[MORMONISM. The Faith of the Twenty-first Century. Section 7. Edward K. Watson. (Liahona Publications. Copyright © 2002 Edward K. Watson.) pp 179-189. MORMONISM: Section 7, Conclusion. All rights reserved.]
CONCLUSION
Anyone who has studied the New Testament Church and the first three centuries of Christianity realizes how different the Christian Church became two hundred years after its inception. Some calls this “progress” and “development”; we call it “Apostasy.” All these changes were done in an age where prophets no longer ran the church and revelation was supposed to have ceased. If there was no more revelation, then all these changes in doctrine and ordinances were unauthorized and definitely constitutes an apostasy from the original teachings and authority.1
The idea of doctrinal development represented by an acorn which grows into an oak tree that John Henry Newman conceptualized to explain the vast differences between primitive Christianity and modern Roman Catholicism, can't be justified since all the major “heresies” experienced by the Catholic Church likewise originated from a germ from early Christianity. Arianism developed from the idea that Jesus is the Son of God; Modalistic Monarchianism (Sabellianism) developed from the acorn of the oneness of God and the unity of Jesus with the Father; Dynamic Monarchianism (Adoptionism) developed from Jesus being a man and God being one.
Just because a doctrine can be shown to originate from a germ of a concept doesn't make that doctrine true. An acorn always develops into an oak but doctrinal embryos can develop into anything.2
The only possible justification of the doctrinal development of the Roman Catholic Church is their claim of Papal Infallibility, which maintains the indefectibility of the church.
The Roman Catholic doctrine of Papal Infallibility, of the impossibility of the Pope to teach error when he speaks ex cathedra on faith and morals, is a natural conclusion, if:
(1) There wasn't an apostasy.
(2) Peter possessed supremacy over the rest of the apostles and over all the church.
(3) The bishop of Rome inherited a monarchical authority over the entire church from Peter.
There is really nothing wrong with Papal Infallibility since it is a natural and inevitable conclusion provided the three above conditions are met.
As this section has shown, each of these premises is disproved by an honest examination of the Scriptures and history. If any one of these conditions is proven false, the entire Roman Catholic claim of authority collapses.
We, as Mormons in general reject infallibility to prophets and the Scriptures as a whole, but acknowledge the teachings of our prophets to be infallible only when he receives revelation or giving a commandment from God. When this revelation is written down as Scripture, only that specific revelation is considered infallible.
Sure, there are biblical supports for just about every Catholic doctrine in seminal form,3 but the claim of natural development of these concepts into modern Catholic doctrine is a myth that can't be supported.
A careful examination of the passages from the Bible given above will show that the Apostasy actually occurred in the first century. The amazing thing isn't the absence of a statement that explicitly states the church was going to apostatize in the New Testament; it was the preservation of the numerous passages that showed it occurring that were overlooked by those who went through and edited the different biblical books.
When the “orthodox” Christian church became triumphant over its rivals, it burned it's enemy's camp.4 This group tried to destroy every trace of the other Christian groups,5 that they very nearly succeeded were it not for certain discoveries in the past hundred years that shows there wasn't a single traditional succession to the Original Church as the Roman Catholic Church would want everybody to believe but there was a whole group of churches more varied even than present Christianity,6 (with the Gnostics alone comprising of around fifty separate groups).7 The Roman church began asserting its authority over other “orthodox” churches starting in the late second century with Victor about the Easter question. The scope of this deliberate rewriting of history is stunning. Before the discovery of “heretical” writings such as the Nag Hammadi Library we have known next to nothing about these other rival churches.
Why do so many Catholic scholars admit the existence of numerous Christian religions in the second century but are loath to admit their existence in the first? Why is there an explosion of writings by Christians in the second century but all that's left from the first is the New Testament, 4th Esdras, the Ascension of Isaiah and 1 Clement? What happened to all the first century Christian writings? Hundreds have been preserved either completely or in fragments from the second century, why their absence from the first? Is it conceivable that in the first 70 years of the Christian church, only 30 books were written by the Christians nearly half of them attributed to one man, Paul?
