/lit/ - Literature

tldr?

>>19483891
>Fair day's-wages for fair-day's-work! exclaims a sarcastic man; alas, in what corner of this Planet, since Adam first awoke on it, was that ever realised? The day's-wages of John Milton's day's-work, named Paradise Lost and Milton's Works, were Ten Pounds paid by instalments, and a rather close escape from death on the gallows. Consider that: it is no rhetorical flourish; it is an authentic, altogether quiet fact,—emblematic, quietly documentary of a whole world of such, ever since human history began. Oliver Cromwell quitted his farming; undertook a Hercules' Labour and lifelong wrestle with that Lernean Hydracoil, wide as England, hissing heaven-high through its thousand crowned, coroneted, shovel-hatted quackheads; and he did wrestle with it, the truest and terriblest wrestle I have heard of; and he wrestled it, and mowed and cut it down a good many stages, so that its hissing is ever since pitiful in comparison, and one can walk abroad in comparative peace from it;—and his wages, as I understand, were burial under the gallows-tree near Tyburn Turnpike, with his head on the gable of Westminster Hall, and two centuries now of mixed cursing and ridicule from all manner of men. His dust lies under the Edgeware Road, near Tyburn Turnpike, at this hour; and his memory is—Nay, what matters what his memory is? His memory, at bottom, is or yet shall be as that of a god: a terror and horror to all quacks and cowards and insincere persons; an everlasting encouragement, new memento, battleword, and pledge of victory to all the brave. It is the natural course and history of the Godlike, in every place, in every time. What god ever carried it with the Tenpound Franchisers; in Open Vestry, or with any Sanhedrim of considerable standing? When was a god found agreeable to everybody? The regular way is to hang, kill, crucify your gods, and execrate and trample them under your stupid hoofs for a century or two; till you discover that they are gods,—and then take to braying over them, still in a very long-eared manner!—So speaks the sarcastic man; in his wild way, very mournful truths.

>>19483987
>tldr?
Westminster Shorter Catechism

>>19484229
I have heard it noted the Shorter is more focused on the individual whereas the Longer deals with church governance. Is this true?

>>44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
>Notice that I, as a Calvinist, don't have to posit any disjunctions in the text, and I'm reading the text as it is actually written. My interpretation of 44 comes directly from 45, which is precisely how you read parallelisms in the Psalms and Prophets. I can read through the text in one run without running to John 12 or talking about "free will." I don't have to bring anything to this text that is not in this text and this text alone. Catholics can't do this, as we've seen repeatedly. Only the Calvinist can read this passage and others consistently without stopping to talk about matters extraneous to the text or running elsewhere.

>>19484250
Longer is more of a commentary on the Confession of Faith itself.

>>19483891
kek. Nestorian Christian Literature General when?

>>19484316
Jw next!

>>19484316
>>19484349
Why do you think your interpretation of free will outweighs the plain words of Scripture? Here are some texts for you to explain if your eisengesis is so infallible.

Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

Who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began

The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will

And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

And all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain

According to catholics etc, your nebulous conclusion of a few vague passages with metaphor should outweigh all this Scripture, and much more and yet you accuse the calvinist of prooftexting. You are the one who refuses to accept the testimony of the entire Bible in favor of something the Bible never actually says. As to how predestination can be synthesized with human agency, Romans addresses this and Calvinism teaches it. You are aware of that, right? You need to repent for your sinful eisengesis. The burden of proof is on you, not the calvinist, to harmonize the abundant dogma of predestination with your lazy assertion of free will not found in Scripture.

>>19484358
Thanks for prematurely btfoing the Antichrist worshiping catholics.

>>19484316
The Christian threads on /lit/ are getting pretty absurd so I thought I would add to it lul.
In my defense I've read a number of the works that I posted in the OP.

>>19484358
Because there is still *you* reading the text. You may not read at the same level, have had a proper meal, had a bad day, weird upbringing etc any way of reading which doesn't account for how we should read it misses the point. "Literalism" is masturbatory. Everyone also prefers being objectively correct. Go write that on your twitter bio.

If we look at John 1:1 we have the greek version, the latin, aramaic and sahidic dialect of coptic. Try to read it "literally". The first three have no indefinite articles. The sahidic does, now what does it say: In the beginning was the Word, the word was *with* God and the word was *a* god.

>>19484496
Sorry since you have taught me that words cannot be interpreted independently of an authority, I can not read your post and derive meaning from it. I can only assume you are incorrect then.

Also why did you muddy the waters with a passage not even under discussion? Is that a concession?

>>19484014
>Cromwell
I miss the russet-coated bonhomie like you wouldn't believe.

>>19484496
This is nonsense. You make no attempt to explain how to intepret the passages in question so that they do not teach doctrines of calvinism. Do you think this pseud posturing isn't transparent? That might work on the larpers with sub 95 IQs, but lol

>>19484572
See this is kinda the point. Reading, talking or any relationship between objects is a two way street unless it's asymmetric.
My point was the words can be interpreted independently of an authority even more that it will so saying you, who are a very small being cf to God who alone knows everything, are reading it literally is very self-centered and haughty. We must know through what metric to understand how you are reading it.

>>19484596
The Emperor has no clothes here. Explain why verses that say God predestines mean God doesn't predestine. Or just stop.

>>19484595
Because we haven't gotten to that. I said reading John 1:1 literally in terms of early translations would yield you reading 3 languages missing a grammar part and one that leads to unitarianism.

>>19484605
This says puritan christian literature which can run the gambit. Idk why you are obsessing over calvinism because that wasn't my point. My issue was w sola scriptura.

>>19484615
You haven't made a point. You are attempting to muddy the waters without positively asserting anything, and your points thus far aren't well taken. You apparently don't even know what a Puritan is. Go back to your containment thread.

>>19484615
Just get to your trite catholic answers talking point so I can btfo it. Stop being a coward about it.

>>19484632

>>19484647
I'm not catholic. My issue is w sola scriptura

>>19484615
>>19484607
>still hasn't interacted with the verses or the word predestination
Uh huh, yes this is definitely a good faith poster

>>19484662
And yet you still haven't actually explained what the issue is. Thanks for bumping the thread but don't expect more replies until you make an actual point. This is getting boring.

>>19484663
>>19484673
It was actually something to grow from and to update your position. You don't save anything you just make yourselves look bad.

>>19484756
And now you've resorted to concern trolling. I am literally certain you can't even properly define sola scriptura.

>>19483891
Should I get it? Is it missing anything important?

>>19484756
Why are you so desperate to keep posting without providing any actual content?

>>19484793
I have that set. The books themselves are high quality. I think they OCR scanned their paperbacks though when they made these. In a couple books there are more than a couple typos. For instance somehow the program they used must have turned "shall" into "snail". Also "The Reformed Pastor" by Richard Baxter in that set is a 1800s abridgement of the original.

However it is still a very nice set that covers a diverse range of topics and is a great intro to Puritan literature. You would also want to get a copy of The Westminster Confession from that publisher so you have the theological vocabulary to help understand them.

>>19484927
Thanks for the info! I have the Westminster and 3 forms in the back of my bible. I have the ESV creeds and confessions bible and I like the intros it has about them. They're also in my Reformation Study Bible. I've thought about getting a commentary on them at some point. I wanted Sprouls but I have reservations about how he supports pictures of Jesus. Otherwise I really like him of course.

>>19484793
It's missing the only book you should be reading, the fucking Bible.

https://www.biblegateway.com/versions/1599-Geneva-Bible-GNV/#booklist f o o t n o t e s

>>19483891

>>19485498
Why are you making the assumption that I don't own one?

>>19484358
Based ESV user

>>19484793
who are all these authors, English Anglicans? Or are they Calvinists

>>19483891
>>The Christian in Complete Armour by William Gurnall
I have this one. It is chonky.
Gurnall was based though because he stayed in the Church of England in during the black Bartholomew Act in 1662 which made him unpopular with both his fellow Puritans and those in the Church of England who despised the Puritans.

>>19485852
17th century English Puritans and one 17th century Scottish Presbyterian. Some of those works were probably written while the authors were still in the Church of England. Lots of Anglicans were Calvinists in the 1600s. There are still Calvinist Anglicans today.

Brothers. We need to talk about Counterfeit Miracles by BB Warfield. Who here has read it? It is vitally important and I want to share it with you all.

>>19483891
Holy based thread

>>19485864
>17th century English Puritans and one 17th century Scottish Presbyterian. Some of those works were probably written while the authors were still in the Church of England. Lots of Anglicans were Calvinists in the 1600s. There are still Calvinist Anglicans today.
Oh wow I'm a retard, I was under the impression that box set was all American Puritans.

Anyway, so my understanding was that The Church of England was wholly Calvinist/Reformed at its inception and for many centuries. True or no? The 39 Articles certainly is pure Calvinism.

>>19486165
Link to book: https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/warfield/warfield_counterfeit.html

It is cessationist kino. The individual essays are:

The Cessation of the Charismata

Patristic and Medieval Marvels

Roman Catholic Miracles

Irvingite Gifts

Faith-Healing

Mind-Cure

>The Apostolic Church was characteristically a miracle-working church. How long did this state of things continue? It was the characterizing peculiarity of specifically the Apostolic Church, and it belonged therefore exclusively to the Apostolic age—although no doubt this designation may be taken with some latitude. These gifts were not the possession of the primitive Christian as such;6 nor for that matter of the Apostolic Church or the Apostolic age for themselves; they were distinctively the authentication of the Apostles. They were part of the credentials of the Apostles as the authoritative agents of God in founding the church. Their function thus confined them to distinctively the Apostolic Church, and they necessarily passed away with it.7 Of this we may make sure on the ground both of principle and of fact; that is to say both under the guidance of the New Testament teaching as to their origin and nature, and on the credit of the testimony of later ages as to their cessation. But I shall not stop at this point to adduce the proof of this. It will be sufficiently intimated in the criticism which I purpose to make of certain opposing opinions which have been current among students of the subject. My design is to state and examine the chief views which have been held favorable to the continuance of the charismata beyond the Apostolic age. In the process of this examination occasion will offer for noting whatever is needful to convince us that the possession of the charismata was confined to the Apostolic age.

>>19486888
>As over against the effort made more especially by Anglican writers to confine genuine ecclesiastical miracles to the first, and in their view the purest and most authoritative, centuries of Christianity, the Romish theologians boldly declare that God has been pleased in every age to work a multitude of evident miracles in His church.

