As a point of controversy, the Protestant rejection of apostolic succession demands some questions: if the Church Fathers really did "blow it," as Protestants would have us believe, why on earth should we give any credence to their own claims? If God did not preserve the Church from error from the beginning until now, there is absolutely no reason why we should believe that the Holy Spirit has guided Protestant eyes to the truth.
You can't have "The Catholic Church Fell Away" and at the same time "The Reformers Rediscovered the Gospel." It won't work.
2 comments:
I would agree that if the Early Church Fathers got stuff like that wrong then it basically destroys their credibility. There is only so much you can attack as false and unBiblical before the Church Father testimony becomes utterly worthless. How can the be so wrong on stuff like Apostolic Succession and Baptismal Regeneration...all the while be trusted to get the Trinity correct?
Why are not many of the ECFs not condemned as heretics by Protestants when they clearly exhibited 'damnable doctrines' Catholics are condemned for?
As for your last sentence, I dont get it. Why wont that work? It's not logically contradictory, the problem is it's absurdly against evidence and the integrity of Christ preserving His Church. To say the Church fell away makes Christ a failure, there is no nice way to put it.
Hi Nick,
Thanks for your comments. You're probably right that the last sentence/paragraph isn't very well thought out. The intent was to emphasize that their ideas about rediscovering the Gospel cannot work because of the implications of a rediscovery being necessary.
Thanks for holding my feet to the fire :-)
--RdP
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