Infallibility - An Invitation Heeded

Fr Dwight Longenecker, over at Standing on My Head, is reading a conversion story and apologetical book called The Invitation Heeded,  by James Kent Stone, published at the end of the 1800s.  After reading his post I wanted to read the book and mentally started calculating how much money I had to purchase it -- if I could find it. I came up with  $4.35.  Not too promising!  "Ah well," I thought, "I will look for it anyway. . . . put it on my wish list."  

God is so good  . . . .  I found the actual book itself online!  It is linked above for your convenience.

Let me quote Standing on My Head. The apologetic points he makes are wonderful.  I have included some of the comments, too. Bolding is my emphasis as are my notes in red.

Fr Dwight Longenecker says he is reading, The Invitation Heeded, with a view to editing it for re-publication by the Coming Home Network.

"In the chapter on infallibility the author makes the very good point that rather than the Catholic Church's stance on infallibility being nonsensical, it is the churches who deny infallibility that are absurd.

The essential Protestant position is, "Our church is merely a human institution. It is not infallible." And yet they demand allegiance of the faithful to the beliefs and moral teachings of their church. But if their church, by their own insistence, is fallible how can they demand obedience and loyalty to their teachings? There is a logical hiccup here of enormous magnitude. Some of my protestant friends have left churches because they disagreed with the pastor's interprtation of scripture. I think many protestants feel they go to church for the fellowship and praise. Their idea of worship seems to synonomous with praise. Am I misunderstanding this? They pick and choose their scripture teachers according to . . . ?  What they "feel" is right?

"Ah!" the Protestant will object, "Our church is fallible, but the Holy Scriptures are not, and it is the Holy Scriptures in which we place our confidence--not in the traditions of men." Of course, this begs the question because Protestants of every stripe--from radical Episcopalians with their Mother Goddess worship and homosexual marriage to mainstream Evangelicals to Jehovah's Witnesses all claim that their beliefs and practices are derived from and at least consistent with Scripture.

In fact, while denying that their leaders are infallible, every religion must act as if they are infallible, otherwise their religion would cease to function. Whenever Bob the Baptist steps through his church door he functions on the basic assumption that his pastor does not teach error in the matter of faith and morals. (this is the definition of infallibility) Likewise, Esther the Episcopalian and Martin the Methodist and Frank the Four Square Apostolic Church of the Redeemed of the Fourth Degree-ist all assume that their pastors teach without error--otherwise their religion wouldn't work. They have to assume infallibility in practice, even if they deny it in theory.

The fact of the matter is, all religions function on the assumption that their church leader is  (or they, themselves are)  infallible.  Catholics are just the only ones who dare to make the claim, and how can Catholics make such an audacious claim?

There are only three options:  1) they are insane and/or deluded 2) they are liars 3) It's true."

comments:

kkollwitz said...  

Jesus was infallible, and most people who heard him didn't believe everything he said, doubted his authority, discounted the stuff that didn't make sense to them, discarded what they disagreed with. Given that precedent, we should expect his infallible representative to get at least as bad a reception.

 

Paul Smith Jr. said...  I always thought it was weird that Protestants deny that the Pope guided by the Holy Spirit could be infallible while each individual Christian guided by the Holy Spirit would be infallible when reading Scripture.