Reasons For Being Catholic

[Laudate_Dominum]

I found this cool list of reasons for being Catholic on this guys website.

To read all 150 reasons click here: http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ103.HTM

Here are the first few reasons.

1. Best One-Sentence Summary: I am convinced that the Catholic Church conforms much more closely to all of the biblical data, offers the only coherent view of the history of Christianity (i.e., Christian, apostolic Tradition), and possesses the most profound and sublime Christian morality, spirituality, social ethic, and philosophy.

2. Alternate: I am a Catholic because I sincerely believe, by virtue of much cumulative evidence, that Catholicism is true, and that the Catholic Church is the visible Church divinely-established by our Lord Jesus, against which the gates of hell cannot and will not prevail (Mt 16:18), thereby possessing an authority to which I feel bound in Christian duty to submit.

3. 2nd Alternate: I left Protestantism because it was seriously deficient in its interpretation of the Bible (e.g., "faith alone" and many other "Catholic" doctrines - see evidences below), inconsistently selective in its espousal of various Catholic Traditions (e.g., the Canon of the Bible), inadequate in its ecclesiology, lacking a sensible view of Christian history (e.g., "Scripture alone"), compromised morally (e.g., contraception, divorce), and unbiblically schismatic, anarchical, and relativistic. I don't therefore believe that Protestantism is all bad (not by a long shot), but these are some of the major deficiencies I eventually saw as fatal to the "theory" of Protestantism, over against Catholicism. All Catholics must regard baptized, Nicene, Chalcedonian Protestants as Christians.

4. Catholicism isn't formally divided and sectarian (Jn 17:20-23; Rom 16:17; 1 Cor 1:10-13).

5. Catholic unity makes Christianity and Jesus more believable to the world (Jn 17:23).

6. Catholicism, because of its unified, complete, fully supernatural Christian vision, mitigates against secularization and humanism.

7. Catholicism avoids an unbiblical individualism which undermines Christian community (e.g., 1 Cor 12:25-26).

8. Catholicism avoids theological relativism, by means of dogmatic certainty and the centrality of the papacy.

9. Catholicism avoids ecclesiological anarchism - one cannot merely jump to another denomination when some disciplinary measure or censure is called for.

10. Catholicism formally (although, sadly, not always in practice) prevents the theological relativism which leads to the uncertainties within the Protestant system among laypeople.

11. Catholicism rejects the "State Church," which has led to governments dominating Christianity rather than vice-versa.

12. Protestant State Churches greatly influenced the rise of nationalism, which mitigated against universal equality and Christian universalism (i.e., catholicism).

13. Unified Catholic Christendom (before the 16th century) had not been plagued by the tragic religious wars which in turn led to the "Enlightenment," in which men rejected the hypocrisy of inter-Christian warfare and decided to become indifferent to religion rather than letting it guide their lives.

14. Catholicism retains the elements of mystery, supernatural, and the sacred in Christianity, thus opposing itself to secularization, where the sphere of the religious in life becomes greatly limited.

15. Protestant individualism led to the privatization of Christianity, whereby it is little respected in societal and political life, leaving the "public square" barren of Christian influence.

16. The secular false dichotomy of "church vs. world" has led committed orthodox Christians, by and large, to withdraw from politics, leaving a void filled by pagans, cynics, unscrupulous, and power-hungry. Catholicism offers a framework in which to approach the state and civic responsibility.

17. Protestantism leans too much on mere traditions of men (every denomination stems from one Founder's vision. As soon as two or more of these contradict each other, error is necessarily present).

18. Protestant churches (esp. evangelicals), are far too often guilty of putting their pastors on too high of a pedestal. In effect, every pastor becomes a "pope," to varying degrees (some are "super-popes"). Because of this, evangelical congregations often experience a severe crisis and/or split up when a pastor leaves, thus proving that their philosophy is overly man-centered, rather than God-centered.

19. Protestantism, due to lack of real authority and dogmatic structure, is tragically prone to accommodation to the spirit of the age, and moral faddism.

20. Catholicism retains apostolic succession, necessary to know what is true Christian apostolic Tradition. It was the criterion of Christian truth used by the early Christians.

21. Many Protestants take a dim view towards Christian history in general, esp. the years from 313 (Constantine's conversion) to 1517 (Luther's arrival). This ignorance and hostility to Catholic Tradition leads to theological relativism, anti-Catholicism, and a constant, unnecessary process of "reinventing the wheel."

22. Protestantism from its inception was anti-Catholic, and remains so to this day (esp. evangelicalism). This is obviously wrong and unbiblical if Catholicism is indeed Christian (if it isn't, then - logically - neither is Protestantism, which inherited the bulk of its theology from Catholicism). The Catholic Church, on the other hand, is not anti-Protestant.