>What now are we to think of these miracles which Augustine and his fellows narrate to us in such superabundance?

We should perhaps note at the outset that the marvellous stories do not seem to have met with universal credence when first published. They seem indeed to have attracted very little attention. Augustine bitterly complains that so little was made of them.15 Each was known only in the spot where it was wrought, and even then only to a few persons. If some report of it happened to be carried to other places no sufficient authority existed to give it prompt and unwavering acceptance. He records how he himself had sharply rebuked a woman who had been miraculously cured of a cancer for not publishing abroad the blessing she had received. Her physician had laughed at her, she said; and moreover she had not really concealed it. Outraged, however, on finding that not even her closest acquaintances had ever heard of it, he dragged her from her seclusion and gave the utmost publicity to her story. In odd parallelism to the complaint of his somewhat older contemporary, the heathen historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who in wistful regret for the portents which were gone, declared stoutly that they nevertheless still occurred, only "nobody heeds them now,"16 Augustine asserted that innumerable Christian miracles were constantly taking place, only no notice was taken of them.17

>>19486901
It is a very disturbing fact further that the very Fathers who record long lists of miracles contemporary with themselves, yet betray a consciousness that miracles had nevertheless, in some sense or other, ceased with the Apostolic age. When Ambrose, for example, comes to speak of the famous discovery of the bodies of the two martyrs, Protasius and Gervasius, at Milan, and the marvels which accompanied and followed their discovery, he cannot avoid expressing surprise and betraying the fact that this was to him a new thing. "The miracles of old time," he cries,21 "are come again, when by the advent of the Lord Jesus a fuller grace was shed upon the earth." Augustine, in like manner, in introducing his account of contemporaneous miracles which we have already quoted, begins by adducing the question: "Why do not those miracles take place now, which, as you preach, took place once?" "I might answer," he replies, "that they were necessary before the world believed, that it might believe," and then he goes on to say, as we have seen, that "miracles were wrought in his time, but they were not so public and well attested as the miracles of the Gospel." Nor were the contemporary miracles, he testifies, so great as those of the Gospels, nor did they embrace all the kinds which occur there. So Chrysostom says:22 "Argue not because miracles do not happen now, that they did not happen then. . . . In those times they were profitable, and now they are not." Again:23 "Why are there not those now who raise the dead and perform cures? . . . When nature was weak, when faith had to be planted, then there were many such; but now He wills not that we should hang on these miracles but be ready for death." Again: "Where is the Holy Spirit now? a man may ask; for then it was appropriate to speak of Him when miracles took place, and the dead were raised and all lepers were cleansed, but now. . . ." Again: "The Apostles indeed enjoyed the grace of God in abundance; but if we were bidden to raise the dead, or open the eyes of the blind, or cleanse lepers, or straighten the lame, or cast out devils and heal the like disorders. . . ." Chrysostom fairly teems with expressions implying that miracle-working of every kind had ceased;24 he declares in the crispest way, "Of miraculous powers, not even a vestige is left";25 and yet he records instances from his day!

> puritan Christian chantards

>>19486906
Take another example which brings us closer to our present theme. Augustine tells us13 that in the neighboring town of Tullium there dwelt a countryman named Curma, who lay unconscious for some days, sick unto death, and in this state saw into the other world, as in a dream. When he came to himself, the first thing he did was to say: "Let some one go to the house of Curma the smith, and see how it is with him." Curma the smith was found to have died at the very moment in which Curma the farmer "had returned to his senses and almost been resuscitated from death." He then told that he had heard in that place whence he had just returned that it was not Curma the farmer but Curma the smith who had been ordered to be brought to the place of the dead. Augustine, now, tells us that he knew this man, and at the next Easter baptized him. It was not until two years later, however, that he learned of his vision; but then he sent for him and had him bring witnesses with him. He had his story from his own lips and verified all the circumstantial facts carefully by the testimony of others who had first-hand knowledge of them—Curma's sickness, his recovery, his narrative of what had befallen him, and the timely death of the other Curma. He not only himself believes it all, but clearly expects his readers to believe it on the ground of his testimony.

This, however, is only the beginning. Gregory the Great tells the same story14—not, however, on the authority of Augustine as having happened to Curma of Tullium, but as having happened within his own knowledge to an acquaintance of his own—"the illustrious Stephen," he calls him, a man well known (and that means favorably known), he says, to Peter, the friend to whom he is writing. Stephen, he says, had related to him frequently his wonderful experience. He had gone to Constantinople on business, and, falling sick, had died there. The embalmers being a little difficult to get at, the body was fortunately left overnight unburied. Meanwhile the soul was conducted to the lower regions and brought before the judge. The judge, however, repelled it, saying: "It was not this one, but Stephen the smith that I ordered to be brought." The soul was immediately returned to the body, and Stephen the smith, who lived near by, died at that very hour. Thus it was proved that "the illustrious Stephen" had really heard the words of the judge; the death of Stephen the smith demonstrated it. Are we bound, on the credit of Augustine and Gregory, both of whom relate it as having happened within their own knowledge to acquaintances of their own, to believe that this thing really did happen, happened twice, and in both cases through one of the same name being mistaken for a smith?

>>19484316
And yet the jihadi anon wasn't allowed to post in peace, sad!

There are certain other circumstances connected with the cures of Lourdes, which, on the supposition of their miraculousness, evoke some surprise. The Bureau of Constatation exhibits at times a certain shyness of expecting too much of a miracle—a shyness quite absent, it is true, on other occasions, when, as it appears, anything could be expected. We read,123 for example, of a case of apparent hip-disease, and it was said that one leg had been seven centimetres shorter than the other; while now, after the cure, "the legs were of an exactly equal length." The cure was not admitted to registry, but was referred back for further investigation. "The doctors shook their heads considerably over the seven centimetres"; "seven centimetres was almost too large a measure to be believed." Why—if it was a miracle? And, after all, would the prolongation of a leg by seven centimetres be any more miraculous than the prolongation of it by six—or by one? Stress is sometimes laid on the instantaneousness124 of the cures as proof of their miraculousness. But they are not all instantaneous. We read repeatedly in the records of slow and gradual cures: "At the second bath she began to improve"; "at the fourth bath the cure was complete."125 Indeed the cures are not always ever completed. Gabriel Gargam, for example, one of Bertrin's crucial cases, he tells us,126 "bears a slight trace of his old infirmity as the guarantee of its erstwhile existence. He feels a certain weakness in his back at the spot where Doctor Tessier supposed that a vertebra was pressing on the medulla." Similarly in the case of Madame Rouchel, a case of facial lupus, and another of Bertrin's crucial cases, "a slight ulceration of the inside of the upper lip," he says,127 "remained after the cure." These cases are not exceptional: Bertrin informs us128 that it is quite common for traces of the infirmity to remain. He even discovers the rationale of this. It keeps the cured person in grateful memory of the benefit received.129

>>19486950
And it is even a valuable proof that the cure is truly miraculous. For, do you not see?130 "had the disease been nervous and functional, and not organic, everything would have disappeared; all the functions being repaired, the disease would not have left any special trace." This reasoning is matched by that into which Bertrin is betrayed when made by the physicians of Metz—Madame Rouchel's home—really to face the question whether she had been cured at all. They pointed out that the lip was imperfectly healed. Bertrin cries out131 that the ''question was not whether a slight inflammation of the lip remained, but whether the two perforations which had existed in the cheek and roof of the mouth before going to Lourdes had been suddenly closed on Saturday, September 6." The physicians point out inexorably that this is to reverse the value of the symptoms and to mistake the nature of their producing causes, and record the two findings: (1) that the lupus was not healed; (2) that the closing of the two fistulas in twelve days was not extraordinary. This celebrated case thus passes into the category of a scandal.132

OK that was a taste of Counterfeit Miracles for anyone interested. I know for me, I was hooked immediately. Warfield effortlessly, but thoroughly, deconstructs all the bullshit miracles of the Church Fathers' time and throughout Roman Catholic history. I don't think it's possible to read it without being a committed cessationist.

This is important because it is central to the claims of various sects today, from Catholicism and Orthodoxy to Revivalists and Charismatics. The problem is that all these miracles are bullshit at best and demonic at worst. The Marian apparitions are by far the most chilling. Notably, Mary's appearance is radically different in the various apparitions over the ages - eye color, hair color, dress, etc. This begs the question: who exactly is appearing...? We know it's not Mary because even if we entertained her apparition on one occasion, she wouldn't have a constantly morphing appearance if it were authentic. These are demons spouting bizarre heresy like "I am the Immaculate Conception," a quote used to suggest that Mary and the Holy Spirit are in some sense the same entity (Maximillian Kolbe, a "saint").

These things must be taken seriously, as well as speaking in tongues. It is frankly a little spooky at times, although I tend to optimistically feel that it's just horseshit most of the time.

From the KJVOnlyist thread calling the ESV satanic:

>The underlying issue of Baptists preferring the Masoretic Text over the Critical Text belies the fact that their theology is corrupted by Roman Catholicism. They make the same weak hypothetical arguments to defend the MT like "why would God have let us use this text for so long if it weren't infallible?" Same shit from Rome. Nonargument and arbitrary special pleading for their preferred customs.

>This is also why Baptists are free will obsessed. Romish infiltration. Only the Calvinist stands tall and says, "Why yes I'd like the most accurate text of God's word that scholarship can produce, thank you."

>Both Baptists and Catholics seethe about the long ending of Mark being a forgery because it means their precious infallible idols of the KJV and the Magisterium fucked up. Well guess what? THEY DID FUCK UP YOU IDOLATORS.

Who besides Calvinists embrace the Critical Text? I'm assuming Lutherans do, since they use the ESV... who else besides the liberal Protestants? Catholics do to an extent, but stop short of conceding the long ending of Mark is a lie.

Catholicbro here. Do any of my fellow Puritanbros here read Howard's Solomon Kane stories? I honestly wish there were more heroes like him out there.

>>19486876
Not entirely Reformed. Anglicanism at it's inception was kind of a "via media" between Calvinism and Lutheranism. Considering the English Reformation's beginnings it makes sense. The 39 Articles do give a very tiny bit of leeway for interpretation too. It wasn't until the Oxford Movement in the 19th century that you have people like John Henry Newman trying to twist them into absurdity to introduce Roman Catholic practices into the Church of England. He later turned papist of course.

