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May 17, 2003
I began the Catholic,
But Not Roman Catholic series one year ago, May 18, 2002. I'm concluding the
series today at 365 segments. In this conclusion, I want to summarize what's
been documented and discuss the implications.
The series has addressed several dozen church fathers, churches, and church
councils covering several hundred years of church history, from the first
century to the eighth. (The father I cited most was Augustine, in 29 segments.)
I addressed dozens of subjects, including foundational issues of authority and
salvation and less significant issues of church discipline, for example. I
quoted the most authoritative documents of Roman Catholicism to contrast with
the teachings of the fathers. I cited many highly regarded Roman Catholic
historians, theologians, and apologists, as well as credible non-Roman-Catholic
scholarship.
We saw examples of the fathers rejecting the Roman Catholic view of church
history. Hegesippus, Cyprian, and Dionysius of Alexandria, for example, referred
to the fallibility of past generations and the need to go back to the original
revelation of God rather than expecting an infallible succession of all
apostolic teaching throughout church history.
We saw many examples of church fathers, churches, and councils, from the East
and West, rejecting the Roman Catholic system of authority. We saw one father
after another, generation after generation, commenting on the significance of
the Roman church without saying anything of a papacy, even in the midst of
giving reasons for the church's significance. We saw one father after another,
along with regional and ecumenical councils, contradicting the doctrine of the
papacy. We saw the fathers deciding what canon of scripture to accept without
any infallible ruling from a church hierarchy. We saw widespread rejection of
the Roman Catholic canon of scripture. We saw the rejection of the infallibility
of ecumenical councils, rejection of the Roman Catholic definition of tradition,
rejection of the Roman Catholic definition of apostolic succession, and
rejection of the Roman Catholic definition of the church.
We saw a wide variety of views of salvation, contradicting Roman Catholicism
from many different angles. We saw a Protestant view of justification in fathers
like Clement of Rome and Mathetes. We saw fathers like Clement of Alexandria and
Gregory of Nyssa advocating views we would associate with theological
liberalism, such as post-death salvation and universalism. We saw widespread
disagreements with Roman Catholicism on original sin, the salvation of infants,
the atonement, whether and how salvation can be lost, etc. We saw widespread
rejection of Roman Catholic ecumenism.
We saw a system of penance and church discipline that was much more public, much
more severe than what we see in Roman Catholicism. We saw the fathers advocating
standards of church discipline that are rejected by Roman Catholicism, including
standards that would require the removal of many Roman bishops from office.
We saw widespread rejection of the Roman Catholic view of Mary. Fathers from the
second century onward, from West and East, deny that she was sinless and even
describe some of the sins she committed. Some of the fathers denied that she was
a perpetual virgin. Epiphanius denies that anybody has received any tradition
concerning the end of Mary's life, which excludes the possibility of an
apostolic tradition of a bodily assumption. We've also seen some of the fathers
deny the mediatorial role assigned to Mary in Roman Catholicism.
We saw widespread rejection of Purgatory among the earliest fathers. Irenaeus
and Hippolytus, for example, referred to all deceased believers being in a
heavenly region of Hades without the suffering associated with Purgatory. Even
when some elements of Purgatory are advocated by some of the fathers, other
elements of the doctrine are still rejected and other fathers continue to
advocate something more along the lines of Irenaeus and Hippolytus.
We've seen that premillennialism was the popular eschatology among the earliest
fathers, even though Roman Catholicism rejects and condemns premillennialism.
Even the fathers who weren't premillennialists contradicted Roman Catholic
eschatology in other ways.
We saw some fathers rejecting any physical presence of Christ in the eucharist
or advocating a physical presence that they defined in a way that contradicts
transubstantiation. We saw some examples of fathers rejecting the Roman Catholic
definition of the sacrificial nature of the eucharist. We saw widespread
rejection of the veneration of images, and we saw the fathers advocating
traditions about baptism and the eucharist that Roman Catholicism rejects. We've
seen rejection of prayers to the dead among the earliest fathers.
We saw Roman bishops and church fathers living in Rome rejecting the Roman
Catholic view of the Trinity, justification, the canon of scripture, the
eucharist, Mary, etc. One wonders how the bishops and church fathers of Rome
could not only have not known of the apostolic traditions of Roman Catholicism,
but even contradicted them. If the traditions weren't being handed down in Rome,
then where were they being handed down, and what does that tell us about the
reliability of Rome?
