Hey,

Read your post "On the Antiquity of Papal Supremacy". As someone brought up Protestant I feel offended... kidding, loved the article.
I had thought about a similar issue in the past, your post reminded me of that, and in general I’m just glad to see more philosophy and theology on the Lainchan webring.

First, I do agree that from scripture you get the sense that Christ established a church and that he made Peter the leader or pope of it. Further:

"Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.'
'Good for you, Simon son of John!' answered Jesus. 'For this truth did not come to you from any human being, but it was given to you directly by my Father in heaven. And so I tell you, Peter: you are a rock, and on this rock foundation I will build my church, and not even death will ever be able to overcome it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven; what you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and what you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.' Then Jesus ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah."

The part "what you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and what you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven" feels pretty damning to me and seems like it gives Peter papal supremacy. I googled around a bit and found the translation is a bit awkward. A more accurate version might be "Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven..." This suggests heaven comes first and earth follows. In other words, Petrus' role is declaring the will of heaven, he declares what God’s rules are, he doesn’t determine them.

This leads me to my first counter. Nowhere in the Bible (at least to my knowledge) is it stated that Petrus has the sole authority to declare God's rule. I grant you that he had the authority to declare God’s will, but where is it stated that he alone has this power?

Second, I was curious if there are any references that Peter transmitted these "powers" to the next pope, and that this pope then transmitted it to the next one, and so on? I feel like this is rather important.

Third, this is not a counter but something I feel more strongly supports Catholicism over other denominations, and that is ecumenical councils. These are meetings of bishops and cardinals, often by the wish of a pope, to decide Christian doctrine. For example, the Council of Ephesus regarding the issue of the Virgin Birth.
I always felt that because the Trinity includes the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is directly with believers, especially in gatherings, like in:

"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
Matthew 18:20

And they advise with each other for hours, days, even weeks before coming to a conclusion. The Holy Spirit wouldn’t just stand by and let the decision go wrong. Though to some extent this argument can also be made for the Reformation, though Luther being an individual actor in the beginning makes that claim weaker.

Fourth, since someone brought up Protestants I need to defend my denomination, at least against this claim:

"Schismatic/heretic ecclesial communities like the Protestant and Orthodox churches require their members to fully understand the entire Bible for them to be saved."

I would say this is the exact opposite of what Luther tried to do with the Reformation, and from which the Protestant movement comes. Though maybe I am a bit biased from my denomination, I always saw the biggest distinction between Catholic and Protestant (besides papal supremacy) as the former believing that good works and faith are required, while the latter believes only faith is necessary (Sola fide).
The Protestant position makes a lot more sense to me, since God is so beyond us, we are like ants before him. No amount of good works would ever be enough to justify God's grace. In fact, even thinking that good works have something to do with it seems like blasphemy. You are presuming that it is to some extent in your power to earn God's grace, when clearly, for God to grant grace is in his purview and his alone. Therefore the only way we can be saved is by faith alone. Only God can decide to give us grace and forgiveness.

Oh, and since you like writing about Christianity, I have an issue you could either turn into a post or respond to directly. Here's the problem:

If we look at the global distribution of Christianity, it's vastly different from country to country. For example, in places like the Vatican, nearly 100% of people are Christian. In countries like France or Germany, it’s around 50%. In places like China, only about 5% are Christians. Why is the distribution so uneven? If God were truly just, wouldn’t everyone have the same chance?

Also, why was there only one Messiah in Jerusalem? Why couldn’t there have been a messiah for every country? That would’ve seemed at least a bit fairer. I understand that the Jews had a special connection to God through the Old Testament, but why did they have that connection in the first place? Why were the Jews chosen, and not all of humanity?
In general, I struggle with many aspects of Christianity that make God seem unfair. If we imagine God as Anselm describes, the greatest possible being, possessing all properties in their maximal form(although I do not agree with this, see), then especially fairness and justice should be maximized. But they don’t appear to be. And even if we reject Anselm’s thesis and say God doesn't have to be maximally fair and just, that still feels wrong.
I haven’t heard a satisfying answer to this yet. Maybe you have one?

Lastly, I had a question. My local church (in fact, all sermons I’ve been to) preaches on how to apply the Bible’s knowledge to daily life. I feel like this is rather boring. I don’t care about the mundane, I am interested in the divine. So I was wondering if you have any resources, sermons or lectures more focused on the divine. What I mean by that is both theological issues and mystical ones, like for example Meister Eckhart?

Edit

Pub: 14 May 2025 19:24 UTC

Edit: 14 May 2025 19:45 UTC

Views: 71