>>19487099
>He later turned papist of course.
He was also a homosexual, so fitting for Rome. Interestingly, this fact was advertised by the homosexual priest Father James Martin, S.J., who has been rewarded generously by Pope Francis for his aggressive LGBT advocacy and deriding conservative Catholics as the "Catholic Alt-Right."

I was surprised to find out how recent the Anglican Church became Catholicized. I am a former Catholic, and Rome always emphasized how identical Anglicans are to Rome and how the break from Rome was political and not ideological. I had no idea that Anglicanism spent centuries as a Reformed (or Reformed/Lutheran) denomination with wildly different theological grounding. Just one of the many historical inaccuracies Rome propagates.

>>19487214
On the subject of Newman and how his bizarre doctrines turn one into a Protestant, see: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/10/catholicism-made-me-protestant

The causes of any conversion (or near conversion) are many and confused. Should I foreground psychological and social factors or my theological reasoning? Certain elements of my attraction to Catholicism were adolescent, like a sixties radical’s attraction to Marx or a contemporary activist’s to intersectionality: I aimed to preserve the core beliefs of my upbringing while fleeing their bourgeois expressions. When I arrived at the University of Chicago, I knew just enough about Calvinism to hold it in contempt—which is to say, I knew very little. Reacting against the middle-aged leaders of the inaptly named “Young, Restless, and Reformed Movement,” I sought refuge in that other great Western theological tradition: Roman Catholicism.

During my first year of college, I became involved in campus Catholic life. Through the influence of the Catholic student group and the Lumen Christi Institute, which hosts lectures by Catholic intellectuals, my theologically inclined college friends began converting to Catholicism, one after another. These friends were devout, intelligent, and schooled in Christian history. I met faithful and holy Catholic priests—one of whom has valiantly defended the faith for years, drawing punitive opposition from his own religious superiors, as well as the ire of Chicago’s archbishop. This priest was and is to me the very model of a holy, righteous, and courageous man.

I loved Catholicism because Catholics taught me to love the Church. At Lumen Christi events, I heard about saints and mystics, stylites and monastics, desert fathers and late-antique theologians. I was captivated by the holy martyrs, relics, Mary, and the Mass. I found in the Church a spiritual mother and the mother of all the faithful. Through Catholicism, I came into an inheritance: a past of saints and redeemed sinners from all corners of the earth, theologians who illuminated the deep things of God, music and art that summon men to worship God “in the beauty of holiness,” and a tradition to ground me in a world of flux.

Catholicism, which I took to be the Christianity of history, was a world waiting to be discovered. I set about exploring, and I tried to bring others along. I debated tradition with my mother, sola Scriptura with my then fiancée (now wife), and the meaning of the Eucharist with my father. On one occasion, a Reformed professor dispensed with my arguments for transubstantiation in a matter of minutes.

>>19487219
Not long after this, I began to notice discrepancies between Catholic apologists’ map of the tradition and the terrain I encountered in the tradition itself. St. Ambrose’s doctrine of justification sounded a great deal more like Luther’s sola fide than like Trent. St. John Chrysostom’s teaching on repentance and absolution—“Mourn and you annul the sin”—would have been more at home in Geneva than Paris. St. Thomas’s doctrine of predestination, much to my horror, was nearly identical to the Synod of Dordt’s. The Anglican divine Richard Hooker quoted Irenaeus, Chrysostom, Augustine, and Pope Leo I as he rejected doctrines and practices because they were not grounded in Scripture. He cited Pope Gregory the Great on the “ungodly” title of universal bishop. The Council of Nicaea assumed that Alexandria was on a par with Rome, and Chalcedon declared that the Roman patriarchate was privileged only “because [Rome] was the royal city.” In short, I began to wonder whether the Reformers had a legitimate claim to the Fathers. The Church of Rome could not be straightforwardly identified as catholic.

John Henry Newman became my crucial interlocutor: More than in Ratzinger, Wojtyła, or Congar, in Newman I found a kindred spirit. Here was a man obsessed with the same questions that ate at me, questions of tradition and authority. With Newman, I agonized over conversion. I devoured his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine and his Apologia pro Vita Sua. Two of his ideas were pivotal for me: his theory of doctrinal development and his articulation of the problem of private judgment. On these two ideas hung all the claims of Rome.

In retrospect, I see that Newman’s need to construct a theory of doctrinal development tells against Rome’s claims of continuity with the ancient Church. And at the time, though I wished to accept Newman’s proposal that “the early condition, and the evidence, of each doctrine . . . ought consistently to be interpreted by means of that development which was ultimately attained,” I could not. One could only justify such assumptions if one were already committed to Roman Catholic doctrine and Rome’s meaningful continuity with what came before. Without either of these commitments, I simply could not find a plausible reason to speak of “development” rather than “disjuncture,” especially because what came before so often contradicted what followed.

>>19487223
The issue of ecclesiastical authority was trickier for me. I recognized the absurdity of a twenty-year-old presuming to adjudicate claims about the Scriptures and two thousand years of history. Newman’s arguments against private judgment therefore had a prima facie plausibility for me. In his Apologia, Newman argues that man’s rebellion against God introduced an “anarchical condition of things,” leading human thought toward “suicidal excesses.” Hence, the fittingness of a divinely established living voice infallibly proclaiming supernatural truths. In his discourse on “Faith and Private Judgment,” Newman castigates Protestants for refusing to “surrender” reason in matters religious. The implication is that reason is unreliable in matters of revelation. Faith is assent to the incontestable, self-evident truth of God’s revelation, and reasoning becomes an excuse to refuse to bend the knee.

The more I internalized Newman’s claims about private judgment, however, the more I descended into skepticism. I could not reliably interpret the Scriptures, history, or God’s Word preached and given in the sacraments. But if I could not do these things, if my reason was unfit in matters religious, how was I to assess Newman’s arguments for Roman Catholicism? Newman himself had once recognized this dilemma, writing in a pre-conversion letter, “We have too great a horror of the principle of private judgment to trust it in so immense a matter as that of changing from one communion to another.” Did he expect me to forfeit the faculty by which I adjudicate truth claims, because that faculty is fallible? My conversion would have to be rooted in my private judgment—but, because of Rome’s claim of infallibility, conversion would forbid me from exercising that faculty ever again on doctrinal questions.

Finally, the infighting among traditionalist, conservative, and liberal Catholics made plain that Catholics did not gain by their magisterium a clear, living voice of divine authority. They received from the past a set of magisterial documents that had to be weighed and interpreted, often over against living prelates. The magisterium of prior ages only multiplied the texts one had to interpret for oneself, for living bishops, it turns out, are as bad at reading as the rest of us.

>>19487226
But I did not remain a Protestant merely because I could not become a Catholic. While I was discovering that Roman Catholicism could not be straightforwardly identified with the catholicism of the first six centuries (nor, in certain respects, with that of the seventh century through the twelfth), and as I was wrestling with Newman, I finally began reading the Reformers. What I found shocked me. Catholicism had, by this time, reoriented my theological concerns around the concerns of the Church catholic. My assumptions, and the issues that animated me, were those of the Church of history. My evangelical upbringing had led me to believe that Protestantism entailed the rejection of these concerns. But this notion exploded upon contact with the Protestantism of history.

Martin Luther, John Calvin, Richard Hooker, Herman Bavinck, Karl Barth—they wrestled with the concerns of the Church catholic and provided answers to the questions Catholicism had taught me to pose. Richard Hooker interpreted the Church’s traditions; Calvin followed Luther’s Augustinianism, proclaimed the visible Church the mother of the faithful, and claimed for the Reformation the Church’s exegetical tradition; Barth convinced me that God’s Word could speak, certainly and surely, from beyond all created realities, to me.

Catholicism had taught me to think like a Protestant, because, as it turned out, the Reformers had thought like catholics. Like their pope-aligned opponents, they had asked questions about justification, the authority of tradition, the mode of Christ’s self-gift in the Eucharist, the nature of apostolic succession, and the Church’s wielding of the keys. Like their opponents, Protestants had appealed to Scripture and tradition. In time, I came to find their answers not only plausible, but more faithful to Scripture than the Catholic answers, and at least as well-represented in the traditions of the Church.

The Protestants did more than out-catholic the Catholics. They also spoke to the deepest needs of sinful souls. I will never forget the moment when, like Luther five hundred years earlier, I discovered justification by faith alone through union with Christ. I was sitting in my dorm room by myself. I had been assigned Luther’s Explanations of the Ninety-Five Theses, and I expected to find it facile. A year or two prior, I had decided that Trent was right about justification: It was entirely a gift of grace consisting of the gradual perfecting of the soul by faith and works—God instigating and me cooperating. For years, I had attempted to live out this model of justification. I had gone to Mass regularly, prayed the rosary with friends, fasted frequently, read the Scriptures daily, prayed earnestly, and sought advice from spiritual directors. I had begun this arduous cooperation with God’s grace full of hope; by the time I sat in that dorm room alone, I was distraught and demoralized.

>>19487230
I had learned just how wretched a sinner I was: No good work was unsullied by pride, no repentance unaccompanied by expectations of future sin, no love free from selfishness.

In this state, I picked up my copy of that arch-heretic Luther and read his explanation of Thesis 37: “Any true Christian, whether living or dead, participates in all the blessings of Christ and the church; and this is granted him by God, even without indulgence letters.” With these words, Luther transformed my understanding of justification: Every Christian possesses Christ, and to possess Christ is to possess all of Christ’s righteousness, life, and merits. Christ had joined me to himself.

I had “put on Christ” in baptism and, by faith through the work of the Spirit, all things were mine, and I was Christ’s, and Christ was God’s (Gal. 3:27; 1 Cor. 3:21–23). His was not an uncertain mercy; his was not a grace of parts, which one hoped would become a whole; his was not a salvation to be attained, as though it were not already also a present possession. At that moment, the joy of my salvation poured into my soul. I wept and showed forth God’s praise. I had finally discovered the true ground and power of Protestantism: “My beloved is mine, and I am his” (Song 2:16).

Rome had brought me to Reformation.

/End

>>19487029
never heard of this, give me the qrd

>>19483891
OP, Matthew Henry's Commentary should go in the OP. There are a few other notable Puritan commentaries too.

Why don't Puritans ever acknowledge biblically accurate angels if they read the Bible so much?

