Catholicism’s Denial of The Holy Spirit’s Teaching

If the teaching of the Holy Spirit in the pages of the New Testament is truth then whatever denies that truth is false, is false teaching and error.  The thesis of this article is that the Roman Catholic Church has rejected the Holy Spirit’s teaching that there was an all-sufficiency of doctrine given in the first century sufficient to save the souls of humanity across all time to come.

I am sure the Catholic Church would deny this but how can they?  Reason says that if everything needed to save mankind's souls was given in the first century there is no reason or need for additional doctrines in the centuries following.  Yet the Catholic Church has piled new doctrine upon new doctrine seemingly without end down through the ages until our own time, and on and on it goes.

The Catholic Church has no set doctrine.  The best that can be said is that it is set for a time. But, time flies by and new doctrine is added.  What once was is history, is past, and the new replaces the old.  The old Catholic Church is revised with each newly added teaching and thus becomes the newest edition of the church.  In doing so it differs from the old and is therefore not the old.

One can go online and do a search and readily find when various doctrines came to be added to the Catholic Church.  Do not think for a moment that the Catholic Church of the 21st century is the same as the one in earlier centuries; it has been and continues to be a transforming institution compounding doctrines.  God does not change (Malachi 3:6), the Catholic Church does.  This continual addition of new teachings flies in the face of the teaching of scripture.

 

Jude says as clearly as language can make it that “the faith...was once for all delivered to the saints.” (Jude 3 NKJV)  When?  Then!  Then in the first century.  Everything needed for salvation from the hand of God was delivered to mankind “then.”  The faith Jude speaks of is that body of doctrine given through Christ and his apostles and prophets in the first century, in Jude’s lifetime.  It was once for all delivered meaning it was complete then and there.  There was nothing to be added to it.  That means that the Catholic Church has nothing to offer to mankind today that is of value as far as salvation goes.  That was all provided for in the first century.  We also must remember Jude wrote by inspiration.  The book of Jude is the Holy Spirit’s writing.

But, Jude is not alone.  Peter says, “His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.” (2 Peter 1:3 NKJV)  When?  Then!  If so what does Catholicism’s additional doctrines added down through the ages profit us?  Does “all things” mean all things?  Again, we have the Holy Spirit writing through human agency, through the inspired apostle Peter.  If “all” means all then we need no more than what was available in the first century and available to us in scripture.

James says in the first century the implanted word was able to save their souls (James 1:21), in that time.  Are we to believe it is not able to do so in our time?  What weakened it?  They had the implanted word available in James' time.  There was no need to wait for the development of Catholic doctrine.  James’ words were the Spirit’s words.

Paul speaking to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 commended them “to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” (Acts 20:32 NKJV)  When?  Then!  They did not need additional doctrines for salvation handed down centuries later.

Writing by inspiration Paul says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for … that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16-17 NKJV)  He wrote that in the first century.  Paul said “scripture” made a man complete, not scripture plus church tradition.  Here again, you have the element of time.  You could become complete in the first century.  There was no need to wait for generations to come until you could get the full deposit of Catholic Church doctrine which is impossible anyway for there is no end to its additions.  

Paul told Timothy that “the Holy Scriptures...are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” (2 Tim. 3:15 NKJV)  Not so if a man must believe any of the added Catholic doctrines down through the ages.  Paul said by inspiration “the Holy Scriptures,” not scripture plus tradition.

Were the people on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 saved when they obeyed Peter’s preaching?  Not if you must believe any of the added Catholic doctrines for salvation. You can say the same thing about all the others who believed and obeyed the gospel recorded in the book of Acts.

How is it that under Catholicism a man or woman can be saved at one time and yet at a later time another individual must believe additional doctrine to achieve the same end? If that is the case then does not that make multiple gospels versus just one?  I use the term gospel in the sense of the body of faith one must believe for salvation.

The Bible teaches there is “one faith” (Eph. 4:5), one body of truth to be believed. Which one is it in Roman Catholicism?  Is it the truth of 800 A.D., 1300 A.D., 1900 A.D., or 2025 A.D.?  Or, set your own dates.  You will readily see things have changed and who can believe we have seen the end of it?

The Bible teaches that the gospel of Christ is the power of God to salvation (Rom. 1:16), that was taught in the first century, but that was before Catholic tradition kicked in during the later centuries.  Did not Paul, the writer of that Roman passage, foresee that later Catholic tradition when translated into doctrine was essential?

In the book of Acts much is written about “the word” of God being preached, heard, believed, and obeyed.  Here is a question for all who have an open mind.  Did that word include any of the Marian dogmas Catholics teach today?  Even one word?  Did it include teaching on Peter being the rock the church was being built upon?  Did it include teaching on the rosary, indulgences, transubstantiation, and the list could go on and on?  An honest person knows the answer.

