Once again I forgot to put in links before I posted this. All the appropriate links are now in place. LEK 11/09/2006
Alvin Kimel over at Pontifications has posted on a bad reason not to become Catholic. If you want to see what other people are saying about his point go here and here.
On the face of it I agree, the claim he puts forward at the beginning and is the #1 bad reason for not being a Catholic, is a bad reason, primarily because it isn't true. I am not Roman Catholic and I don't need to be told that in fact that sound historical scholarship can't settle the question as to whether or not Catholic claims for the papal office are inovations, and thus a departure from the apostolic faith. And for the most part I agree with Kimel's reasons for why this is a bad reason.
However, while Meyendorf and other Orthodox theologians will give historical arguments about the development of the papacy and Roman claims, I do not see them as argueing that it is historical scholarship. But I might have misunderstood his brief critique of Meyndorf and Hopko here.
Really though it is his conclusion that gets me as a Protestant who actually wouldn't mind if either the Orthodoxy or Catholicsm. Really it doesn't help when there are two claimants to being the True Church. Who am I to believe!
Really it doesn't help when there are two claimants to being the True Church. Who am I to believe!
ReplyDeleteAs Bill Tighe likes to remind me, there are actually more than two claimants: let's not forget the Oriental Orthodox. There in fact is nothing new about the challenge of identifying the "true" Church, and there's no guarantee one will choose rightly.
I think Newman would first ask, Which Church has on it "the marks of an Apostle"? Which professes to be a divine messenger? For Newman the answer to this question was probably more clear-cut than it is for many of us today, yet still we must ask the question.
I do not believe we may evade the question by escaping into denominationalism.
Oo! Oo! And several Baptist denominations claim it.
ReplyDeleteWe're fun that way.
Pontificator-
ReplyDeleteTrue there are more than one claimant to the true Church and all, and it is more than the Oriental Orthodox and some Baptists.
So I suppose I would say that I have narrowed the possibility down to three, either Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy or (and this is something other than denominationalism) the Church is divided with more than one group having the mark of Apostle and the continuity that is apostolicity and the point is to shed from oursleves the spirit of schism that seems to have dominated the faith for quite awhile.
I appreciate your candor Pontificator, and so I look and I search and examine , there is no retreat here believe me!