>>19487236
Thanks for writing this out, it was a good read. While I'm not leaning towards protestantism right now, your last passage about realizing the presence of Christ's spirit in us at all times resonates a lot with my own experiences and has made me reconsider some of the Protestant traditions. Out of curiosity, did you ever look into the Eastern Orthodox during your search? When I look into that tradition I feel both the all encompassing cultural and historical aspects that you appreciated about Catholicism, as well as the solid and living theological and ecclesiological grounding that the Reformers seem to have had. However I think I'm still pretty early in my journey, and I'd appreciate your thoughts on anything you may have read or experienced on the matter

>>19487286
because theyre too obviously daemonical entities

>>19487343
I think EO has a superior grasp on the Church Fathers. Catholicism's understanding of the CFs is purely anachronistic and self-serving; it's almost sickening to listen to the abuse the CFs' words for their own gain or to attempt to dab on other traditions. This is not true of EO. They have a genuine relationship with and understanding of the CFs, and that is a good thing.

HOWEVER. Becoming EO based on this implies that the CFs should be determinative of what Christianity is, and I simply disagree. I think the historical evidence is pretty strong that the CFs didn't really have the kinds of relationships to the Apostles that they claim (and obviously many are far too late to have any such direct knowledge regardless), and I see no reason to place the CFs on a pedestal beyond that, or even if their authoritative claims were true. They are fallible men who generally lacked important things like a knowledge of Hebrew, access to primary documents, knowledge about first century Judaism or Christ's / Paul's milieu generally (as the whole world did before the late 20th century), and the historical techniques and archeology necessary for them to be anything other than products of their immediate culture and circumstances. Their theology and takes are therefore somewhat limited, fraught with objective historical/technical errors, and often prone to magical thinking and groupthink. And I don't even dislike them, but they are not an "authority" and treating them as such severely limits one's ability to take the Bible on its own terms. Further, more than Church Fathers, they are Church Infants. They can say amazing things in one sentence and then spout insanity and heresy in the next. I'd trust the average megachurch attendee to give me a solid description of the Trinity before the early CFs.

So there's that. If you're into the CFs, Orthodoxy may be for you. But there's more.

>>19487286
>book of enoch

>>19487343
>>19487413
The next big question is apostolic succession. Is that a real thing? If the answer is yes, then I suppose Orthodoxy is where you need to be. However, if there is one fact about early Christianity that is settled, it's that this succession is not a real thing. It was a later invention, and one grounded in gnostic thought at that. And therefore, in my opinion, any church built on these claims is de facto a church I don't want to be a part of.

To be clear, I don't think EO is a bad religion. But I do think that apostolic succession is verifiable bullshit (from all sides, but particularly the Catholic one btw) and that makes the Orthodox claims prima facie fallacious. I also am simply not interested in limiting my theology to the Church Fathers when I think they have some really severe limitations (again worse when interpreted through the bizarre lens of Catholicism, but even taken on their own terms by EO I still don't owe them my theological allegiance).

Without the Fathers and Succession, EO has very little to demand your attention, but as far as I can tell, those are the two issues you need to consider. They beat Catholicism on these issues 100%.

Please read this entire article before deciding where you fall on apostolic succession. Then, read the Catholic rebuttal. Then, read Brandon Addison's rebuttal to the rebuttal. This will give you EVERYTHING you need to make a decision on this topic.

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/03/the-quest-for-the-historical-church-a-protestant-assessment/

I think you will be surprised at how clear the evidence is that Apostolic Succession is simply a late invention that does not deserve your obsequiousness.

>>19487343
>>19487413
>>19487445
I should clarify that that article, while about Catholic claims of apostolic succession, touches on the concept as a whole. I personally attempted to become Orthodox, but just couldn't feel comfortable in that setting. Ultimately, when I was deciding on a church, I gave up on theological reasoning and went for the church with the most young families with children. It ended up being a Presbyterian Church in America congregation. I learned about the theology afterward, but quickly fell in love with it. As I perused the apologetics, I came to believe it wholeheartedly. This was a good website for that: http://triablogue.blogspot.com/p/triablogue-topical-index.html

I don't know if I would have ever broken from my need for "historic" Christianity otherwise, but when I finally did, I realized that history is a lot more complicated than the propaganda from Catholics and Orthodoxy. Reformed Christianity means everything to me, because it wasn't until I joined that PCA congregation that I could truly say I was "saved", which of course is what is most important. But I've also learned what it really means to dive into the Bible constantly and fellowship with other Christians. I'm part of a church that sees more baptisms and professions of faith than funerals. We celebrate holidays together and raise our kids together. It's just really great. True expository preaching through a book of the Bible is something else too, and I don't think you get it anywhere else.

Guys, this is such a great fucking thread. Wtf, is this even /lit/ - home of the worst religion discussion on the planet?

Morning bump

>>19484014
Why did he love Cromwell so much? Wasn't he a fan of hereditary monarchs?

>>19488638
>Wasn't he a fan of hereditary monarchs?
NO. KING. BUT. CHRIST.

>>19488638
Is this a joke?

>>19488638
>>19488663
>>19488678
This is one of the things that filters tradcath larpers from Reformed Christianity. They can't stand that Presbyterians don't worship the idea of monarchy.

>>19487445
I can't recommend enough that everyone reads that link. It is the most thorough, perfect takedown of Catholic claims I've ever seen, citing everything up to and including Catholic historians to do it. The rebuttal to it flailing and anemic posturing. Frankly because there is no rebuttal to it. Long read but just excellent. That guy is a credit to Westminster Seminary California.

>>19488832
If every larper on lit read it, there would be no more larpers. I wish I could force it down their throats.

>>19487506
Agree. Got a lot of good reading recs from it. Don't let this one die bros. I suggested making a Confessional Protestant General to be more inclusive, but no one seemed to care. Thoughts? I'm LCMS and I doubt there are many others floating around here.

>>19483891
Is there a sharp doctrinal distinction between Reformed and Puritan? If so, could someone give a quick rundown?

>>19488949
No there seems to be a bit of confusion here. Puritans ARE Reformed/Calvinist. In a sense they are a subset, but its more like they are a specific historical expression of Presbyterianism. They subscribed to the Westminster. They are differentiated in that they come from certain parts of UK different from the majority of current Presbyterians, and they were committed to building a society around their ideas. They were more strict in the sense of things like not celebrating holidays, but even today the Reformed have an uneasy relationship with them, using the meat for idols clause. Their societies were structured as if Presbyterianism ran the whole town. But ultimately they were just a particularly exuberant subculture of Calvinists. Many evangelical Presbyterians today have an interest in them, especially among the Neo Calvinists.

Joel Beeke and certainly denominations and seminaries are more explicitly interested in them, but I hear about them a lot in the PCA.

>>19488971
I should also add their ideas were sometimes a little different, perhaps leaning toward theonomy, but again even today many Reformed are into these ideas. Whatever their distinctives, those theological ideas remain in Presbyterianism today. For instance, Pastor Jeff Durbin, a Reformed Baptist in Arizona, spends a lot of time preaching on theonomy and partial preterism, both of which were prevalent in Puritan society.

>>19487230
>Martin Luther, John Calvin, Richard Hooker, Herman Bavinck, Karl Barth—they wrestled with the concerns of the Church catholic and provided answers to the questions Catholicism had taught me to pose.

But their answers require torturing the meaning of the words 'one', 'holy', 'catholic', and 'apostolic', if indeed there is any attempt to deal with the meaning of those words at all.

Newman, by contrast, certainly did take the challenge of making sense of those words seriously, and ended up where he ended up for very good reasons.

>>19487343
If I may respond to you as a Catholic, in addressing the EO, you must reckon with the claims of the papacy -- which sits as a very large and immovable rock in the middle of Church history, and I daresay in the middle of anyone's path who is considering the road to EO.

Did this thread get pruned?

>>19488994
>Newman, by contrast, certainly did take the challenge of making sense of those words seriously, and ended up where he ended up for very good reasons.
Yeah and then he had to create the cope of inventing the development of doctrine.

>>19489019
See: >>19487445
Any objective historical evaluation of the papacy indicates it is a late invention, which is why even Catholic historians dont endorse it.

>>19489033
A helpful description of what Purtianism is disappeared.

>>19489041
>the cope of inventing the development of doctrine

No Christian - whether Protestant, EO, or Catholic - can deny the historical fact of development of doctrine, which is irrefutably testified to by the Councils of the first millennium.

Homoousious, anyone?

>Any objective historical evaluation of the papacy indicates it is a late invention

It's pretty to think so. Unfortunately, the Petrine Ministry was established by Jesus Christ Himself -- which I reckon is a pretty early 'invention' so far as Church history goes.

>>19489063
That's simply bald assertion that is only really endorsed by lay Catholic apologists with no authority in the church and no training at Catholic seminaries to qualify as theologians according to church definition. As I said, I provided a link showing that even Catholic historians on the Pontifical Historical Commission agree with my position and reject your assertion as pious fiction.

If you can't provide a citation supporting your claim, what's the point? The Catholic Church is on my side here. You're living in a world of retro, niche apologetics that have no endorsement from the church itself

Wait until he pulls out the donations

>>19489076
What a comprehensive rebuttal. I truly don't see how anyone can read this exchange and still be Catholic. You have to committed to the position beforehand to possibly draw the conclusion that it's true. That's literally it.

>>19489076
>That's simply bald assertion
It's simply an historical fact -- if you accept the NT as history, that is. Pic related (includes citations!).

In a nutshell, Jesus gave certain of His followers the authority to teach. Matthew 28. See also: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-teaching-authority-of-the-church

The early Christians recognized that the apostles were sent by Christ and endowed with the authority to teach in his name.

Apostolic succession, in turn, is the line of bishops that stretches back to the apostles.

The role of apostolic succession in preserving true doctrine is illustrated in the Bible.

To make sure that the apostles’ teachings would be passed down after the deaths of the apostles, Paul told Timothy,
>“[W]hat you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2) (that's a citation, friendo).

In this passage he refers to the first three generations of apostolic succession—his own generation, Timothy’s generation, and the generation Timothy will teach.

The Church Fathers, who were links in that chain of succession, regularly appealed to apostolic succession as a test for whether Catholics or heretics had correct doctrine. This was necessary because heretics simply put their own interpretations, even bizarre ones, on Scripture. Clearly, something other than Scripture had to be used as an ultimate test of doctrine in these cases.