One might argue the book of Acts only records examples of initial gospel obedience, evangelizing.  I respond, Paul spent 3 years in Ephesus, as an example, did he never preach Christian doctrine during that entire time?  Several of the books he wrote were written to places he had evangelized – Corinth, Ephesus, Galatia, Colossae, Philippi, and Thessalonica.  Did Paul preach Catholic doctrine in those locations?  Be honest with yourself.

Paul, by inspiration, wrote Second Thessalonians in which he wrote of a future “falling away” (2 Thess. 2:3), other translations use the words “rebellion” or “apostasy.”  The Roman Catholic Church claims to be the one true church.  If so when is it going to fall away or has it already?  If it has or if it will can it be said it is the true church?  One must think long and hard about that.  If I as an individual fall away from a marriage, a team, a business, or an institution of any kind I was involved in then I am no longer a part of it. If the church becomes apostate it is no longer the church. It becomes something entirely different which is exactly where the Roman Catholic Church is today.  Do not claim to be what you once were if you are no longer what you once were.

I believe the Roman Catholic Church grew out of the original church of the New Testament.  That one church in its apostasy evolved into the Catholic Church.  Paul taught that the original church would fall away (2 Thess. 2:3).  If it is not what it once was then it is not the church of the New Testament, not any longer, not in its fallen state.

The Roman Catholic Church of today is no longer similar to the church one reads about on the pages of scripture; it is not that church.  As a result of its innovations, it is as much separate from true Christianity as Islam, Buddhism, or any other non-related religion.  The Catholic Church readily admits scripture is not enough for them.  They have their tradition and it trumps scripture when push comes to shove.  What was good enough for people in the first century is not good enough for them.  They will have more and more but one must always remember that whether having more of a thing is good or bad depends on what that thing is.  More of self-will and less of God’s will is not good.

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The Catholic Doctrine Concerning Scripture and Tradition

 Roman Catholics are not willing to accept the Bible as the sole authority in religion.  To do so would destroy the Catholic Church for once you remove the authority of the priests and the Catholic hierarchy there goes the authority of the church and its power over men. 

The Catholic Church in history sought to keep the scriptures from the laity.  “We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old and the New Testament …  we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.” (Council of Toulouse, 1229, Canon 14, p 195).  At the Council of Tarragona in 1234 it was decreed, “No one may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments.”

The following quote from Pope Gregory XVI pretty much sums up the attitude the Roman Catholic Church held for centuries regarding the Bible and the laity. 

From the encyclical INTER PRAECIPUAS (On Biblical Societies) by Pope Gregory XVI, May 8, 1844:

“1. Among the special schemes with which non-Catholics plot against the adherents of Catholic truth to turn their minds away from the faith, the biblical societies are prominent. They were first established in England and have spread far and wide so that we now see them as an army on the march, conspiring to publish in great numbers copies of the books of divine Scripture. These are translated into all kinds of vernacular languages for dissemination without discrimination among both Christians and infidels. Then the biblical societies invite everyone to read them unguided. Therefore it is just as Jerome complained in his day: they make the art of understanding the Scriptures without a teacher ‘common to babbling old women and crazy old men and verbose sophists,’ and to anyone who can read, no matter what his status. Indeed, what is even more absurd and almost unheard of, they do not exclude the common people of the infidels from sharing this kind of a knowledge.”

And more from the same source:

“12. ... In particular, watch more carefully over those who are assigned to give public readings of holy scripture, so that they function diligently in their office within the comprehension of the audience; under no pretext whatsoever should they dare to explain and interpret the divine writings contrary to the tradition of the Fathers or the interpretation of the Catholic Church.”

The last three lines explain the fear of the scriptures on the part of the Roman Catholic hierarchy—the fear that those who read the scriptures will have their eyes opened and reject “the tradition of the Fathers” and “the interpretation of the Catholic Church.”  That did happen, the Reformation, and we entered into the modern era where attempts to withhold the scriptures became an act of futility, impossible to do.  However, by studying history we can see what the desire had been as long as it was possible to carry it out.

Part of Catholic tradition and essential to it is to have scripture interpreted the way the hierarchy wants it interpreted.  Thus, for example, no matter how clear the New Testament text seems to be to the average person it remains a requisite to Catholicism that Mary, the mother of Jesus, be a perpetual virgin.  You are incapable of reading the scriptural texts about Mary and understanding them without the aid of the Catholic Church.  When you read about Jesus having brothers and sisters that runs against the tradition and so cannot be a correct understanding, the church will tell you what those verses are saying.  Even if you have a Ph.D. interpreting those verses will be too tough for you without their aid.

But, what is Catholic tradition?  It might surprise you.  When most of us think of tradition we think of that which developed in the past in the family or some institution-- a school, a team, a country, etc.--whereby certain activities or customs are passed on from time past into the present day.  It might be a traditional yearly get-together.  We all understand tradition in that aspect of it.

