The visible church

According to Catholic convert and epologist Bryan Cross:

The more one believes that Christ founded a visible Church, the more it follows that

(1) Church authority comes through visible and physical, appointed means by way of those already having it [as opposed to falling randomly on various people straight from heaven in unmediated Montanistic fashion leaving us each individually to try to follow the internal voice of the Spirit to determine which persons are *really* the rightful authority of the Church]

AND

(2) Christ's promises regarding the gates of hell not prevailing against the Church, regarding His being with her to the end of the age, and regarding the Holy Spirit guiding her into all truth,

together indicate that some kind of perpetual divine gift of protection from error has been given to the authority of the Church. Otherwise, the breaking of these promises would be indistinguishable from the keeping of these promises. That addresses the concern that the authority of the Church "could" compromise the gospel. Denying that the authority of the Church is in any way divinely protected from error amounts to a denial of Christ's promises to the Church and/or a denial that Christ founded a visible Church.

Furthermore, when the Church authority teaches that some kind of perpetual divine gift of protection from error has been given to her that ensures that the gospel is protected and preserved until Christ returns, then either one must accept that claim *and* her gospel as Christ's gospel, or one must deny Christ's promises to the Church and/or that Christ founded a visible Church.

http://www.haloscan.com/comments/jstellman/149110515197883309/#78589

(1) In your opinion, which Church today is the visible catholic Church that Christ founded?

(2) What is the principled basis for distinguishing between the visible catholic Church that Christ founded and schisms from it?

(3) If there were no visible catholic Church, but only various congregations and denominations having many visible persons as members, how would things be any different than they are now?

http://www.haloscan.com/comments/jstellman/149110515197883309/#78554

This is an excellent example of how a Catholic apologist makes a case for his position by using loaded questions, based on groundless assumptions. Let’s dissect the process.

1.Notice his key category: the “visible catholic church.”

2. He alludes to three scriptural prooftexts for this position: Mt 16:18, Mt 28:20, and Jn 16:13. And what do these passages say?

“You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my visible catholic church, and the gates of hell shall now prevail against it.”

“And, lo, I am with the visible Catholic church always, to the end of the age.”

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide the visible catholic church into all truth.”

Does that sound about right? There’s only one little problem. More precisely, three little problems: of his three prooftexts, not a single one mentions the visible catholic church. In fact, only one of the three (Mt 16:18) even mentions the church at all, and even that passage says nothing about a “visible catholic church.” The other two are addressed to the Twelve Disciples (minus Judas).

3.What should we think when we come to the word “church” in Matthew? What is Matthew’s ecclesiology, anyway? He only uses the word “church” twice in his entire gospel (16:18: 18:17).

There is nothing in 16:18 about church office or the sacraments, much less Roman primacy, apostolic succession, the papacy, ex opere operato, &c.

Same thing with 18:15-20. It deals with the issue of church discipline. To that degree, it presupposes a Christian community or fellowship.

You could say it’s a “visible” community, but the kind of visibility on display in that passage is consistent with just about any sort of polity, whether Baptist or Anabaptist or Lutheran or Anglican or Presbyterian or Plymouth Brethren or Assembly of God, &c.

4.One might argue that the concept of the church can still be present even where the word is absent. That’s true. Matthew also mentions the institution of baptism and communion.

However, he doesn’t mention the sacraments in connection with church officers. He doesn’t tell us that only a priest can celebrate communion.

There’s not much content to the ecclesiastical usage in Matthew. It’s largely a cipher.

What about Johannine ecclesiology? There’s nothing explicit. You have a couple of corporate metaphors (the vine, the flock). You have a missionary outlook. You have the Apostolate.

But you can’t begin to unearth Roman Catholic ecclesiology in the Fourth Gospel (or 1 John, for that matter). In fact, when Bryan talks about a promise to the "church," this is code language for a promise to the papacy or the episcopate.

5.Moreover, if we do interpolate Catholic categories into the Gospels, that actually generates some problems for the Catholic position.

Bryan talks about “visible means.” I assume that’s an allusion to the sacraments, and possibly the priesthood. In Catholicism, the two go together.

But Catholicism distinguishes between valid and invalid sacraments. While a sacrament is visible, the validity of a sacrament is invisible. It’s contingent on intangible, indetectible factors like the intent of the officiant or the intent of the communicant.

So the criterion of visibility fails to distinguish between a true church and a false church, or between a pope and an anti-Pope.

The promise about the gates of hell is a promise about the indefectibility of the church, not the infallibility of the church.

Moreover, that passage doesn’t tell us what the church is. It doesn’t say there’s one perpetual bureaucracy throughout the church age.

The true church is exemplified in varying degrees, throughout time and space. The principled basis for distinguishing a true fellowship from a false fellowship is fidelity, or lack thereof, to the word of God.

Were the seven churches of Asia Minor (Rev 2-3) infallible—or even indefectible? No. Yet these were Apostolic Sees. The Apostle John was their de facto “bishop.” This was his de facto “diocese.” Yet several were already dying churches. In his own lifetime.

Didn’t they have valid sacraments? Valid church officers? Valid everything?

6. As to Bryan’s final question (“If there were no visible catholic Church, but only various congregations and denominations having many visible persons as members, how would things be any different than they are now?”), I don’t think things are all that different now than they were back then. As you read through the NT, you will see that there were various congregations, with various moral and doctrinal deviations both between and within various congregations. Today’s ecclesiastical oak tree, with its many twigs and branches, is already discernible in the acorn of the NT church.