Man...where to begin? Maybe I should just start by giving the conclusion that I've (almost) reached and then backtrack.
I think I'm going to join the Catholic Church.
There. I said it. Are you shocked? Bewildered? Wondering how I could have fallen prey to their deceptive teachings? :p I am. The first two anyway. Sometimes I still ask myself how I could ever consider this. SO! Here is the explanation. I shall try to organize it. I start with the first question I asked.
1. Is it possible for a church to have ALL truth?
That's pretty much it. Can a particular church and/or denomination have access to all of the truth? Can all their doctrines be the proper interpretation of scripture? I've always assumed the answer to this question was 'no'. Everyone disagrees and scripture can be difficult to decipher at times. There are language barriers, translation errors or inadequacies and taking things in and out of context. Sometimes people can argue two different belief systems with the same set of verses! Anyway, I decided to search for this (starting with one particular issue, which I will get to) and I began to realize that it MUST be possible. Specifically by reading John 16:12-14.
"12"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you."
Ok, so considering most Christians believe in the Holy Spirit (the Spirit of truth) and believe that he guides interpretation of the scripture, it must be possible for us to know and understand truth. So, my problem arose when I encountered many different interpretations with all claiming the Holy Spirit as their guide! Now, this verse says that the Spirit will only speak what he hears. The only conclusion this leaves is that IF the Holy Spirit guides interpretation, then all Christians - the entire church - must be able to reach the same interpretation of scripture! If two people are convinced in their faith, confess Jesus to be God (as another verse says this can only be done by the Holy Spirit) and earnestly pursue truth, WHYcan they reach different conclusions on crucial issues? The issues that come to mind are such things as the role of baptism, gifts of the Holy Spirit, communion and matters of grave sin (divorce and homosexuality to name a couple controversial topics).
I realize I may be drawing some black and white lines a little too harshly, but I think it necessary to prove my point. Anyway, this leads me to my next thought.
2. Authority
So, due to the reason outline above, I began to wonder if there was some sort of earthly Authority for matters of faith and right and wrong. I had previously believe it to be a Spiritual (unseen) Authority, but since everyone appeals to the same thing (sola scriptura and the Holy Spirit, yet no on agrees, I have to wonder. I'm not saying that this Authority still isn't a Spiritual one, but simply a different sense of it. Like, did God actually set up a specific Church (not just the 'invisible church' I'd always believed in) and give them Authority to teach and make judgements.
I began to realize that he had. Perhaps not the actual "Church" thing just yet, but he definitely gave people Spiritual Authority to be carried out on earth. Specifically the apostles (I won't even touch on Peter yet). John 20:21-23 is a good example (though there are more references).
"21Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." 22And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."
Then there is the whole keys to the kingdom thing and the binding and loosing authority. Christ was given Authority by God and he obviously gave some earthly Authority to his disciples before he ascended into Heaven. Obviously, the disciples are no longer with us, or else we would definitely be asking them. However, since God promised that the gates of hell would not overcome the church he would build, I think it's reasonable to suggest that he provided means to protect the truth for this church. Previously I would have believe that this protection could be found in the scriptures. That the scripture had preserved the truth. And I do! I still believe in the inspiration and infallibility of scripture. However, as I previously talked about, it is so easily misinterpreted by men who desire truth! Some people twist it and lead men astray, but this isn't the case for all. If even I - who am searching, praying and not caring how hard it is to believe - cannot be certain of interpretation, then who can? If scholars who examine the original language, the culture and compare the Old to New can disagree, then how can we be sure of who is right? This brings me to the next step.
3. History and the early Christians
Ok. Paul and Peter (among many) may have been inspired and we consider their writings infallible, but this doesn't mean that history can't be a valuable tool in the search for truth. We have writings available to us by those who personally knew and were discipled by people like Peter, John and other apostles. These men were some of the early leaders before there was an official cannon. I think it's also important to point out the Church was fairly unified. Culture, persecution and heresies shaped it by degrees, but it's fairly obvious that there was some sort of system - a structure of authority. It's also where the idea of apostolic succession started. The Gnostics were claiming 'special knowledge' given them by the apostles and the early church leaders defended the truth by pointing to their direct line of discipleship by the apostles and those close to them. There were councils (beginning with the one in Acts) that defined doctrine and defended the truth against heresy. Our doctrine of the trinity would be an example of something officially defined by a council. The canonization of scripture is another example. I think it's also interesting to point out that the title Theotokotos was given to Mary (Mother or Birth-giver of God). Granted, there were schisms and changes, but I don't think these nullify the original intent of the Church to be truly unified and that these councils decided things for ALL of the Church (though some break-offs don't accept one or another). In fact, many protestant denominations implicitly accept some of these councils by believing and teaching things that were defined by them.
The question would then be if the necessity for this ever died. Did the Church become so corrupt and begin to teach untruth so that it was made necessary to break away to maintain that truth? The first part of the answer is that it's possible. The Church (Catholic Church) did become very corrupt before the Reformation. Evil and Godless men were sometimes in control. Although many pressed for reform, it came much too late. However, the latter part is that it's improbable. Did the Church ever officially teach something untrue? Not that I can find. Did men sell indulgences? I believe so. Were they corrupt, sinful and politically minded? Well, yes. But does that mean the Church as a body apostatized and that God abandoned her? Or that he changed her form into 'invisible'? Did the Holy Spirit stop guiding I don't know. Which brings me to another thought.
4. Unity
Before Christ ascended into heaven, he prayed for his disciples and for his Church. He prayed that believers everywhere would be one as He and the Father are one (John 17). I don't see unity in very many places. Even in denominations. Also, the meaning of unity seems to have become to ignore differences and just focus on love. I'm not say that isn't of importance - even the most important - but it still doesn't mean we're unified one spirit, one faith, one baptism. As Paul says, we follow Christ and not men. I'm not talking about trivial differences of food, drink and such. Paul addresses those issues. I'm speaking of crucial doctrines such as baptism, the Eucharist, faith alone vs. faith with works, the nature of grace, predestination, justification, original sin and whether or not we can lose salvation. Just to name a few! I suppose the first question is if it really matters exactly what we believe about these matters if we're all striving toward the same goal. Perhaps it doesn't. I think in the end that everyone recognizes works are necessary, but they disagree on why. Most will say that we should be baptized, but again, disagree on why. Perhaps it isn't so important speaking strictly about salvation. However, I think the very fact that these disagreements cause splits should show us that our understanding IS important. I think they also affect how we live.
Anyway. All of the above points lead me to believe that it's at least reasonable to assume that the Authority Christ gave the disciples didn't end with them. I think it's also worth pointing out that once we claimed sola scriptura is when the church starting dividing itself like a cell. Yes, there were rifts and schisms, but nothing like what we see today.
So. I feel like this isn't very coherent and can be torn apart easily, but hopefully it gives some understanding of where I'm coming from and where I'm going. This is only part one - I'm going to tackle some of the doctrinal issues I've been wrestling with in another post. I figure this one is quite long enough though. Don't worry - I'm not just jumping toward the Catholic Church blindly with no consideration of what they teach. There are many things that are vastly different than what I've grown up believing and I still wrestle with a few things.
Have you read Rome Sweet Home? I just read it & wish I had done it earlier. Even if you've already discovered all that he & his wife (the authors) have it's worth the read.
ReplyDeleteI found that reading other convert stories helped me through many of the tough issues that came my way.