If Jesus is Lord, then it follows that...

St. Columba · January 23, 2019, 04:46:33 PM

This is an epistemological question: If a person comes to know, with certainty, that Jesus is God, can he then logically deduce and know, without any possibility of error, that the Catholic Church is therefore indefectible and incapable of leading souls to spiritual ruin? Thanks.

Michael Wilson · January 23, 2019, 05:37:46 PM

You could read a standard pre-Vatican II manual; in which after demonstrating that Jesus is God, it would look at the evidence of His teachings in the Bible and especially his establishment of a Church that would have His very authority to teach and rule. The rest would follow.

Daniel · January 23, 2019, 07:40:21 PM

I don't think so.

And even if you knew that the Catholic Church was indefectible and incapable of leading souls to damnation, you'd still need some way to identify which visible church, if any, is the real Catholic Church. Hypothetical situation: There is an indefectible Church, but it's invisible. The visible church which calls itself the "Catholic Church" is not really the Catholic Church; this so-called "Catholic Church" is defectible and can lead souls to damnation, despite the fact that the real Catholic Church is indefectible and cannot lead souls to damnation.

Michael Wilson · January 24, 2019, 02:40:50 PM

According to S.S. Christ founded a visible Church, that could be identified by four marks. So we can rule out an invisible Church.

St. Columba · January 25, 2019, 04:23:54 PM

An invisible Church, or a Church that for all intents and purposes can become invisible, is really tantamount to a defective Church. Why? Behind curtain #1 is the true church, behind curtain #2 a false one, etc. IOW's, if we cannot identify the true Church, prescinding from what she teaches, then we cannot really know the teaching of Christ and/or the disciplines He expects us to follow.

Not to get sidetracked, but this is in essence why I am forced to reject sedevacantism.

St. Columba · January 25, 2019, 04:29:35 PM

Quote from: Daniel on January 23, 2019, 07:40:21 PM
I don't think so.

And even if you knew that the Catholic Church was indefectible and incapable of leading souls to damnation, you'd still need some way to identify which visible church, if any, is the real Catholic Church. Hypothetical situation: There is an indefectible Church, but it's invisible. The visible church which calls itself the "Catholic Church" is not really the Catholic Church; this so-called "Catholic Church" is defectible and can lead souls to damnation, despite the fact that the real Catholic Church is indefectible and cannot lead souls to damnation.

If Jesus was God, and we knew He set up a visible-teaching Church, then it seems a pretty strong implication that the Church He established would be indefectible, and would then enjoy visible continuity until the end of time, including its teaching office (Pope with bishops).

One problem here is that, just because Jesus is God, this does not, in an of itself, at least to me, necessarily imply that He founded a magisterial Church.

Daniel · January 25, 2019, 06:32:35 PM

Quote from: St. Columba on January 25, 2019, 04:29:35 PM
One problem here is that, just because Jesus is God, this does not, in an of itself, at least to me, necessarily imply that He founded a magisterial Church.

I would take it a step further: Maybe Jesus is God and Jesus never founded any sort of Church. This whole idea that Jesus founded the Church comes from the Church. It's possible that the Church made the whole thing up, even if Jesus is God.

But granting that Jesus founded a Church, I'm still not seeing why the Church cannot be invisible, or cannot at least temporarily have gone invisible. An invisible Church needn't be a defective Church. And I'm not seeing any reason to say that men, by their own power, need to be able to identify the Church. Just as God causes some men to know that Jesus is God, He can also cause some men to identify the otherwise unidentifiable Church.

Michael Wilson · January 25, 2019, 06:53:42 PM

St. Columba stated:

QuoteOne problem here is that, just because Jesus is God, this does not, in an of itself, at least to me, necessarily imply that He founded a magisterial Church.

But we don't ask: 'What could Jesus have done?' We ask: "What did Jesus do?" If you look at Sacred Scriptures and the teachings of the Apostles and their successors, Jesus did indeed found a Magisterial Church. Jesus did not only come to earn the super-abundant treasures and merits of His redemption, but also to establish a sure norm to believe in the truth (I am the Truth); to practice it and to obtain Heaven.

St. Columba · January 25, 2019, 07:04:42 PM

Quote from: Daniel on January 25, 2019, 06:32:35 PM
An invisible Church needn't be a defective Church. And I'm not seeing any reason to say that men, by their own power, need to be able to identify the Church. Just as God causes some men to know that Jesus is God, He can also cause some men to identify the otherwise unidentifiable Church.

If the Church is identifiable, either by supernatural or natural means, then it must be visible, if it possesses a public teaching organ.

Premise #1: Jesus is God
Premise #2: Jesus founded a magisterial Church designed to teach truth and lead souls to Heaven

Conclusion #1: Whatever that Church teaches is necessarily true and will, without fail, lead souls to Heaven
Conclusion #2: If that Church cannot be surely identified in any age, or even temporarily not be identified in any age, then it cannot be trusted in any age to lead to Heaven. And if it cannot be trusted to furnish truth, then the Church is tantamount to being defectible.

Xavier · January 26, 2019, 02:07:47 AM

Yes, certainly. Millions of Protestant converts have, by the grace of God, come to the Church in precisely that manner. First, they believed Jesus is God. Then, slowly, by the aid of grace, the study of Scripture and Christian history, and the invitation of Catholic Christians to come to the fulness of Truth, they realized His Church is "the pillar and ground of the truth." (1 Tim 3:15). So She has ever been and so She will be always.

Cradle Catholics often go in the other way. We know Jesus because we experience Him in the Sacraments of His Church. We know He is the Risen Lord and His flesh and His blood are the life of our souls, just as He promised 2000 years ago in Sacred Scripture. So, God willing, nothing should ever separate us from His Church and these gifts of His.

