Another Response to ENV

ENV posted a response to this post, so here's my reaction.

The call that both Churches are wrong does not follow my logic, it follows the logical conclusion of the statement that having corrupt individuals supporting a doctrine causes the doctrine to be incorrect.

Which is something I never said; what I said (perhaps not clearly enough) that doctrines can not be generated by corrupt individuals. If anyone, corrupt or not, affirms something in the Bible, then that affirmation is legitimate. If anyone, corrupt or not, supports a doctrine that is not supported by the Bible, or is directly contrary to the Bible, then the person and the doctrine are incorrect. Roman Catholicism suffers from this incorrectitude in a number of cases.

This is the opposite of the position that I take, namely, that a doctrine supported by corrupt individuals for their own ends is not necessarily and incorrect doctrine, merely one that suffers from abuse.

And my point is that it's not doctrine if it doesn't come from the Bible. I don't accept catholic (again, small "c") tradition as a source of doctrine. There are numerous Roman Catholic doctrines, some of them stated here, that are either not found in the Bible, or directly opposite to the text or the reasonable context of the Bible. In cases like this, where a "doctrine" is not supported by the Bible, a papal decree does not make that doctrine legitimate.

As for oversimplifying the situation, I was merely responding to a claim that you appeared to be making. It was not the only claim that you were making, but rather one that seems to be made more in a generalized manner. You have made that claim in this very post, citing that some of the individuals of the Catholic Churhc have been corrupt as evidence of the Church's doctrines being corrupt. I was responding to that particualr piece of "evidence."

You're taking my statements out of context, and ignoring some of the things I've said very clearly. If a doctrine doesn't come from the Bible, then it's not a doctrine. If a "doctrine" is introduced through Roman Catholic tradition, or through a papal clarification or decree, as numerous Roman Catholic doctrines have been, then those "doctrines" are not legitimate. It's very simple: a person can not make up doctrine, and that is what the Roman Catholic Church has been doing for centuries now, even if it's occurred very slowly.

I'm not aware of this statement ever having been made historically by one of our popes as infallible. In fact, there have been exactly two statements of papal infallibilty: Immaculate Conception, and Mary's Ascension. Both have some philosophical or even physical evidence to support them (I may get to these on my blog).

Are you even reading what I'm saying? I never said that a pontiff said that Mary's mother was Pakistani. It was an illustration. Pay more attention. And again, Mary's Assumption and Immaculate Conception don't have any biblical evidence to support them, so any philosophical or physical (you're kidding, right?) evidence is somewhat moot. And in fact, I would say that there is biblical evidence against both.

No, I did not defend the sale of indulgences, but the sale of such was not official Church doctrine (as such), rather Church practice. There is a difference.

And I asked you to give an example of a legitimate doctrine that was abused for financial gain by Roman Catholic clergy. You've acknowledged that the sale of indulgences wasn't doctrine, now back up your previous statement with an example of a legitimate doctrine that was abused for financial gain.

If having extra books in the Bible is indefensible, the same could be said about taking them out. This I will definitely be addressing in a future post. One question, have you read any of these books? Or are you merely parotting protestant doctrine in disavowing them? By the way, some protestant denominations hold similar view on the Eucharist to Catholics.

I've not read the apocryphal books, though I do own a Roman Catholic edition of the Bible that includes them, and I'm not opposed to reading them. A sufficient case has been made, as far as I'm concerned, to convince me that the apocryphal books are not scripture. For that reason, I don't feel that they should be included in the Bible, in the same way that I value the work of C.S. Lewis, and feel it to be useful and legitimate and consistent for Christian teaching, but not scripture. I haven't avoided reading the apocryphal books because I don't believe they're scripture; I've avoided reading them because I've not had sufficient time to do so, just as I've not read most of what Lewis wrote, or all of Caesar, or all of Tacitus.

Are you familiar with the source of the apocryphal books, and why Protestants don't accept them as scripture?

As for the Eucharist, I would have to differ with Protestants whose view parroted the Roman Catholic view. I don't feel that transsubstantiation can be supported, at all, by the Bible. It doesn't matter to me whether or not it's a Roman Catholic or anyone else claiming it, if I feel there's either A) a biblical case against it or B) no biblical case for it, then I'm going to be opposed to it.