But we also understand that as tradition has a beginning it also has an end.  If you are older you have likely experienced it in your own family.  What you once did as tradition you no longer do.  That is fine in the normal course of the life of a man, the circumstances of our lives change over time, but when it comes to religion we do not expect an ever-changing God with ever-changing doctrines and commandments for us to live by.  Yet, that is exactly what you get with religious tradition in Roman Catholicism.

The change from the Mosaical Law to Christianity was not a change of God’s mind but planned before the world was established.  “He (Christ – DS) indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world.” (1 Peter 1:20 NKJV)  He was “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Rev. 13:8 NKJV)  He was the seed promise to Abraham that through his seed all the earth would be blessed (Gal. 3:8, 16).  The point is that God does not change.  Roman Catholicism changes continually.

The average person not knowing any better would think that when a doctrine is based on tradition in Catholicism it would mean that the early church held that doctrine.  That is what you would think but you would be mistaken.  Under Catholicism, a doctrine based on tradition can begin evolving at any point in time.  It does not have to trace its roots back to the first century.  Why not?  Because Catholicism is its own authority.  It derives its authority from itself; it sees itself as the fountain, or source, of authority.  Thus one will find various Catholic dogmas first stated in generations far removed from the first century and the early church.    

For example, the doctrine of purgatory was officially proclaimed as dogma in 1438.  By dogma, it is meant you are obliged to believe it if you are to be a faithful Catholic.  This means you could have been a faithful Catholic and not believed in purgatory until 1438, well over a thousand years after Christ.  After 1438 you are unfaithful if you don’t believe in it.  You have a moving target for faithfulness. 

Now where do you find purgatory in the New Testament?  You don’t is the quick and accurate answer.  If they tell you such and such scriptures teach it (and I do know they rely on certain scriptures for this) then my response is “why did it take you over a thousand years to discover it?”  The point I am getting at is that Catholicism makes up its doctrines and dogmas as it goes along.  It is like playing a game where you are the sole rule maker and can change the rules as the game goes along and no one has a right to challenge you thus you always win.

Now for the Catholics, I do understand that the doctrine of purgatory evolved and began with the idea of praying for the dead.  From there one idea led to another but that is just my point—the doctrine was not given by revelation but by the philosophizing of men.  There was no revelation; there was only men's reasoning; it was “this is what seems right and reasonable to us.”  That is what all of us non-Catholics have to understand about Catholicism.  Tradition with the Catholics is often no more than the evolution of thought among Catholics, especially the Catholic hierarchy, until a dogma, an official teaching, comes out of it.

What I have done here with the doctrine of purgatory you can do with many other dogmas found in Catholicism.  Search out the date the doctrine became dogma and begin asking questions about it like why then and not earlier.  Why now?  What is the source, etc., etc?  Try it with the teachings about Mary.  I say that because I know you will find fruitful digging.  You will not come up empty-handed.

The non-Catholic must understand the terminology of the Catholic Church or be misled.  If you are not Catholic, but Christian, when you hear the phrase “the word of God” you immediately think of the Holy Scriptures, the Bible.  With the Catholic that is not the case.  With the Catholics, the word of God is the combination of the scriptures and what they call “Sacred Tradition.”  This is the tradition we have been talking about.  Scripture alone is insufficient with the Catholic.  Indeed, tradition will overrule scripture if the need arises for scripture will be interpreted to ensure the desired outcome, one that is in accord with what they teach no matter how incredible the interpretation may seem.

Tradition ends up being whatever we want it to be in Catholicism.  It can be based on any number of things.  It can be simply what we want to believe and thus practice.  I mentioned Mary earlier.  Catholics have a doctrine called the Assumption of Mary which says Mary, after her death, was taken bodily into heaven and thus her body never underwent decay.  This teaching was not to be found in any of the first twenty ecumenical councils, not found in any creeds, only found in the writings of two of the eighty-eight church fathers so-called and both of them wrote in the 7^th century, none of the major church doctors wrote of it and only 1 of the minor doctors and he lived hundreds of years after Christ and yet, based on tradition, the bodily assumption of Mary became dogma.

How could that be?  What tradition?  It was based on the teachings of the bishops alive at the time.  The church calls these bishops and what they are teaching “the Ordinary Magisterium,” and it is considered an infallible guide to the faith.  And it was based on what the church in practice was already doing-- honoring Mary’s assumption, dogma or no dogma, by its practices.  They already had a feast of Mary’s Assumption on August 15^th, they had set up in churches sacred images of the assumption, the church’s liturgy made references to Mary’s Assumption, etc., thus in 1950 the Pope declared the assumption to be dogma.  In Catholicism what we desire, what we are doing, what we are practicing, becomes dogma if we are patient long enough and there is enough of us involved to put the pressure on.  This is Catholic tradition placed on an equal footing with the scriptures.  Abide in it?  Who can?

Well, there is one group – the Catholic hierarchy.  They have a huge stake in maintaining the status quo. 

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