We saw examples of the fathers accepting Roman Catholic doctrine for reasons
other than what Roman Catholicism claims. Irenaeus, for example, believed in a
form of Roman primacy, but for non-papal reasons. Basil accepts the perpetual
virginity of Mary, but he also says that many Christians reject the doctrine and
that rejecting it is acceptable within orthodox Christianity. Augustine
advocates something like Purgatory, but as an unproven speculation, not as an
apostolic tradition always held by the Christian church.
We've seen the fathers advocate a much higher view of the sufficiency and
perspicuity of scripture than we see in Roman Catholicism. We've seen them
reject popular Roman Catholic interpretations of many passages of scripture.
We saw disagreements with Roman Catholicism on moral issues, such as when life
begins, marriage, divorce, overpopulation, and the definition of murder.
We've seen that contradictions of Roman Catholicism aren't found only in a
single father here or there or in a minority of fathers, but often among a
majority of fathers, even universally. The conservative Roman Catholic
theologian Ludwig Ott refers to the rejection of the veneration of images among
the ante-Nicene fathers as a whole. Augustine describes the belief that Jesus
was the only immaculately conceived human as the view of the universal church of
his day. When the Council of Chalcedon passed its 28th canon despite the
objections of the bishop of Rome, that ecumenical council didn't represent just
one or two bishops. And when the ecumenical Second Council of Constantinople
claimed authority over the bishop of Rome and excommunicated him, and multiple
churches in the West also broke ties with the Roman church and its bishop, such
actions don't just reflect the beliefs of one father or a small minority.
Even when the disagreements with Roman Catholicism are a minority view among the
fathers, how does a Roman Catholic explain the beliefs of that minority? How
does a Roman Catholic explain Ambrose's belief that original sin is removed by
means of foot washing or Gregory of Nyssa's belief in universal salvation? Were
those fathers Roman Catholic, but they chose to reject apostolic tradition on
the issues in question? If so, why should they be considered faithful Catholics?
Or were they not Roman Catholic, whereas other fathers were? If only some of the
fathers were Roman Catholic, then which ones? Will we ever be given a list? If
some of the fathers weren't Roman Catholic, then what is the universal church to
which those fathers claimed to belong? If it wasn't the Roman Catholic
denomination, then what was it?
I've given a few hundred examples of the fathers contradicting Roman
Catholicism, and surely thousands more could be given. Development of doctrine
is no explanation. Oak trees don't grow from apple seeds. A patristic belief in
the limited jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome doesn't inevitably grow into a
belief in the universal jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome. The patristic belief
that Mary was a sinner doesn't inevitably grow into the belief that she was
sinless. A patristic rejection of the veneration of images doesn't inevitably
grow into an acceptance of the veneration of images. If logically unconnected
and contradictory ideas are to be associated with one another under the banner
of doctrinal development, then anything can be said to have developed from
anything else. And anything that can prove everything proves nothing. If our
beliefs can be logically unconnected to those of the fathers, even contradicting
the beliefs of the fathers, yet still be considered patristic, then any and
every professing Christian group in existence can claim to be patristic.
The claim is often made that to be deep into history is to cease being
Protestant, as if Roman Catholicism is the alternative. But Roman Catholics
aren't deep into history. They're deep into philosophical speculations based on
personal preferences. Wishing for a Divine institution with the attributes the
Roman Catholic Church claims for itself isn't equivalent to proving its
existence. A wish isn't a proof. If the church fathers rejected Roman
Catholicism's view of church history, its system of authority, its view of
salvation, its view of the afterlife, its worship, its view of prayer, its
morality, its eschatology, its view of Mary, its penitential system, its
disciplinary standards, its ecumenism, and so many of its scripture
interpretations, even in the city of Rome itself, what are we to think of the
claim that the fathers were Roman Catholic? It's an attempt to derive an oak
tree from an apple seed. The Roman Catholic Church isn't the church of the
fathers. The change isn't a development. It's a long series of contradictions.
"The final authority [for Roman Catholics] is the living Magisterium,
which, a priori, stands above criticism. Words, documents, and entire epochs of
Church history have suffered the death of a thousand qualifications, and Rome
still remains; ever-changing, ever the same. But what about the Protestant
evangelical who, without a Magisterium, contemplates the path taken by his Roman
Catholic counterpart?" (John Montgomery, God's Inerrant Word [Minneapolis,
Minnesota: Bethany House, 1974], p. 275).
To read the series, click here.
Jason Engwer