23. The Catholic Church accepts the authority of the great Ecumenical Councils (see, e.g., Acts 15) which defined and developed Christian doctrine (much of which Protestantism also accepts).

24. Most Protestants do not have bishops, a Christian office which is biblical (1 Tim 3:1-2) and which has existed from the earliest Christian history and Tradition.

25. Protestantism has no way of settling doctrinal issues definitively. At best, the individual Protestant can only take a head count of how many Protestant scholars, commentators, etc. take such-and-such a view on Doctrine X, Y, or Z. There is no unified Protestant Tradition.

26. Protestantism arose in 1517, and is a "Johnny-come-lately" in the history of Christianity. Therefore it cannot possibly be the "restoration" of "pure", "primitive" Christianity, since this is ruled out by the fact of its absurdly late appearance. Christianity must have historic continuity or it is not Christianity. Protestantism is necessarily a "parasite" of Catholicism, historically and doctrinally speaking.

27. The Protestant notion of the "invisible church" is also novel in the history of Christianity and foreign to the Bible (Mt 5:14; 16:18), therefore untrue.

28. When Protestant theologians speak of the teaching of early Christianity (e.g., when refuting "cults"), they say "the Church taught . . ." (as it was then unified), but when they refer to the present they instinctively and inconsistently refrain from such terminology, since universal teaching authority now clearly resides only in the Catholic Church.

29. The Protestant principle of private judgment has created a milieu (esp. in Protestant America) in which (invariably) man-centered "cults" such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, and Christian Science arise. The very notion that one can "start" a new, or "the true" Church is Protestant to the core.

30. The lack of a definitive teaching authority in Protestant (as with the Catholic magisterium) makes many individual Protestants think that they have a direct line to God, notwithstanding all of Christian Tradition and the history of biblical exegesis (a "Bible, Holy Spirit and me" mentality). Such people are generally under-educated theologically, unteachable, lack humility, and have no business making presumed "infallible" statements about the nature of Christianity.

[KennC]

... an interesting question I would have related somewhat to this post would be; ... Why does Fundementalism appeal to people?

[Dave]

... an interesting question I would have related somewhat to this post would be; ... Why does Fundementalism appeal to people?

Emotions, perhaps? So many seem attracted to it because the preaching and stuff seems to strike a chord with them.

[M.SIGGA]

11. Catholicism rejects the "State Church," which has led to governments dominating Christianity rather than vice-versa.

12. Protestant State Churches greatly influenced the rise of nationalism, which mitigated against universal equality and Christian universalism (i.e., catholicism).

From a totally orthodox point of view this is true, esp considering the Churches of England, Sweden, Scotland, and the evangelical national churches of Old Europe. How would he explain Gallicanism and other incidences where Catholic rulers were not obedient and did otherwise?

[Laudate_Dominum]

How would he explain Gallicanism and other incidences where Catholic rulers were not obedient and did otherwise?

I'm not sure what he would say. I haven't actually read that much of his site yet, though I intend to. Maybe he would say that from the perspective of "official" teaching and orthodoxy this doesn't apply.

[Laudate_Dominum]

... an interesting question I would have related somewhat to this post would be; ... Why does Fundementalism appeal to people?

Maybe partly because it's message is very simple (and simplistic) which gives the false impression that its solid.

[Laudate_Dominum]

bump...

[crossingstandrewspass]

That's amesome, I agree with him like 400%! lol

God Bless,

Andy

[Laudate_Dominum]

yeah, me too! If you ever have time to browse his site it's incredible! He has an article on pretty much anything to could imagine! He's a pretty smart guy.

[cmotherofpirl]

Everybody should have this link your Catholic favorites:

http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ345.HTM.

THis is one of the Catholic megasites.

Where did you think I got all the links I have posting to you all these years. :P

[Laudate_Dominum]

Sweet! Thanks CMom. I just thought of something. Maybe phatcatholic will be inspired to create a "super links page" for the reference section on PM.

:thinking:

I'm going to write a script that scans quoted text in a post for anti-catholic buzzwords and puts together a list of links to the reference section as an automatic reply. I could have the one button, instant reply for dealing with the anti-catholics who cram like 55 pithy anti-catholic statements into each post.

[Laudate_Dominum]

Even better! A database of Catholic apologetics which has a condensed reply to all the common protestant attacks and a page that can dynamically generate a response to anti-catholic posts. Don't worry, we humans wouldn't be obsolete, we would still be needed to fill in the gaps for the "Arificial Apologist".

Ah, it's just a dumb idea anyway.

[Dave]

Everybody should have this link your Catholic favorites:

http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ345.HTM.

THis is one of the Catholic megasites.

Where did you think I got all the links I have posting to you all these years.

Now THAT is an amesome site! A gold mine!

[Paladin D]

Wow, thanks Laudate and Cmom.

[crossingstandrewspass]

He's in my favourites! :D