Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Is unbroken history necessary for true Church? · Great Bishop of Geneva!: Refuting CARM and Matt Slick
Does an unbroken history mean the Roman Catholic Church is true?
by Matt Slick | Jan 4, 2014 | Roman Catholicism, World Religions
https://carm.org/roman-catholicism/does-an-unbroken-history-mean-the-roman-catholic-church-is-true/
The Catholic Church claims to have an unbroken lineage of apostolic authority dating back to Peter who was, allegedly, given the keys to the church (Matthew 16:19).
No. We claim BOTH an unbroken lineage of Popes dating back to St. Peter (or with only short breaks, within lifetimes, like there were three years between two Popes during the persecutions, and 39 years between undoubted Popes in Avignon and undoubted Popes back in Rome, as well as now 32 years between death of Pius XII and election by emergency conclave of Pope Michael) AND also an unbroken, day by day unbroken collection of lineageS dating back to all twelve apostles, including Matthias who replaced Judas.
But again, even if it was true that Catholicism can trace its collective lineage back to Peter, this does not mean the Roman Catholic Church is the true church. Furthermore, Matthew 16:19 says that Peter was given the keys of the kingdom of heaven – not the church – and that what he would bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever he loosed on earth will be loosed in heaven.
Now, the Church is the Kingdom of Heaven as present on earth. In heaven itself, the authority resides with Jesus and His blessed Mother, but they take the authority of the vicars on earth into account.
What Catholics regularly overlook is that the same authority was given to the rest of the disciples in Matthew 18:18.
1) as said, the day by day unbroken lineages dating back to all twelve is even more important, that's the one fulfilling the promise in Matthew 28:20
2) the same authority given to Peter alone was here given to Peter with others.
So, if they want to trace their lineage back to Peter who supposedly has the authority to bind and loose, what does it say about the rest of the apostles who had that same authority?
That these also are in the Catholic Church. With their lineages.
Furthermore, nowhere in Scripture do we find Peter exercising his authority above the other apostles. If anything, we find the reverse. Consider when Paul rebuked Peter . . .
1) In Galatians, it is not clear that Cephas was St. Peter, first one of the twelve, or someone else having that name (shared probably with High Priest Kaiaphas)
2) If he was, he was not rebuked with the authority of a superior over an inferior, but with the authority of truth over error
3) It would seem Peter did continue speaking when the rest of the twelve had fallen silent on Pentecost day.
Many groups claim to have apostolic succession from the early days, but it does not mean they are true. If a church is true, then it must be consistent with Scripture. The Scripture is the measure of the authority on how a church is to behave and what is to teach – not a lineage kept by tradition.
A lineage kept by tradition or a tradition kept by a lineage is a scriptural criterium - Matthew 28:20, third generation apostolic succession St. Paul giving instruction to fourth generation apostolic successioners Sts Timothy and Titus instructions about fifth generation successors to apostles - which is clear all through these three epistles, which is one reason why liberal Protestants put these and Matthew as late books with garbled message. Markan priority is a residue of this ideology in some non-liberal Protestants.
We see in this verse that Paul the apostle wrote to Timothy so that “he would know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God.” This means Paul was writing Scripture and instructing Christians on how to behave within the church. He was giving Scriptural orders to which the church is subject. We do not see in Scripture such authority given to a church because it can trace its lineage back to Peter.
It is right here given to the Church which Jesus founded - also one with lineages traced to the 12 Apostles.
We do find the admonition of the word of God (as the above verse mentions) for the church to submit itself to Scripture.
And to oral tradition, St. Paul puts it along Pauline epistles:
Therefore, brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle.
2 Thessalonians 2:14
Therefore, we would conclude that a church is true if it agrees with Scripture–not if it claims to have a lineage back to early times.
It is easier to determine a controversy on whether a Church even claims to trace its lineage to early times, than to determine one whether such and such a doctrine has support in the Scriptures.
Whether Mary was ever virgin or She personally gave birth to the brethren of Christ, whether She was sinless as the mother doing the will of the Father or whether Her motherhood was replaced by that of any faithful women or the faithful communities at present doing so, is as hard to see for some as it is for some that Christ being the promised Messiah and true God is consistent with OT teaching. The Bereans concluded for, some other synagogues (and yes, Bereans were at this point a synagogue, with people already learned in the OT, not people being handed an OT by Paul and then just passively being told by him to look up what he wanted them to look up) however were against.
But whether Luther, Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Bucer, Cranmer, Calvin and Knox were born as Roman Catholics or whether they were baptised as infants in the Roman Catholic Church, or whether it was Roman Catholicism they left for the fruits of their own Bible studies, no sane man doubts.
The final list of "not found in Scripture" doctrines supposed to disprove Roman Catholicism has already been answered in a quoran answer.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Andrew Corsini
4.II.2021