Thus the early Church historian J. N. D. Kelly, a Protestant, writes, “[W]here in practice was [the] apostolic testimony or tradition to be found? ... The most obvious answer was that the apostles had committed it orally to the Church, where it had been handed down from generation to generation.... Unlike the alleged secret tradition of the Gnostics, it was entirely public and open, having been entrusted by the apostles to their successors, and by these in turn to those who followed them, and was visible in the Church for all who cared to look for it” (Early Christian Doctrines, 37) (citation!).

For the early Fathers, “the identity of the oral tradition with the original revelation is guaranteed by the unbroken succession of bishops in the great sees going back lineally to the apostles.... [A]n additional safeguard is supplied by the Holy Spirit, for the message committed was to the Church, and the Church is the home of the Spirit. Indeed, the Church’s bishops are ... Spirit-endowed men who have been vouchsafed ‘an infallible charism of truth’” (ibid.)(ibid!).

1/3

>>19489172

2/3

Here, for example, is Ireneaus's Petrine-centered understanding of apostolic succession:
>“It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times, men who neither knew nor taught anything like what these heretics rave about” (Against Heresies 3:3:1 [A.D. 189]).

>“But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the successions of all the churches, we shall confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul—that church which has the tradition and the faith with which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the apostles. For with this Church, because of its superior origin, all churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world. And it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition” (ibid., 3:3:2).

>“Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time” (ibid., 3:3:4).

Ireneaus continues:
>“It is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in the Church—those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the apostles; those who, together with the succession of the episcopate, have received the infallible charism of truth, according to the good pleasure of the Father. But [it is also incumbent] to hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession, and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever, either as heretics of perverse minds, or as schismatics puffed up and self-pleasing, or again as hypocrites... For all these have fallen from the truth” (ibid., 4:26:2).

>“The true knowledge is the doctrine of the apostles, and the ancient organization of the Church throughout the whole world, and the manifestation of the body of Christ according to the succession of bishops, by which succession the bishops have handed down the Church which is found everywhere” (ibid., 4:33:8).

(cont.)

>>19489180

3/3

The same is taught by Cyprian:
>“[T]he Church is one, and as she is one, cannot be both within and without. For if she is with [the heretic] Novatian, she was not with [Pope] Cornelius. But if she was with Cornelius, who succeeded the bishop [of Rome], Fabian, by lawful ordination, and whom, beside the honor of the priesthood the Lord glorified also with martyrdom, Novatian is not in the Church; nor can he be reckoned as a bishop, who, succeeding to no one, and despising the evangelical and apostolic tradition, sprang from himself. For he who has not been ordained in the Church can neither have nor hold to the Church in any way” (Letters 69[75]:3 [A.D. 253]).

Likewise Augustine:
>“[T]here are many other things which most properly can keep me in [the Catholic Church’s] bosom. The unanimity of peoples and nations keeps me here. Her authority, inaugurated in miracles, nourished by hope, augmented by love, and confirmed by her age, keeps me here. The succession of priests, from the very see of the apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after his resurrection, gave the charge of feeding his sheep [John 21:15–17], up to the present episcopate, keeps me here” (Against the Letter of Mani Called “The Foundation” 4:5 [A.D. 397]).

Examples could be multiplied. But in sum, the first Christians had no doubts about how to determine which was the true Church and which doctrines the true teachings of Christ. The test was simple: Just trace the apostolic succession of the claimants, and in particular the succession that occurred respecting the See of Peter in Rome.

All over the world, all Catholic bishops are part of a lineage that goes back to the time of the apostles, something that is impossible in Protestant denominations (most of which do not even claim to have bishops).

>>19489172
>>19489180
>>19489191
Are you serious with this? Lmao. Ok please now explain why the Pontifical Historical Commission and the consensus of Catholic historians then rejects these arguments if it is so clear cut? I mean you're seriously drinking the Kool aid to think your little pictures are serious history, but I really want to know what your explanation is for Catholic historians with papal fiat disagreeing with it. Tell us all.

>>19489172
That disingenuous chart is peak pseud and so are you. Anachronistic, decontextualized quote spamming of fallible sources isnt an argument. Not only that, you completely ignored his entire argument.

That coupled with the walls of text and obvious copy pasta really just make this low content spamming. I hope you eat a ban for this. I really do.

>>19489191
Spamming the thread with catholic answers copypasta isn't an argument, and if you had something worthwhile to say it could be said with fewer words and less shitty infographics. Show yourself out of this thread.

>>19489191
>>19489180
>>19489172
Roman Catholic scholar and member of the Pontifical Historical Commission, Eamon Duffy puts it rather starkly,

These stories [of the Petrine origin of the Papacy] were to be accepted as sober history by some of the greatest minds of the early Church — Origen, Ambrose, Augustine. But they are pious romance, not history, and the fact is that we have no reliable accounts either of Peter’s later life or the manner or place of his death. Neither Peter nor Paul founded the Church at Rome, for there were Christians in the city before either of the Apostles set foot there. Nor can we assume, as Irenaeus did, that the Apostles established there a succession of bishops to carry on their work in the city, for all the indications are that there was no single bishop at Rome for almost a century after the deaths of the Apostles. In fact, wherever we turn, the solid outlines of the Petrine succession at Rome seem to blur and dissolve.5

>>19489294
Perhaps we could regard this as a rogue liberal Catholic scholar. Unfortunately, Duffy is not the only Roman Catholic persuaded by the evidence. With the Imprimatur of Thomas A. Boland, Archbishop of Newark,6 Raymond Brown states,

The supposition that, when Peter did come to Rome (presumably in the 60’s), he took over and became the first bishop represents a retrojection of later church order…our evidence would suggest that the emergence of a single bishop, distinct from the college of presbyter-bishops, came relatively late in the Roman church, perhaps not until well into the 2nd century. Leaders such as Linus, Cletus, and Clement, known to us from the early Roman Church, were probably prominent presbyter-bishops but not necessarily ‘monarchical’ bishops.7

>>19489302
Patrick Burke likewise finds the claim to a monarchical episcopate in Rome to be flawed. He says:

There is no evidence for a monarchical episcopate at the end of the first century except in Asia Minor and Syria, and even in this region the evidence that it was still in process of development.12

>>19489210
>the Pontifical Historical Commission and the consensus of Catholic historians then rejects these arguments

What authority does any of that have in the face of the Church's dogmatic statements about the papacy at Vatican I and II (and yes, Vatican II, despite its reputation as a pastoral council, issued certain statements that can only be understood as dogmatic, including its remarks about the papacy).

The link you provided (https://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/03/the-quest-for-the-historical-church-a-protestant-assessment/)) contains NO - ZIP - ZERO - remarks by the Pontifical Historical Commission.

Rather, it has remarks by a brilliant but very liberal Catholic historian, Eamon Duffy (who, in the quoted remarks, was speaking in his personal capacity and not as a member of the Commission). As for Raymond Brown, well, he too is another brilliant but very liberal scholar, and his remarks reflect this ideology.

The Church allows these men the freedom of their opinion -- a mere human opinion, and likewise subject to criticism.

Thus, for example, this response to Duffy:

Heschmeyer, The First- and Second-Century Papacy: An Answer to Eamon Duffy
>http://shamelesspopery.com/the-first-and-second-century-papacy-an-answer-to-eamon-duffy/

>>19489308
Dupay does not state that the threefold office may not have been in existence, but he is resolute that the monarchical episcopate was not founded by the historical Jesus.

Francis Sullivan echoes the statements of Dupay when he says:

“There is broad consensus among scholars that the historical episcopate developed in the post-New Testament period, for the local leadership of a college of presbyters, who were sometimes also called episkopoi to the leadership of a single bishop…Scholars differ on details, such as how soon the church of Rome was led by a “monarchical” bishop, but hardly any doubt that the church of Rome was led by a group of presbyters for at least part of the second century.14

>>19489312
Some may wish to respond that this modern consensus is only a modern development in the past 30-40 years by a select group of liberal Catholics, but that is not the case. The dissertation from George Edward Dolan submitted to the Catholic University of America in 1950 states the following:

Catholic scholars are agreed that the two terms, bishop and presbyter, were synonymous in the early church and were interchangeably applied to the same individuals. Although there is accord on the identity of names there is a division of thought on the question as to whether the episcopoi-presbuteroi were bishops properly so-called or simple, ordinary priests. This latter alternative is favored by a representative number of Catholic scripture scholars.15

As a piece of evidence to show why modern scholars saw the episcopoi-presbuteroi as simple priests, Dolan lists various pieces of evidence including this statement concerning Jerome:

It would appear that St. Jerome in the fourth century unwittingly laid the foundation when he wrote a defense of the presbyterate [see here] against the arrogance and abuses of certain Roman deacons. In order to restore the presbyterate its rightful place and authority Jerome pointed out that in the very early days of the Church the terms episcopus and presbyter signified the same individuals. In other words, as we interpret Jerome all were bishops in the sense in which this word is understood today, with full powers to confirm and ordain. But when the universal monarchical episcopate was introduced into the government of the Church only the chief priests who were subjected to him (in other words, the presbyters) were given only a limited or restricted share in the power of the priesthood.16

If we are to believe Dolan’s assessment of Catholic scholarship, it seems that by at least 1950 Catholics were willing to acknowledge that “episcopoi-presbuteroi were bishops properly so-called or simple, ordinary priests.” There seems to be no distinction, and Dolan even appealed to Jerome to substantiate this.

With this string of quotations, I have attempted to show that the general consensus among Roman Catholic scholars is that the notion of an episcopate originating with Peter is virtually non-existent in the academic world. We could go on listing quotes from other Catholic scholars

>>19489316
Conclusion: The Roman Catholic claims regarding the monarchical episcopate and Apostolic Succession are not “plausible” to even the majority of the RCC’s own experts. Only lonely incels drunk on e-pologetics and Dunning Kruger styled assessments of his own faculty for historical reasoning and assessment of primary texts, all of which Catholic historians are obviously aware and more thoroughly read than you.

>>19489309
>everyone that disagrees with me is liberal and therefore doesn't count
Did you have like... another argument, or are we done here?

>>19489245
>Not only that, you completely ignored his entire argument.

Whose argument did I ignore?

>That coupled with the walls of text

Hardly. Moreover, the quoted text was entirely relevant.

>and obvious copy pasta
Copying from myself, in this case.

> I hope you eat a ban for this. I really do.

What nonsense. I made a highly substantive, three-part post, and you respond with pure rhetoric, as if that's in any way a refutation of my remarks.

