Before “Infallibility” Was a Twinkling in a Pope’s Eye

In an ongoing discussion on Facebook, [a discussion of “the Johannine Comma”], a FB friend of mine said, “It would be Orwellian doublespeak (and arbitrary) to say that a pope can guarantee absolute certainty for an individual on an issue while at the same time reserve the right to remove the absoluteness of that certainty …

Newman vs Leo. Or, “visible”, but in an “invisible” way. Or, “a new fiction”…

The gang at Called to Communion are fond of telling us that Christ founded a visible church. This article is featured as the lead article at their Papacy Roundup. It’s all so clear to them now — the perspicuity of Roman dogma leaves no room for question. But at the end of the 19th century, …

A Brief History of the Interpretation of Matthew 16:18: “On this rock I will build my church”

Matthew 16:18, of course, is the famous proof-text used by Roman Catholics to “prove” that Peter was the first pope. Ulrich Luz, a leading commentator on the Gospel of Matthew, is author of the three-volume Hermeneia Commentary on Matthew series. What follows is from Chapter 4 of his work, “Matthew in History: Interpretation, Influence, and …

The Papacy: Changing in History, Theology, and Dogma

In previous blog posts, I’ve given some short history about the development and growth of the historical papacy. The papacy is 1600 years old, not 2000 years old The Crafting of the 4th Century Roman Church, Doctrine, and Papacy The Papacy: “Self-Consciously” Modeled After the 4th Century Roman State “Pope Leo the Great” When you …

The Crafting of the 4th Century Roman Church, Doctrine, and Papacy

There is no question that there were “bishops” in Rome, likely beginning in the late second or early third centuries. But these were not “bishops” as we would understand them today. Roger Collins, in his work “Keepers of the Keys of Heaven: A History of the Papacy”, New York, NY: Basic Books, a Member of …

The Papacy: Neither Biblical Nor Historical

This month and next, we’ll all be treated in the media to the spectacle of another conclave to select another pope. The media will fail to understand the genuine historical roots of the papacy lie neither in the Bible, nor in the history of the earliest church, but rather were an exercise if self-admiration of …

The Fictional Beginnings of Papal Infallibility, Part 1

It is no stretch at all to call this fictional. The concept of “papal infallibility”, the foundation of the Roman Catholic IP, the epistemological foundation of certitude for a narrow band of Roman Catholics, never existed for the first 1200 years of church history. Michael Liccione wrote of “papal ratifications of dogmatic canons issued by …

On mining for support for doctrines “after the fact”, and finding “100% certainty” “under certain conditions”. Or: “Dogma-appreciation 101”.

This is something that Nathan Rinne picked up on a couple of weeks ago: Earlier in the thread [the “Visible Church” thread], in post # 221, John Thayer Jensen wrote: “… people often seem to me to make the mistake of deciding, first, what things are true – which implies some external canon – and …

Blue Men on Mars

I am addressing Michael Liccione, and in what follows, I’ll be responding to comment 231 here, but I’ll likely be ranging to other places to take into account some of the other things you’ve said, such as when you refer me to Sections IV and V in the main article which this comment follows. I’m …

“Low-information” Roman Catholic apologetics

In the recent Presidential election, we’ve seen the rise of what’s been called the “low-information” voter, who was perhaps characterized by the “Obama Phone” lady. Now the Roman Catholic apologist K. Doran gives us a sample of “low-information” Roman Catholic apologetics in the following exchange: Another writer had said this: “The Church worldwide in the …