Our Lord Jesus explicitly mentions His Church just Thrice in the Holy Gospels, all in that of St. Matthew. Let's examine the two passages we all know of.

16:18 And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
16:19 And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven

18:17 And if he will not hear them: tell the Church. And if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.
18:18 Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven.

These presuppose that the Church will be visible and have binding and loosing power and teaching authority forever.

Daniel · January 26, 2019, 05:32:39 AM

Quote from: Xavier on January 26, 2019, 02:07:47 AM
Our Lord Jesus explicitly mentions His Church just Thrice in the Holy Gospels, all in that of St. Matthew. Let's examine the two passages we all know of.

16:18 And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
16:19 And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven

18:17 And if he will not hear them: tell the Church. And if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.
18:18 Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven.

These presuppose that the Church will be visible and have binding and loosing power and teaching authority forever.

That might be true, but you can't jump from the premise "Jesus is God" to the conclusion "Jesus actually said what Matthew says that Jesus said". You need additional knowledge: you first need to know that what Matthew reported is in fact true and accurate. Otherwise it could be the case that Jesus is God but that Jesus never said any of that stuff.

Furthermore, Jesus's language is cryptic and needs to be interpreted. So even if he is God and he said those things, it still doesn't follow that the so-called "Catholic Church" is the Church which Jesus founded. And if the Catholic Church isn't the Church, then it doesn't follow that Catholic Church's interpretation is the correct interpretation. You need even more additional knowledge if you are to conclude any of that.

But granting that it's all true, how does this entail that there's a visible Church? Maybe St. Peter has successors, but no man is able to know who his successors are. Maybe those successors have the binding and loosing authority, but no man is able to know what's being bound or loosed. Maybe God commanded us to 'hear the Church', but no man is able to do so.

Daniel · January 26, 2019, 06:05:45 AM

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nmoerbeek · January 26, 2019, 06:18:42 AM

Quote from: St. Columba on January 23, 2019, 04:46:33 PM
This is an epistemological question: If a person comes to know, with certainty, that Jesus is God, can he then logically deduce and know, without any possibility of error, that the Catholic Church is therefore indefectible and incapable of leading souls to spiritual ruin? Thanks.

We take it on Faith that Jesus is God. Our ability to be certain about it comes from faith.

No a person cannot logically deduce and know, without possibility of error that the Catholic Church is therefore indefectible and incapable of leading souls to ruin. Such a part of our faith has to be taught. We do not arrive to it without a teacher.

However, because the God realizes the importance of having a teacher to teach us such things, Our God gives us visible signs that He is with us. These signs are miracles that have existed through the age to speak to certain dogmatic truths: for example the Eucharist being the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ, the miraculous spring at Lourdes which spoke to the dogmas of Original Sin and our Lady's Immaculate Conception, The Miracle of St. Eupehemia at the Council of Chalcedon that Christ had two natures, and so on.

If the Church had no unbroken patrimony of such miracles it would be hard to make the claim that we are the one true Church of God.

Xavier · January 27, 2019, 03:48:30 AM

Quote from: Daniel... from the premise "Jesus is God" ...

But how did our hypothetical friend come to this true knowledge that Jesus is God, which no one can know without supernatural revelation? Non-hypothetically, Protestants almost always come to it from reading the Gospels and the Bible, sometimes from Councils and the Fathers.

On another thread, we discussed the glorious life and holy martyrdom of St. Matthew the Apostle, who was killed in Ethiopia while offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The histories of the holy Apostles are much more certain than, say, the history of Aristotle, disciple of Plato. St. Matthew the Apostle's life, history and works are attested by historians on several different continents. (Tertullian in Africa, St. Irenaeus who lived in Western Europe as Bishop of Lyons, in what is now France, yet was well acquainted with Asia where he had spent some time earlier, thus making him a witness to the Tradition of both East and West etc). Therefore, unless you want to a historical unrealist and claim we can know nothing at all of history, we can know like other historical facts that St. Matthew wrote his Lord's Life in the First Gospel.

Cardinal Newman, a very well educated English Protestant, who ended up converting, slowly after much study, had this realization sink into him, "The Christianity of history is not Protestantism ... if there is a certain truth, it is this ... and Protestantism has ever felt it so ... to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant".

If we love the Truth, we must seek it reverently, piously, studiously, with much prayer and sincerity, as Cardinal Newman did. Because Jesus is God, the Word He spoke would not fail, His Church would be the City on a Hill and light to all nations that He said it would be.

It remains for the studious inquirer to study diligently and pray earnestly and try to find out where the Lord's Word has been fulfilled.

Quote from: Nmoerbeekbecause the God realizes the importance of having a teacher to teach us such things, Our God gives us visible signs that He is with us

Agreed. This is said in the First Vatican Council, where miracles, as you mentioned, are called a "motive of credibility" along with other supernatural signs like prophesies. St. Thomas says, in contrasting Christ Our Lord with Mohammed, that supernatural signs like miracles and prophesies reveal a divinely inspired Teacher of Truth. And Our Lord says He came to bear witness to Truth, " ... For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the Truth. Every one that is of the Truth, heareth My voice." (Jn 18:37)

Finally, "What is more, the Church herself ... is a kind of great and perpetual motive of credibility and an incontrovertible evidence of her own divine mission." (Vatican I, on Faith). Just as Christ testified to the Father, and raised up our minds and hearts to the remembrance of God, so also Mother Church Herself, is an ever-present reminder to the Historical and Sacramental Reality of Christ the Lord, and "So it comes about that, like a standard lifted up for the nations [Isa 11:12], she both invites to herself those who have not yet believed, and likewise assures her sons and daughters that the Faith they profess rests on the firmest of foundations." (Vatican I, Session 3, On Faith, p. 13)