>>19489275
>Spamming the thread with catholic answers copypasta isn't an argument,
When YOU throw down your Protestant gauntlet than I AM going to respond?

Capisce?

>>19489302
>>19489294
>>19489302
You've cited two liberal scholars, as if that determines the matter. Two grains of sand in the balance against a pound of gold.

And all of your faux indignation and outrage. What nonsense. Grow up.

>>19489308
>Patrick Burke

Yikes. Patrick Burke?! Well, tbqf, I never heard of him before, but another county heard from, I guess. I mean, if you've lost Patrick Burke, you might as well go Protestant, or at least EO.

>>19489327
Well, I'd say the guy who falsely claimed the Pontifical Historical Commission agrees with his position (>>19489076) is done.

I wouldn't say he lied, but he clearly misunderstood the article he was quoting from, which makes no such claim.

>>19489325
>Conclusion: The Roman Catholic claims regarding the monarchical episcopate and Apostolic Succession are not “plausible” to even the majority of the RCC’s own experts.

What nonsense. Where is this imagined majority? You have no such evidence. Why are you claiming you do? You are being disingenuous, sir. Relax your ill-considered pugnaciousness and get a grip on yourself.

>>19489309
>in response to top scholars in their field, recognized by multiple popes, and even a current cardinal, all subject to peer review, he posts a blog in response and considers the matter solved
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA you catholic larpers seriously can't help yourselves with the fake sources and blog posts and epologists. Time to duck out of the thread, kiddo. The '"""liberals"""" are talking. Go back to your world where you're more catholic than the pope. You're a joke.

Mods please keep the catholic retards in their containment thread. This thread was going great prior to the schizo larper. He admitted to spamming copypasta. He can stay in his containment thread.

>>19489360
>You are being disingenuous, sir.
Oh man do you talk like an incel. Go away.

>>19489374
>AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Yes, it's funny, but the joke's on you.

You jokers are holding up a pair of deuces - two liberal Catholic scholars - as if you've got a straight flush, aces high. You've got bupkis.

Well, I've guess you've got Brandon Addison, too.

Brandon Addison contra mundum. Good luck with that.

>>19489395
Not an argument.

My Puritan brothers: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Today I am reading Blessed Watson’s lectures on the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism. The matter of it is most excellent and I recommend it to you all.

>>19489316
Oy vey. The authority backing your claim is so scant that you've been reduced from quoting the at least respectable and accomplished Duffy and Brown, to quoting a literal who student writing in 1950.

Here's a tip. Check out Hans 'King' Kung's remarks in 'The Church'. A very legit, albeit controversial guy; undoubtedly brilliant. He sticks in my craw, but you might dig him.

>>19489397
Are you under the impression that non catholic and secular scholars believe Jesus Christ immediately instituted the papacy in 33 AD? Please provide even one such reference.

>>19489442
Stop, it's time to leave the thread now. You've made your point. I think it was totally refuted but you've made it. No point in unchristian threadshitting, is there?

>>19488638
>>19488663
>>19488786
I think you guys are a bit myopic, Carlye is a bit more nuanced than monarchy bad/good.
Carlye can apreciate the person and actions of Cromwell while still being overall empathetical to monarchy. Hell, Cromwell and a large part of the commonwealth wasnt even explicitly anti-monarch, just mostly anti King Charles

Cromwell is part democritus, part Constantine and part Napoleon. He is a very interesting as a character study, as inpart power feel in his lap, but he also proved it with action, and he had convictions to use it to create a great state and religious body, however, He was more temperate(and I would say less cynical) then either Caesar or napoleon or constantine. He tried multiple times to honestly give up most of his power to a representitive body, but it fell into gridlock and HAD to take the reigns. And was often good at it. He was honestly pious and somewhat of a mediator. Which is a very novel characteristic, Most strongly willed and powerful conquered are not mediators by their very nature.

He was king, prime minister, and pious layman all at once. Most leaders can usually only hope to be two. (not saying he was perfect of course, he had his own flaws)

What study bibles does everyone ITT use? Is the Reformation Heritage KJV really the Bible of Puritan aficionados?

>>19489461
Very nice post, do you have a recommendation for further reading? Either a book or just random online stuff?

>>19489465
I'm not really clear to what extent Beeke has a monopoly on Puritan fanboyism. I prefer the Reformation Study Bible but I wouldn't say it's Puritan in any way. Just a faithful Reformed Bible.

So I read through a lot of this thread, and I'm actually realizing for the first time that there is some serious intellectual weight to Protestantism. I've never seen a Catholic get their legs cut off in an argument like this, desu I was under the impression they were always winning such debates because they have history on their side. Now I'm seeing that's not apparently the case. What's up with that? Why isn't it more well known that the Emperor has no clothes?

>>19489565
I really enjoyed the Revolutions Podcast by Mike Duncan. The first section is on the glorious revolution. I like him because he is vary measured and explains the various sides and aspects to events without championing things in a very laid back, but still achedemic way. I only listed up to the glorious revolution section though, so idk if other sections of Revolutions hold up (given the insindiary nature of the topic).

I Have listened to his older history of rome podcast as well however, and I thought it was likewise excellent in its ability to try and present a well nuanced understanding of roman history without being polemical or such. I really wish there were more people like him that try less to draw conclusions and more to explain potential contextual mindsets and sequences of events. Not villienising particular parties, but giving them a well rounded analysis, explaining them.

>>19489647
>without championing things in a very laid back, but still achedemic way.
meant to say
> without championing things, and he does it in a very laid back, but still achedemic way.

>>19489448
Fuck you

>>19489729
Lol, I accept your concession and the concession of all papists.

>>19489647
Will check it out, thanks

>>19489448
>Are you under the impression that non catholic and secular scholars believe Jesus Christ immediately instituted the papacy in 33 AD?

They self-evidently do not; if they did, presumably they'd be Catholic. What's your point?

>>19489455
>No point in unchristian threadshitting, is there?

No threadshitting by me. I responded to some anon who threw the glove down on the Papacy with a patently false claim. I responded with a detailed and substantive rebuttal. This was greeted with Luther-style mud-flinging, in comments lacking any substance which refuted nothing.

>Stop, it's time to leave the thread now. You've made your point. I think it was totally refuted but you've made it. No point in unchristian threadshitting, is there?
The only posts I've made have responded to the points raised by other anons. No "threadshitting" whatsoever -- by me, anyway. Or are the words of the Church Fathers - directly relevant to the specific issue raised, btw - "threadshitting" now? That said, this is 4chan, not reddit. And nor were the Puritans all sweetness and light; see Cromwell.

>>19489729
The guy who posted this dumb remark ain't me.

>>19489971
No concession here. Care to try to refute any of the points I made? Go ahead. I'll be around.

>>19490399
Wow you sure are triggered. You already lost the debate full stop. Your best argument was to call everything that disagreed with you liberal and to then say that despite prominent catholics and papal appointed historians disagreeing with you, and despite every last non catholic in the world disagreeing with you - thus every historian in the world except for some blogger you linked to - somehow the facts are on your side.

I disagree. I'll trust the univers consensus of all historians including catholic ones that papal claims are pious fictions. You can either refute this point with peer reviewed sources or you can duck out. I will not read one more blog post by you, Wall of text, or out of context church father quote. What I need is hard evidence of the papacy in the first century via the expert opinion of one peer reviewed source.

You don't get to brush the historical consensus away as liberal. Sorry, doesn't work like that.

>>19490399
Absolutely delusional. This psycho actually thinks he's winning the argument. That is so weird... it's just weird.

>>19490399
>I responded with a detailed and substantive rebuttal.
You responded with copypasta pull quotes and a shitty infographic you spam here 25 times a day.

>This was greeted with Luther-style mud-flinging, in comments lacking any substance which refuted nothing.
This is where your mental illness surfaces. You were greeted with a detailed, substantive rebuttal using, very charitably I might add, only Catholic, papal approved, historians who all call the papal claims a pious fiction. This is not mudslinging. It is the definition of a substantive argument. The fact that you see it differently is called a persecutory personality disorder. You're a sick person.

>>19483891
what's presbyterian approved bible translation

>>19490583
ESV is the main one used today. Also the NKJV, the KJV, the NASB, and I guess guess RSV theoretically but no one actually uses it. The NRSV is for liberals, but it surfaces from time to time in some settings.

The main thing is Presbyterians accept textual criticism and so prefer the critical text. They have no issue with things like the longer ending of Mark being a forgery. This poses a major problem for groups like KJV onlyists and catholics.

>>19490603
Finally, a church that seems to take reality into account
What do you guys think of NT Wright?
He's the one that got me interested in Christianity again after a life of pretty much being only nominally Christian

>>19490603
You cannot affirm the Westminster Confession and use a critical text translation.
>"The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and, by his singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical..."
>kept pure in all ages
The Assembly believed the text they had was pure.

Secondly the Scripture proofs of the Westminster Standards contain verses not found in the critical text.
If you affirm the Westminster Standards then you must also affirm the Comma Johanneum.

>>19490640
I think he's OK in limited circumstances but he's a deeply intellectually dishonest person with limited appeal. He is interesting for his partial preterism mainly IMO. His book on the resurrection is ok, but I don't find that sort of evidentiary apologetics terribly interesting.

Also not everyone is open to academic stuff, see: >>19490659
There is a growing KJV only movement among a small group of Reformed. Not major, but some congregations can be very fundamentalist.

>>19490659
Sorry I don't think this proves what you think it does, and everyone from BB Warfield to Tim Keller is on my side here, not to mention every denomination that uses the ESV. You're literally just using the Roman Catholic argument for why the Vulgate has to be the right Bible. I don't buy it.

>>19490659
The Westminster divines were aware of the process of textual criticism that brought them the texts they used. Whatever you infer pure to mean, it doesn't mean that there werent textual discrepancies that require resolution. You should at least make plain that your view is a minority position. Are there even any NAPARC churches that outright ban the ESV? I actually don't even believe Joel Beeke goes that far.

>>19490573
The response was copy-pasted from the Brandon Addison's blog post, which sparked the whole discussion, and it highlighted five catholic scholars and a dissertation from the fifties which, to varying degrees, stated that the monarchical episcopate did not exist in the first century; from this one can't really derive what was said in the only original part of the response - that is: "The Roman Catholic claims regarding the monarchical episcopate and Apostolic Succession are not “plausible” to even the majority of the RCC’s own experts" - since six does not make a majority.

