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Sunday, October 18, 2015

The anachronism behind Rome’s “Development of Doctrine”

A Facebook friend posted this meme this morning, and I think it illustrates perfectly the concept of how Rome’s (actually, John Henry Cardinal Alfred E Neuman’s) “Development of Doctrine” works:

The iPhone existed in “seed form”, in just the same way that the papacy, and indeed, the whole “Roman Catholic Church” existed in the earliest days of the church.

And yet Rome has the temerity to say with a straight face, “The sole Church of Christ [is that] which our Savior, after his Resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it. . . . This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in (subsistit in) the [Roman] Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him.”

Sure, there were cameras in Lincoln’s day, but to posit an iPhone in “seed form” at that point is just ludicrous. Similarly, the church existed at Pentecost, but to posit “the Roman Catholic Religion in seed form” is just ludicrous.

HT: Neil Hess

3 comments:

  1. Incipient gnosticism and damnable heresies plainly existed in seed form in the early church, out of which Romanism arose, so in that sense her claims are true enough.

    A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

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  2. DEAD ON. Thank God I found this page. I just came from an RCC video study tonight and Jeff Cavins, the preacher on video was going gung ho on Origen's view that the Scriptures are an analogy of a higher spiritual interpretation. That's the only way he could say that Jesus' bread of life discourse pointed to the eucharist. I told the group that too. The priest in his 'answer' was forced to redefine Tradition with a capital T to include dogmas like the Assumption, claiming that the Church "ALWAYS taught it because it was there in 'seed' or 'germ' form'. I asked him to explain what he meant by 'seed form' if as he says the whole Church always taught this teaching. He claims the Apostles delivered the doctrine to the Church, but in 'seed form'. That doesn't even have any coherence to it! Fortunately, my wife was in a receptive frame of mind when we got home and she allowed me to read slowly to her the first two chapters of Irenaeus vs. Heresies Bk 3. I think the lights are coming on! Pray for us please! Thanks again for your page.

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