

 

[Mink57]

Curious, were you a Catholic the moment you were naturally born?

I see myself that way. I was baptized into the faith when I was 2 weeks old. Both my parents were Catholic, and my maternal grandparents were Catholic. So, when I say, "all my life", it pretty much IS, all my life.

I also mean that even though I've been a 'lapsed' Catholic--that is--I wasn't a practicing Catholic, I didn't stop believing as one.

Curious,
In the safety of confessing your sins to a priest...
Are you confessing sins Against God ? Or Against other people?

Thanks.

Both. In my viewpoint, if I sin against others, I automatically sin against God.

Yes, there are sins that are strictly against God, but there are also sins that are both against God and others.

 

[Taken]

The problems the RCC has with their claim that The Pope has Peters apostleship, are:

Is: when one begins with a lie, they end with a lie.
It’s the cunningness to convince people that a lie is a truth.
The Fact is; for centuries oral teaching was the method of teaching to the illiterate.
What to do when the illiterate begin learning to read?
What to do when books are printed, available, for individuals to read?
Rewrite the Bible?
Write a teaching “companion” Manuel to the Bible?
If you have ever noticed...disputes between Catholics and non-Catholics hangs on the source from which they each Trust as their factual source.....
and the sources are NOT the same.

 

[Taken]

I see myself that way. I was baptized into the faith when I was 2 weeks old. Both my parents were Catholic, and my maternal grandparents were Catholic. So, when I say, "all my life", it pretty much IS, all my life.

I also mean that even though I've been a 'lapsed' Catholic--that is--I wasn't a practicing Catholic, I didn't stop believing as one.


Both. In my viewpoint, if I sin against others, I automatically sin against God.

Yes, there are sins that are strictly against God, but there are also sins that are both against God and others.

Thank you.

If you sin against God, why would you not directly ask God for forgiveness?
If you sin against a person, why would not directly ask that persons forgiveness?

 

[Mink57]

Thank you.

If you sin against God, why would you not directly ask God for forgiveness?

I do. But I don't stop there. Like I mentioned before, confessing to a priest about this has such a good feeling attached to it.

I confess to God every day, as I have an ongoing dialogue with him. Heck, just about an hour ago, I realized another sin that I committed against God. I have a picture of Jesus on my coffee table, and I looked at it and laughed once I realized my sin...AND, I asked for forgiveness.

But I'll also confess to a priest, once I get to confession again. But I wonder...If I confessed my sin against God to you, would YOU forgive me?

If you sin against a person, why would not directly ask that persons forgiveness?

That's not as easy. You probably already know that. While we can confess our sins to God knowing that we'll be forgiven IF, we're truly sorry, our human counterparts are not so easy to convince. While God may forgive me, my 'brother' may not. As human beings, we already know this.

Sometimes, people DO confess to each other. Sometimes, they're forgiven. Sometimes not. And when they're not, it can have devasting effects on the confessor, even if the confessor is repentant and sincere.

While God is merciful...people...not so much...

 

[Mink57]

Is: when one begins with a lie, they end with a lie.
It’s the cunningness to convince people that a lie is a truth.
The Fact is; for centuries oral teaching was the method of teaching to the illiterate.
What to do when the illiterate begin learning to read?
What to do when books are printed, available, for individuals to read?
Rewrite the Bible?
Write a teaching “companion” Manuel to the Bible?
If you have ever noticed...disputes between Catholics and non-Catholics hangs on the source from which they each Trust as their factual source.....
and the sources are NOT the same.

You're right. The sources are not the same. However, one of the reasons that the other 7 books were dismissed from the Protestant bible was because they weren't originally written in Hebrew.

Now that some of those books have been discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls as having been written in Hebrew, I wonder if the Protestant bible will admit them...

 

[Taken]

Mink57 ~
Can’t respond to your post # 193
You did not separate what I said from what you said.
You have posted as if your response is me speaking.
Edit? Bottom left corner tab.

 

[Mink57]

Mink57 ~
Can’t respond to your post # 193
You did not separate what I said from what you said.
You have posted as if your response is me speaking.
Edit? Bottom left corner tab.

Ugh! Trying to edit....

 

[Taken]

You're right. The sources are not the same. However, one of the reasons that the other 7 books were dismissed from the Protestant bible was because they weren't originally written in Hebrew.

Now that some of those books have been discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls as having been written in Hebrew, I wonder if the Protestant bible will admit them...

I have no issue with Catholics quoting any books in their Bible.
I’ve had Catholics mention 7 supposed missing Books from my Bible, (they have not seen).
So what are you talking about?

• 1 Esdras
• 2 Esdras
• Tobit
• Judith
• Additions to the Book of Esther
• Wisdom of Solomon
• Prologue to Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach
• Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach
• Baruch
• Letter of Jeremiah
• Prayer of Azariah
• Susanna
• Bel and the Dragon
• Prayer of Manasseh
• 1 Maccabees
• 2 Maccabees

 

[Taken]

Ugh! Trying to edit....

Manually separate your post from mine. Put bracket write QUOTE put bracket ..my words....the bracket forward slash write QUOTE put bracket....around my post, not yours.

 

[Mink57]

I'll have to do this the hard way...

I do pray to God directly. But I don't stop there. Like I mentioned before, confessing to a priest about this has such a good feeling attached to it.

I confess to God every day, as I have an ongoing dialogue with him. Heck, just about an hour ago, I realized another sin that I committed against God. I have a picture of Jesus on my coffee table, and I looked at it and laughed once I realized my sin...AND, I asked for forgiveness.

But I'll also confess to a priest, once I get to confession again. But I wonder...If I confessed my sin against God to you, would YOU forgive me?

As for sinning against a person...

That's not as easy. You probably already know that. While we can confess our sins to God knowing that we'll be forgiven IF, we're truly sorry, our human counterparts are not so easy to convince. While God may forgive me, my 'brother' may not. As human beings, we already know this.

Sometimes, people DO confess to each other. Sometimes, they're forgiven. Sometimes not. And when they're not, it can have devasting effects on the confessor, even if the confessor is repentant and sincere.

While God is merciful...people...not so much...

Thanks for your help, Taken. Been in forums for many years and have NO idea why I can't post the way I want to!

 

[Taken]

Ugh! Trying to edit....

Sorry. I’m very basic techy.