>>19490788
>deeply intellectually dishonest
can you explain?
I've only read his biography of Paul and heard a few sermons
I did feel that he hyped up positions that were not as original as he claimed they were a little too much

>>19490640
If you are attracted to that kind of thing, I recommend BB Warfield. He was one of the last Princeton theologians and has some excellent writing on topics ranging from accepting evolution to what I posted above about cessationism in the book counterfeit miracles.

The website Triablogue has some good resources related to this approach to Christianity as well. The YT channel Inspiring Philosophy, despite the name, has some good stuff. Look up Tim Keller and his sermons and talks too.

If you want to get into Christianity please start trying out churches rather than argue theology online though. It won't get you anywhere. See the Catholics on this board. I recommend a local Reformed church, not the liberal PCUSA though. The PCA is everywhere, but anything Reformed, even many generic Christian churches, may have what you're looking for. But the important thing is to visit on Sunday and see what feels right. The proper place for Christians is to be under the care of local, qualified elders. That's how you learn and grow. Hope this helps.

>>19490858
Listen to him speak on female pastors. You'll need a bath afterward.

>>19490878
Is he for or against?

>>19490490
>You already lost the debate full stop.
Hard to lose a debate when no one even *tries* to refute your arguments.

>historical consensus
You conjure up an "historical consensus" from two Catholic scholars and a Catholic PhD student. Your claim is laughable.

>>19490573
>You responded with copypasta pull quotes
Now quotes from the Church Fathers, which only rarely make an appearance on this board, are 'copypasta'.

>and a shitty infographic you spam here 25 times a day.
It's a nice, concise summary, that sets out facts - mostly scriptural texts - that you *can't* refute. So instead of trying to refute it, you engage in silly rhetoric. Grow up.

>You were greeted with a detailed, substantive rebuttal using, very charitably I might add, only Catholic, papal approved, historians who all call the papal claims a pious fiction.
And I responded to your weak claim. Duffy and Brown, and a PhD student writing in 1950. The claim that this somehow carries weight is laughable.

>>19490505
Well, you haven't refuted my points; no one has even tried. Who's delusional, anon?

>>19490573
>using, very charitably I might add, only Catholic, papal approved, historians who all call the papal claims a pious fiction.
Your claim is weak, verging on non-existent. It was addressed, and refuted.

>>19483891
>read oblomov
>realise I'am an oblomov
what do comrades should I off myself?

>>19490953

>>19490871
Thank you very much for the recommendations fren

>>19490914
He's for, although he used to be against. That in itself could be part of the issue.

>>19491007
Last rec

https://youtu.be/MM5vVde4Jso

Pastor Jeff Durbin has a great series on partial preterist end times. It's really good and solid calvinist rationalism. Wright is also a partial preterist so this might interest you. See some real reformed preaching.

Good luck and if you don't find a Reformed church find something close to it. Nondenominational, Lutheran, (some) Baptist. As long as it's a real church God will do the heavy lifting

>>19490968
Why do you have this saved? Are you okay?

>>19490788
>>19490812
Another example then.
If one says they affirm the Westminster Standards then they must also believe that the doxology in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew is Scripture.

Question 107 presupposes that the doxology is indeed Scripture.

Question 107 of the Shorter Catechism reads:
>Q. 107. What doth the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer teach us?
>A. The conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer, which is, For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever, Amen. teacheth us to take our encouragement in prayer from God only [a], and in our prayers to praise him, ascribing kingdom, power, and glory to him [b]; and, in testimony of our desire, and assurance to be heard, we say, Amen.

Unfortunately CT translations do not include the doxology.

One cannot believe that CT translations are correct while simultaneously affirming the shorter catechism which would require you to believe that the doxology is Scripture.

>>19483891
Are the institutes themselves worth tackling
It's a really big and scary book

>>19491600
I'll have to look into how others who support the CT justify it. However, if I have to choose between the Westminster and Scripture, I'll choose Scripture of course and take exception to the Westminster. I'm not trying to dissuade you from your position; this is a question of first principles. I believe that the CT is the most accurate possible construction of the autographs. You believe the MT is. I will say that I find the arguments about "God wouldn't let us have the wrong text" to reek of Catholicism, but I'd be lying if I said your arguments weren't persuasive to an extent. Nevertheless, the conclusions of textual criticism are legitimate and persuasive, and those same principles led to the development of the KJV.

Like I said, I will look into how CT proponents justify this if they have. I have no doubt that you are living an authentic Christian witness with your position.

>>19492186
Hi, I believe they are, but you need to decide which translation to use first. They each have a different voice. I think some context helps too. I couldn't figure out why he spent soooo much time on the Trinity until I learned about his beef with Servitus. I found some chapters excellent, others boring, and others funny. It depends on my mood and interest. I wonder if picking out chapters based on topics you want to learn about wouldn't be better than reading cover to cover.

>>19492268
Calvin can be funny?
Intentionally or not?
Because all (read both) books on the history of the reformation I've picked up, whether favourable or not, make him out to be quite a humourless man.

>>19492300
He's funny in how aggressive and brutal he can be. He's not like telling jokes but he can be so acerbic you can't help but laugh. But I've heard that voice comes out more in the translation I have, the Henry Bevelridge (sp?) one.

>>19487445
If you're still in this thread, thank you. I look forward to reading this soon when I get some time.

>>19492702
Fuck off you apostate. I've debunked his arguments repeatedly. You're a literal demon who hates the truth and hates the one Church. So sick of the filth and lies being spewed in this thread. Grow up. Nothing but bad faith prottie shit heads.

>>19492702
No problem, enjoy

>>19492718
Dilate x 10

>>19492186
What else have you read?

>Puritan thread
>no one mentions Matthew Henry's Bible commentary
What's up with that?

>>19483891
I read Winship's Hot Protestants some while ago
despite the title, it's a pretty good history of the puritans from a historical perspective and it gives both sides of the atlantic a good amount of space considering that the books is relatively short

>>19492718
I am the one and only person on this thread who responded to >>19487445's skepticism respecting the very important issue of apostolic succession (I responded here: >>19489172).

This unpleasant character - >>19492718 - a troll who likely posted this dumb remark also: >>19489729, appears to be attempting to throw shade on my remarks explaining and defending apostolic succession and the papacy, evidently because he knows he cannot refute it in straightforward argument. It is unfortunate that attempts at reasonable discussion and debate are being interfered with.

>>19483891
>Involving yourself with "churches" that formed after Pentecost

M8...

>>19494584
Sorry that's been debunked, maybe try your catholic retard general for people willing to indulge your delusion

Honest question from someone undecided. What do Catholics mean when they say "to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant" if historians full stop don't agree with any of the historical claims of Catholicism?

I viewed the exchange itt and the Protestant side has, by the Catholic posters admission, every single non Catholic historian as well as several prominent Catholic historians well known and decorated within the Church. In contrast, the Catholic poster could only find a single blog post by a man without any credentials whatsoever who took the Catholic side. So maybe I'm missing something but it seems clear that to be deep in history is TO BE Protestant.

>he doesn't name his sons Increase and/or Cotton

>>19495238
My first son shall be named If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned

>>19494584

>>19495233
What they actually mean is to worship history is to cease to be Protestant.

>>19495277
What is the definition of history? For the Catholic, it apparently means "my party line". But that's just semantics, isn't it?

Love this thread. Consider putting some of this great apologetic material in the next op pls

>>19495233
>What do Catholics mean when they say "to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant"?
Mainly that plenty of non-Protestant denominations can boast a history going back to the beginning of Christianity itself, whereas many core tenets of Protestantism go back no further than a couple hundred years, despite Protestant claims of a return to apostolic practice or to a purportedly plain reading of scripture.
>if historians full stop don't agree with any of the historical claims of Catholicism
They don't agree with the particular claim that the church was monarchical from its inception; a claim which, even if renounced, does not impeach the idea that the church was meant to become monarchical - the actual Catholic claim -, as testified by the fact that those Catholic scholars who agree with this consensus do not give up on Catholicism itself: to quote one of them from the original blog post:
>The affirmation that the episcopate gradually emerged can be defended in the nuanced sense that the episcopate gradually emerged in a Church that stemmed from Christ and that this emergence was (in the eyes of the faith) guided by the Holy Spirit. Personally, I do not think that tracing the appearance of the episcopate more directly to the Holy Spirit than to the historical Jesus takes away any dignity from bishops; and I suggest that, upon reflection, these conclusions will be scandalous chiefly to those who have never understood the real import of our oft-repeated boast that Christianity is a historical religion.
Be it as it may, the historical consensus is quite prone to changing, especially for issues as ill documented (by the poster's own admission) as these, and it disagreeing with a particular Catholic claim does not indicate that Protestantism is the actual historical religion: Jesus' miracles are also thought not to have occured by a majority of historians, so if one were to base his spirituality on this consensus, one would not be Christian at all.

>>19495535
>that the church was meant to become monarchical - the actual Catholic claim
Not according to the infallible proclamation of Vatican 1. You're just trying to adjust true teaching because you lost the argument. Please post the relevant Vatican 1 statement and explain how the lie you just told agrees with it. You have read it, right? Because with that statement you essentially anathematized yourself

The Catholic liar above denies this dogma of Vatican 1:
>We teach and declare that,
according to the gospel evidence,
a primacy of jurisdiction over the whole church of God was immediately and directly promised to the blessed apostle Peter and
conferred on him by Christ the lord.

>The same may be said of those who assert that this primacy was not conferred immediately and directly on blessed Peter himself, but rather on the church, and that it was through the church that it was transmitted to him in his capacity as her minister.

YOU ARE ANATHEMA FROM THE CATHOLIC CHURCH FOR BEING A LIAR AND A SNAKE.

>>19495535
>Jesus' miracles are also thought not to have occured by a majority of historians, so if one were to base his spirituality on this consensus, one would not be Christian at all.
This isn't the historia understanding of miracles at all. You're just muddying the waters to cover for your own adherence to something provably false.

>>19495535
>Mainly that plenty of non-Protestant denominations can boast a history going back to the beginning of Christianity itself
Except for the part where even you agree historians don't think that

>>19495552
>>19495568
Being aggressive does not solve anything. Also, I never said that I believed the consensus, just that it does not impeach the claim of historicity and apostolic succession. I messed up in that aside and agree I should very much have written the response differently.
>>19495575
Is there a consensus among historians that Lazarus was restored to life?
>>19495581
The consensus is that one particular tenet of Catholicism developed in the second century instead of the first, a great deal of those of Protestantism only came about in the 16th. Also, there are more denominations than just Catholicism and Protestantism.