A critical examination of the New Testament shows the Apostasy of the Christian church, and this in a period when Christians only numbered in the thousands. The magnitude of the apostate movement is discernable in the N.T. writings. This would cause the apostates to heavily outnumber the true believers (just as the Gnostics heavily outnumbered the “orthodox Christians” in the second and third centuries) with the true believers dwindling down to the hundreds.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Constantine's actions of transferring the capital to Byzantium (Constantinople) left the bishop of Rome as the sole authority figure in the West and gave the bishop of Rome the opportunity to expand his authority and influence.8 Over a period of centuries, the bishop of Rome increased his power in the absence of any rival Apostolic Sees until he began to claim a universal monarchical authorship over the church by divine right and still persists to do so until this day.
How can the Catholic anti-Mormons prove the Pope is the inheritor of Peter's keys and authority over all of Christianity? Remove the proven forgeries and we notice that there is no evidence, neither a single claim by any bishop of Rome in the first three centuries of the pre-eminence of the bishop of Rome over all others due to his solely inheriting the keys and authority of Peter.
The orthodox Christian church didn't have a supreme head. To them, all bishops were equal with the collected assembly of the bishops as their supreme authority. Over time, the bishops of the major cities started exercising jurisdiction over neighboring rural churches and since Rome was the capital of the empire and the biggest and richest city, it steadily became the most important and powerful church in Christendom. Despite the bishop of Rome being granted the primacy, it wasn't a monarch-type authority which would've been “rejected with abhorrence”9 by the other bishops.
This universal jurisdiction only started in the ninth century,10 after the Moslems conquered the other Sees and weakened the See of Constantinople. The only arguments the Catholics can use are the heading of the Ignatius' letter to the Romans and when he mentioned the catholic (universal) church, the Letter of Clement, Victor and the Easter question and the even less-likely Shepherd of Hermas' popularity in the second century (it wasn't even written by a bishop of Rome).
If the idea of the bishop of Rome succeeding Peter as the head of the church is absent for the first 300 years of Christianity, why should we pay any attention to the claim of Pope Damascus in 382 A.D.? No other bishop did outside of the jurisdiction of the See of Rome. The Roman popes realized the weakness of their claim hence the forgeries to give the appearance that this claim went back to the earliest bishops of Rome.
Can the Catholic anti-Mormons show any evidence at all that there wasn't an Apostasy and the Pope is the successor of Peter without relying upon these forgeries?
Upon examination of all the pertinent biblical passages, it is obvious that an Apostasy really did occur in the first century and another church or group of apostate churches replaced the original church by the latter quarter of the first century. It is also evident that the arguments of RC apologists and RC anti-Mormons for the denial of the Apostasy and of the bishop of Rome inheriting all of Peter's keys and authority over the Christian churches are also very weak.
When Roman Catholic apologists can't prove the bishop of Rome was always recognized as the supreme ruler of Christianity, they will turn to John Henry Newman's “development” which states the bishop of Rome becoming the monarchical head of Christianity and of solely inheriting Peter's supremacy was inevitable whereas originally, he was only one bishop in equality with every other.
I disagree. The only reason why Roman Catholicism is nearly ten times larger than Eastern Orthodoxy is not because it was “inevitable” but was due to an accident of geography. Roman Catholicism could expand over the waters and there wasn't a nation that could hem it in the West, giving it access to the rest of the world whereas Greek Catholicism was trapped and had a great percentage of its membership forcefully converted to Islam. They couldn't expand to the west, because of the Roman Catholics, couldn't go south because of Islam and couldn't go north because of the arctic. They could only go east, across sparsely populated Russia. Any expansion to the south-east caused them to blocked by Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. Roman Catholicism, on the other hand, via the Spanish and Portuguese, filled the Americas and the Philippines, and became vastly wealthier than Eastern Orthodoxy.
If what is now Roman Catholicism filled the eastern portion of the Roman Empire and what is now Eastern Orthodoxy was actually in the west, there is little doubt that Eastern Orthodoxy would be ten times larger than Roman Catholicism and the most renowned leader of Christianity would be the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople instead of the bishop of Rome.
Since the foundation of the Roman Catholic Church's authority is completely based upon assumptions that can't be supported by the evidences, Roman Catholics need to seriously re-evaluate their allegiances. Blind faith in an institution just because it is ancient or because one was born into it won't guarantee salvation in the next life. All Christians, be they Catholic, Mormon, Protestant or whatever, needs to find out which is the true church of God.
How to find the true church
How can we find out the truth? Which church then is really the true one? How can we know for sure? A Roman Catholic apologist will say the Roman Catholic Church is the true church. An Eastern Orthodox apologist will say his church is true. I of course will say the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church.
