(Many Protestants become Catholics and give their reasons for doing so along with their misunderstandings of Catholicism. Catholicism, by contrast, teaches that God ultimately accepts people because Christ’s righteousness is poured into them (infused or imparted), thus making them actually righteous. There are also numerous other places in which Peter is listed first among the Apostles, and even as somehow distinct from the other Apostles (e.g., calling the Twelve “Peter and the Eleven,” [see Acts 2:14]), etc. Likewise, the Catholic Church does not teach that we are saved by Catechisms, candles, holy water, and most of the other things listed on there. Duffy is convinced that there isn’t an unbroken line from St. Peter, but he is a historian of the fifteenth to seventeenth century, not of the early Church, and his arguments are heavily reliant on that third scholar, Fr. Indeed, Walls (a graduate of Notre Dame) has written a book defending the idea of Purgatory from a Protestant perspective. Your email address will not be published. The problem with the second defense is that the “consensus” mostly consists of other people reading Brown and his coauthor Meier, and repeating their conclusions, without adding any new argument or expertise or scholarship (Duffy is a prime example of this—the passage of his book in question has only one footnote, to a second-century text from Irenaeus that Duffy disagrees with). We see no clear evidence of change, and no one bemoaning (or praising, or even acknowledging) some change in governance structure. If we can’t accept these claims just on the basis of an appeal to authority, we’ll have to actually look at the arguments. Walls treats the historicity of the Resurrection as generally accepted, although he acknowledges “that there are numerous scholars on the other side who are more skeptical, or who strongly deny the resurrection.” But this isn’t some skeptical fringe: secular historians in fact tend to treat the Resurrection as fictional, for the simple reason that it describes a supernatural event. Comfort and Joy: Spiritual Lessons in the Final Days of Advent. The notion of a church choosing its church order is unheard of in Christian tradition until the sixteenth century with the Reformation in Switzerland, and the choice between presbyteral and episcopal government is church-dividing to this day. In both cases, it’s irrational skepticism: it’s not a skepticism built on the evidence, but a skepticism that refuses to take the evidence seriously. I mean, where did someone even concoct this from? There’s like 40-some references scattered throughout these letters. A PROTESTANT DEFENSE OF SOLA SCRIPTURA. So the real question is not why the Resurrection is better attested than the papacy. As we will see, each of the Roman Catholic arguments against the Protestant doctrine of sola Scriptura fails, and they are unable to provide any substantial basis for the Catholic dogma of an infallible oral tradition. “By what authority? And if not, on what basis are we compelled to accept his claims about the evidence for the papacy or apostolic succession? right?). As convincing as these arguments may seem to a devout Catholic, they are devoid of substance. In other words, unlike the other six letters, this letter isn’t about Church governance. Thank you. Like Baptism, for example (Mk. @ThinkerCatholic @WordOnFire @BishopBarron @pictureshowfilm The work that got my Presbyterian wife into rcia years ago. Rome has a gospel but not the gospel and, in reality, their gospel damns not saves because it explicitly denies that justification comes by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Duffy acknowledges that Christians of the second century, along with the “greatest minds of the early Church” in the third and fourth century, accepted particular historical claims about Peter, the most important of which is that he died during Nero’s persecution in AD 64, in the city of Rome. Some are so far off that it is hard to take them seriously. The best argument against the Catholic church is the Bible. But the absence of evidence of (2) is itself striking. But when he writes to Rome, where supposedly the bishop of bishops lives, he doesn’t mention a bishop. But as St. Thomas Aquinas notes, “The proof from authority is the weakest form of proof.” (And if Aquinas says it, it must be correct . Many Protestants think Roman Catholics teach a works-gospel that cannot save, while Roman Catholics think Protestants teach easy-believism that requires nothing more than an emotional outburst brought on by manipulative preaching. The Bible itself says “Baptism saves you” (1 Peter 3:21) speaking of a water baptism. If Clement is the pope, the Corinthians’ decision makes sense. **Rome Sweet Home (Militant anti-Catholic becomes Catholic, **Where We Got The Bible, by Henry Graham –. 7:21). And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth. Therefore, it would hardly be surprising were Ignatius not to mention bishops. Solidifying me as the best son-in-law ever. This is why we need to step it up in the Catholic Church and learn our faith again. The picture above quotes one verse that says we are saved by “believing in Jesus,” which is true. Walls is a graduate of Notre Dame, so it is perhaps worth pointing out that in the 1967 Land O’ Lakes Statement, the heads of several Catholic universities (headed by Notre Dame’s Fr. 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