>>19495628
>The consensus is that one particular tenet of Catholicism developed
Wrong. Historians don't consider the second century church to be the same entity.

>Is there a consensus among historians that Lazarus was restored to life
The consensus is that miracles and their veracity fall outside the scope of historical investigation

>I never said that I believed the consensus
You're flailing. First you say the actual catholic claim is that of gradual development- your words, now you're saying that wasn't your claim when called out on it. Well guess what I can read your post that says otherwise. Either way the infallible claim of Vatican 1 contradicts reality and history, and you can't get your story straight. Give up. Go read some blogs to regroup and lick your wounds. Pathetic. I can't believe I have to teach you about your own infallible councils

>>19495628
>Also, I never said that I believed the consensus
No, you just claimed that the Catholic church did. What a liar.

YOUR POST MY LIEGE
>They don't agree with the particular claim that the church was monarchical from its inception; a claim which, even if renounced, does not impeach the idea that the church was meant to become monarchical - the actual Catholic claim -, as testified by the fact that those Catholic scholars who agree with this consensus do not give up on Catholicism
But Vatican 1 disagrees, so you're lying.

>>19495628
the monarchic papacy did not develop in the second century
it developed very gradually from the fall of the WRE to its peak with Innocent III, over half a millenium later
Augustine had no trouble telling the pope to stay in his lane when it came to local disputes most tenents of catholicism furthermore developed throughout the middle ages to respond to problems very particular to their own times
>>19495233
That is a quote from a very clever british catholic polemicist
his actual arguments on the matter were quite shit, even residential papal shitpsoter doesn't bother with them
what the catholic here and most understand from the quote today is an emphasis on the rich traditions of the catholic church as well as the claim of Petrine succession (which one has to question whether the papacy should be set up in Antioch instead of Rome because that's where Peter first started a church)
the papacy nowadays is justified by its existence and has been as such ever since the donations of constantine, the original text used to prove papal supremacy, was found to be a forgery even in catholic circles

Arguing with strangers on an imageboard about the correct interpretation of Jewish fanfiction is a special kind of autism. I hope you all are having fun, because you’re not accomplishing anything, and no one here is changing their mind with anyone else’s carefully crafted arguments!

>>19495668
>Catholic wants to dox me because he lost the argument
How Christian! What an excellent testimony to your faith! Notice how satanic these Catholic nutjobs become when called out.

Come over and let's talk about Christ, mate.

>>19495721
Sour grapes from the catholics who now call Christianity a myth. Wondeful stuff, catholics.

>>19495749
Why are you responding to me with this statement? I’m not a catholic, if that’s what you’re suggesting, and I don’t care about your beef with catholics

>>19495762
;)

>>19495664
How is that a lie since I explicitly said I messed up?
>>19495692
Even if the role did not translate in material power the Pope was considered superior to other bishops.
The statement was about church history going back to the antiquity. The point about tenets being developed later does not apply to Catholicism since the church does not deny an evolution in traditions, whereas Protestantinsm, with it's ideas of a return to the beginning or of a plain and immutable reading of scripture, can be argued to be ahistorical based on this very late developement of core tenets.
>>19495735
That was not me

>>19495797
So you'll just keep moving the goalposts forever on the pope issue even well beyond the infallible declaration of the Church and your own statements on the issue.

Ok well since you will just redefine concepts forever I guess there's no way to win the argument. You're just correct by virtue of your infinite mutability. Definitely a characteristic of the "true faith" I'm sure. But

>The point about tenets being developed later does not apply to Catholicism
In this case it does because of what Vatican I claimed. It didn't claim a gradual development. It made a verifiable historical claim that has since been proven false. You can weasel out of Vatican I's language here. Development of doctrine doesn't apply to this claim.

>immediately and directly

Is not gradual. And it is an anathematizing statement to disagree. Again

>>The same may be said of those who assert that this primacy was not conferred immediately and directly on blessed Peter himself, but rather on the church, and that it was through the church that it was transmitted to him in his capacity as her minister

You again anathematize yourself. Repent.

>>19495844
I was talking about the medieval tenets that >>19495692
mentioned, not about petrine supremacy, which I explicitly singled out in the response ("Even if the role did not translate in material power the Pope was considered superior to other bishops.") and have stated time and time again to believe in. A claim, moreover, is not proven false just because the consensus happens to believe it is, since historiography is everchanging and, in this particular case, the historical evidence for either position is scant at best.

>>19495906
I thought you said history was bullshit that was liberal and disproved Christianity and so didn't matter anyway. Why are you talking about historical evidence? Are you a liberal?

>the historical evidence for either position is scant at best.
You have not supported this claim at all. You're trying to equivocate the debate out of existence. The evidence is in fact abundant and clear. We both know you know you're wrong. This wheel spinning and endless redefinition and equivocation is textbook cognitive dissonance, as is you trying to bring your diseased understanding of Protestantism into the argument to change topic, a bait no one thankfully took. Just admit you're wrong. This is ridiculous. You can't keep your story straight for one full post and you've already admitted you didn't didn't understand your own doctrine on the papacy. Did you just become an expert 2 minutes ago? Concede already you prideful apostate.

>>19495940
>You have not supported this claim at all
If we look at Addison's article, we'll see that he makes essentialy three arguments: how we never have mentions of a single bishop above the rest but we have mentions of bishops, how the lists of bishops that we have are not reliable and, finally, Lampe's argument for fractionation which he summarises as follows:
>the city is diverse geographically, economically, and ethnically. Even though the economic situation is not that diverse (almost all Christians were poor), the social reality of persecution of Christians made the meeting of Christians in large gatherings socially unsafe and economically impossible. The earliest Christians did not meet in centralized places for worship but met in smaller house churches throughout the city. This lack of centralization shows that no monarchical episcopate existed
Firstly, the absence of mentions in a limited corpus does not mean that something does not exist. The second argument has no pars construens and, if correct, just reiterates that we don't have much. As far as the third goes, we are not debating the logistics of the early church, but whether or not Peter was endowed with a particular priviledge that other bishops inherited and was eventually passed onto bishops all historians recognise as Popes; even if Christian practice was not carried out with thorough unity, the existence of a man with some form of primacy is possible.

>>19496123
Is your final argument really going to be a misapplication of the argument from silence? And an implicit trick suggesting that only Addison thinks this? Recall that prominent Catholic historians share his view. But to be clear, is "argument from silence" where you now land?

>>19495233
>I viewed the exchange itt and the Protestant side has, by the Catholic posters admission, every single non Catholic historian as well as several prominent Catholic historians well known and decorated within the Church. In contrast, the Catholic poster could only find a single blog post by a man without any credentials whatsoever who took the Catholic side.

There are a small handful of Protestant academics (and authors, such as Brandon Addison), who have adopted the claim that the early Church, contrary to the Catholic view, was not a 'monarchial episcopate'.

In advancing this claim, Protestants primarily rely on a tortured argument from silence which is flatly refuted by Ireneaus's famous statement resgarding "the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome," quoted here: >>19489180

Of course, there is a great deal of evidence other than Ireneaus's statement that likewise supports the Catholic claim.

As for Addison, whose article on the subject appears to have been published only on the internet at a Catholic website (correct me if I'm wrong), his argument was refuted in detail and at length on that same website:
https://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/06/the-bishops-of-history-and-the-catholic-faith-a-reply-to-brandon-addison/

Nor can Addison, who has a B.A. in history from Providence Christian College, be described as an historian.

>if historians full stop don't agree with any of the historical claims of Catholicism?

Given the state of the evidence as noted above, few historians have addressed themselves specifically to the 'monarchial espicopate' argument; since the weight of history is against the claim, relatively few have addressed themselves to it.

Rather, the issue is usually addressed in the form of answering the broader question of whether Jesus Christ established the Catholic Church. Of course, most Catholic scholars, with a handful of exceptions among the theologically liberal (e.g., Raymond Brown, who cast doubt on many issues of interest to Christians, including the Virgin Birth), agree that He did, including:

>Thomas Madden, James Hitchcock, Warren Carroll, Timothy T. O’Donnell, Michael Witt, Walter Brandmüller, Robert Louis Wilken, Donald S. Prudlo, Christopher Shannon, Augustine Thompson, John Chapman, Brian Daley, Christopher Lane, Pierre Batiffol, John F. Romano, Jean Danielou, Henri Daniel-Rops, David Meconi, Adrian Fortescue, Robin Darling Young, Jules Lebreton, Jacques Zeiller, Brad Gregory, Fernand Mourret, Matthew Levering, Brendan McGuire, Kimberly Georgedes, Thomas Joseph White, John Cavadini...
Source: Bryan Cross, comment 92, here: https://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/06/the-bishops-of-history-and-the-catholic-faith-a-reply-to-brandon-addison/

Of course, most Protestant historians do not agree that Jesus Christ founded the Catholic Church -- because if they believed that, presumably they would become Catholic.

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>>19496123
I hope you approach all further debates with Protestants here and elsewhere with this completely castrated "you can't prove its not there' view. We all know you won't, and will return to arrogant posturing about muh deep in history. But please know every time you do so, what your position was actually reduced to. Let yourself always remember how utterly groundless your position is despite your larping and your do it for free propagandizing of this site. Maybe one day you'll realize what the true faith is. Right now your pride is in the way.

>>19496155

2/2

>So maybe I'm missing something but it seems clear that to be deep in history is TO BE Protestant.
Yes, you're missing something: the facts of history. Certain key points are highlighted in the attached infographic (my posting of which will doubtless draw down upon my head the wrath of the Addison contingent on this thread). As it illustrates, with copious citations, the beliefs and practices of the early Church track the beliefs and practices of the Catholic Church, rather than the Protestant denominations.

This is why "to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant."

>>19496155
So this post has the zinger that "well MOST (but not all) catholics believe the catholic party line so take that protties!"

Is this the best you can do? List some literally who historians from a shitty blog post full of cope?

>>19496201
Uh thanks I guess but I'll take real historians over some weird picture from from a Catholic website. You've given me everything I need. Thanks for replying. I just don't find you very convincing.

>>19496201
If I were aware you were the sick person who posts these infographics I never would have replied to you to begin with. This poster has serious issues and has episodes where he fazes out of reality. He gets creepy. Watch him in a thread sometime.