How can you know? For those who want to know, there are two ways to find out. There's the hard way and there's an easy way. The hard way if for you to dive into the Scriptures and historical writings of the Christian church, examine my references for yourself. Read apologetic books from all sides and examine their references to discover who has the most valid arguments. Get intellectual satisfaction. Rely upon your own self.
The easy way is to identify something that is unique among all these groups and rely upon one who knows more than you. What's the main difference among all these different groups? It is only the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that has the Book of Mormon. This book then is the key to unlocking the truth. The Roman Catholic Church doesn't have the Book of Mormon. Eastern Orthodoxy doesn't have it either. The Protestants defaulted a long time ago on the issue of authority; hence they're not included in this search.
The best evidence for the reality of the Apostasy is the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. It is the best way to discover the true church. If it is true, Joseph Smith is a true prophet and there really was an Apostasy. The Holy Spirit will testify to all honest seekers and inquirers that it is true. Once you receive that personal revelation from God, you will automatically know that the true church is once more upon the earth, led by revelation and living prophets, just like the early church was in the first century.
I relied upon God for guidance, not upon my fallible intellect. I knelt down upon my knees and asked God in all sincerity if the Book of Mormon was true. I received an answer I can't deny and it was this answer that caused me to join this church. I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church of God upon the earth and I hope you will try to find out for yourself if what I say is true. Only God can tell you; ask him.
[ENDNOTES]:
1.This fact is also against the idea that the pope is infallible. The prophets spoke to God and received revelation from him but they weren't infallible. They could make mistakes. There isn't a single verse in the Bible that mentions the prophets and apostles were infallible. Peter wasn't infallible. He reversed himself on the requirements of the Gentiles for membership; He denied Jesus three times; he was called “Satan” by Jesus himself for wishing Jesus wouldn't be put to death. On the other hand, the pope by the Catholic Church's own admission, doesn't receive any revelations from God and insists that continuous revelation had ceased, is somehow infallible. When certain popes made mistakes in the past these mistakes are interpreted in a way that it wasn't an infallible pronouncement. The Catholic Church has learned through bitter experience to stay away from non-theological “infallible” declarations (like the condemnation of Galileo and his view that the earth went around the sun instead of the other way around by Pope Paul V & Pope Urban VIII and their successors for centuries afterwards) and limit the pope's “infallible” pronouncements on interpretations or new insights (without revelation?) into an existing doctrine, since there is no way he can be proven wrong because it is a matter of interpretation and doesn't contain any absolutes.
The problem with this is compounded because there were popes in the past that were condemned by church councils and by later popes as heretics like Pope Callistus (d. 222) for his Modalistic view; Pope Liberius (352-266) for his condemnation of Athanasius when Athanasius said the Son is equal to the Father; Pope Gregory the Great (590-604), Pope Innocent I (401-417) & Pope Gelasius I (492-496) were condemned by the Council of Trent for their view that babies needed Communion or else they will go to hell; Pope Zosimus (417-418) defended Pelagius, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Celestinus' doctrines, this caused an African Council to anathematize him. He recanted his position and subsequently was readmitted into the general Catholic body; Pope Vigilius (537-555) on April 11, 548 wrote his “resolution” wherein he condemned the Three Chapters. For this he was anathematized by the bishops of Africa, Illyria and Dalmatia, and two of his advisors (Rusticus & Sebastian) abandoned him, and he was also anathematized by a church council in Carthage. Vigilius subsequently retracted his “Resolution.” His name was later removed from the diptychs of the church by the Second Council of Constantinople (7th Session) for being a heretic because he kept on changing his mind on whether Jesus had one nature or two. He was readmitted when he wrote to the Patriarch of Constantinople, Eutychius, on December 6, 553 and admitted he was wrong and was deceived by the devil. “These things (the Decrees of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, that Gregory the Great and other popes supported against Vigilinius' position) prove that in a matter of the utmost importance, disturbing the whole church, and seeming to belong to the faith, the decrees of sacred councils prevail over the decrees of pontiffs, and that the letter of Ibas, though defended by a judgement of the Roman pontiff, could nonetheless be proscribed as heretical.” [THE SEVEN ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. THE NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS Second Series (Schaff & Wace). 14:300.]
Pope Honorius (625-638) was condemned as a heretic by the Sixth Ecumenical Council for believing Jesus only had one will. All popes from the fifth to the eleventh century had to take the Papal Oath (Liber Diurnus) which condemns certain heretics including Pope Honorius; Pope Formosus' (891-896) body was exhumed and was excommunicated and his ordinations were declared invalid; Pope Benedict V (964) who was appointed by the Romans (the Cardinals weren't created yet and wouldn't appoint the new pope until 1059) groveled at the feet of Emperor Otto and declared himself an impostor. He stripped himself of his regalia to prove it and confessed on his knees before Leo VIII (who Emperor Otto appointed as pope) that Leo was the lawful pope; Pope Celestine III (1191-1198) was condemned a heretic by Pope Adrian VI for his view that a marriage could be dissolved if one of the parties decided to become a heretic; Pope Nicolas II (1059-1061) was condemned as a heretic because he said Christ's body can be sensibly touched by hands and could be bitten by teeth and because he believed that Christ continues to suffer after his resurrection; John XXII (1316-1334) was considered a heretic by all subsequent popes especially Pope Adrian VI for insisting that Christ and his apostles did not live a life of poverty and for teaching that the souls of the righteous do not go to heaven and see God until after the resurrection. Instead, they are under the altar of God (sub altare Dei). He also taught that there was no one in hell and the damned wouldn't go there until at the end of the world; Sixtus V (1585-1590) made his own version of the Bible and in one of his Bulls (Aeternus Ille) declared that it was to be the official Bible of the Catholic Church and any Catholic not using or agreeing with it will be excommunicated. The problem with this Bible was that it contained numerous errors and was rectified when Robert Bellarmine, the Jesuit scholar suggested to the new pope, Gregory XIV (1590-1591) to create a cover-up which they did. They bought up all the copies they could find of the Sixtus version and came out with the revised Sixtus (or Sixtus-Clement) version. Fortunately, some copies of the original remained and a scholar, Dr. Thomas James of the Bodleian Library in Oxford in 1611 was able to make a book contrasting the two versions showing without a doubt the inferiority of the Sixtus version. Cardinal Bellarmine also admitted this fiasco and cover-up in his autobiography; Clement XI (1700-1721) in his Bull in 1715 (In Coena Domini) claimed that the pope had dominion over the entire Christian world both religious and secular and it was supposed to remain an eternal law. Succeeding popes until Clement XIV confirmed this position. Clement XI created a constitution in 1713 (Unigenitus) wherein he condemned the reading of the Bible by all men. He also condemned the Christians who tried to sanctify the Lord's Day by reading godly books and the Scriptures. He insisted that there is no higher duty than obedience to the pope. He also published a Bull (Ex Illa Die) where he condemned the rituals of the Chinese and made all Catholic missionaries swear intolerance to them. In 1939, the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda quietly reversed the position of Ex Illa Die without acknowledging doing so to maintain the facade of papal unity.
Many popes admitted that they could make mistakes in matters of faith like Pope Adrian VI in 1523; Pope Innocent III; Pope Innocent IV (in the original text of his Commentary on the Decalogue which was expunged from later editions).
According to Catholic Anti-Mormons, the pope is infallible only when he speaks Ex Cathedra and can only be on faith and morals. Paul Blanshard points out this problem, in his excellent book, American Freedom and Catholic Power (Rev Ed. 1958. p.34):
“… Who determines what subjects come within the sweep of infallible power? The Pope, of course! The power to define jurisdiction makes authority almost limitless. The word `morals' is so broad that it invites indefinite expansion; similarly the word `faith.' If faith deals with ideas and morals deal with behavior, is not the whole range of human experience encompassed within the Papal claim?”
In actuality, papal blunders in the past are interpreted in such a way that they aren't infallible pronouncements. Papal infallibility is like a funnel. The possible areas it can affect is massive if pointing to the future, but actual declarations in the past which fall in this category is extremely small since it is narrowly defined for past statements which conveniently bypass past papal errors [THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PAPACY (Burn-Murdoch). p.401].
How often does the pope speak infallibly? There was one in 1854 about the Immaculate Conception and one in 1950 about the Assumption of Mary. Why aren't there any more? Can our Catholic opponents give a list of infallible pronouncements by the popes throughout history? Why doesn't the present pope make an infallible declaration concerning ursury; on the Jews not being responsible for the death of Jesus and are entitled to all the rights of Catholics; the fundamental right of all men for freedom of religion (in the sense of them being able to choose any religion they believe to be true and not the purely Catholic understanding that freedom of religion means freedom to accept the Catholic Church), freedom of speech & conscience without the fear of torture and punishment; the right for other religions to exist without being persecuted by the main religious body and by the government; the separation of church and state and so forth? Numerous popes spoke to the entire Christian church but their statements are not considered to be infallible when they were proven wrong or when later popes advocated the opposite. Another problem may be the lack of any document before 1302 that has the bishop of Rome giving a statement from a position of authority to the entire church. The first pope to do so was Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) and the Bull was the Unam Sanctam. In it the pope declared that the Catholic Church has both spiritual and temporal power over the world and the pope has the right to wield military force over the entire world by virtue of his spiritual right. Boniface VIII wrote that there are two authorities or swords in the church, the spiritual and the temporal. “ The former is to be used by the church, the latter for the church; the one by the hand of the priest, the other by the hand of kings and knights, but at the command and permission of the priest.” (Quoted from THE CHURCH [Jay]. p.111). Is this an infallible declaration? Why not? (Also see Pope Eugenius IV's Cantate Domino and Pope Pius IX's Encyclical of August 10, 1864 and his Syllabus of Errors.
Since the doctrine of infallibility was ratified in 1870, there has only been one instance (in 1950) where a pope spoke “infallibly” and that was on the bodily assumption of Mary. This is safe ground for the popes because there is absolutely no way he could be proven wrong unless we develop a time machine and travel back to the first century and observe whether Mary's body corrupts like a normal human being's or whether she is bodily carried up to heaven or resurrected immediately after the time of her death.
Any statements a pope may have made before 1870 can be understood infallibly or not. If a papal statement proves to be wrong or is contradicted by other pontiffs it is interpreted as not being infallible pronouncements.
Why have the popes repeatedly avoided speaking infallibly on numerous topics such as birth control, abortion, divorce, clerical marriages, intermarriage, etc? Why don't they speak infallibly on matters that are important to mankind today such as the origins of man, nuclear weapons, the environment, war, the existence or absence of extra-terrestrial life, etc.? This most likely is due to the nature of the topics. As long as the pope avoids making infallible statements, the Catholic Church can safely abandon any outdated or false position. The moment they make an infallible pronouncement, they have no choice but to stick with it even if it will be proven false. Any doctrine that has a remote possibility of being disproved will never be subjected to an infallible declaration to maintain the facade of papal infallibility. The idea of papal infallibility put the Catholic Church in a corner. If any pope made an infallible declaration that will be proven wrong or its members refuse to follow it, it would damage the church to the extent of the Reformation in the 16th century. This is the real reason why the popes refuse to speak infallibly on matters that has a possibility of being proven false.
Why insist on the pope being infallible if he refuses to make infallible pronouncements? The idea of having an infallible head of a church is a comforting thought but since they refuse to make infallible statements on important matters today, what use is an infallible pope who refuses to make infallible statements?
Cardinal Newman (despite privately believing it but didn't think the moment was right for such a claim), and bishop Hefele were two of the most knowledgeable Catholic scholars during Vatican I and both of them were in the minority who opposed the doctrine of Papal infallibility but were pressured into accepting it by the Pope and Italians.
The majority of these topics were taken from VICARS OF CHRIST (De Rosa); THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN CHURCH (Martin); INFALLIBLE? AN INQUIRY (Kung); THE SEVEN ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. THE NICENE AND POST-NICENE FATHERS Second Series (Schaff & Wace). Volume 14; and THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PAPACY (Burn-Murdoch).
2.THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PAPACY (Burn-Murdoch). p.43.
3.THE RIDDLE OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM (Pelikan). pp.22-23.
4.THE INFLUENCE OF GREEK IDEAS ON CHRISTIANITY (Hatch). p.10.
5.THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE CHRISTIAN MYTH. (Allegro). p.16; THE SECRET GOSPEL (M. Smith). pp.20,131,145.
6.THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS (Pagels). Intro. xxiii-xxiv; ADAM, EVE, AND THE SERPENT (Pagels). pp.58, 151-152; THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (Gibbons). 1:393-394; THE ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY (Brown). pp.12, 151-152.
7.THE BEGINNINGS OF WESTERN CHRISTENDOM (Elliott-Binns). p.268.
8.A HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE WORLD (Manschreck). p.111.
9.THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (Gibbons). 1:420-424.
10.AMERICAN FREEDOM AND CATHOLIC POWER (Blanshard). p.21.
