{"id":18900,"date":"2015-05-05T09:32:17","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T14:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?p=18900"},"modified":"2015-05-05T09:32:17","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T14:32:17","slug":"infallible-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/05\/infallible-me.html","title":{"rendered":"Infallible Me…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"elephant-living-room1\"<\/a>
Personal Infallibility the Elephant in the Protestant Room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Non Catholic Christians often grumble about the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, but they miss the point that for any religion to be considered reliable somewhere along the line you have to have some sort of infallibility.<\/p>\n

To get what I mean we first have to understand what infallibility is.<\/p>\n

Infallibility is not sinless perfection. It is not having the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Infallibility is simply the fact that what the Catholic Church\u00a0does<\/em> teach is without error.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean that the Catholic Church has it all wrapped up and that there is nothing left to discuss, nothing left to discover. It simply means that what has been defined in the area of doctrine and morals is reliable and true and without error. Are there still open areas? Yes. Are there still things undecided? Yes. Are there still grey areas? Yes.<\/p>\n

When I say for any religion to work you have to have infallibility, what I mean is that for you to belong to a religion you have to trust your leadership. You have to believe that in essence what they are saying is true and without error. Otherwise you wouldn\u2019t be able to worship and \u00a0belong faithfully nor would you be able to properly criticize and think things through. It is only when you have the solid starting base of trust in the essential reliability that your religion is without error that you can move forward.<\/p>\n

The even bigger elephant in the room is when non-Catholics don\u2019t belong to any religion other than their own. When that happens the pastor or the denomination aren\u2019t infallible. They are.<\/p>\n

With the rise of \u201cnon denominational\u201d churches, storefront churches and an increasing number of do it yourself churches the rise of what might be called personal infallibility is even greater.<\/p>\n

Without the check and balance of a denomination or a set theological system the individual picks and chooses his theology with just him, his Bible and whatever spotty education he might have gathered here and there.<\/p>\n

Some time ago an acquaintance from my Protestant fundamentalist days was in touch by email. Kevin is now a Baptist pastor working on his PhD. He wished to engage me in conversation to help me see my way out of the murky waters of Catholicism into the pure clear light of his religion.<\/p>\n

I had not come across any disputant for some time who was really a\u00a0sola Scriptura \u00a0<\/em>believer. Most Evangelicals, when pressed, will offer some modified and qualified version of\u00a0sola Scriptura<\/em>\u00a0because they will admit that they rely on a Presbyterian, or a Baptist or a Methodist (or whatever) tradition to help them interpret the Scriptures. Even if they don\u2019t sign up to a particular denominational name brand, and claim to be \u2018just an ordinary Evangelical\u2019, it isn\u2019t too hard to get them to admit that even as \u2018an ordinary Evangelical\u2019 they are still interpreting the Scriptures within a particular historical and theological context, and therefore they are reliant, at least a little, on a form of \u00a0tradition that they are treating as infallible even if they are not aware that they are doing so.<\/p>\n

Not Kevin.\u00a0Continue Reading<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Non Catholic Christians often grumble about the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, but they miss the point that for any religion to be considered reliable somewhere along the line you have to have some sort of infallibility. To get what I mean we first have to understand what infallibility is. Infallibility is not sinless perfection. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nInfallible Me...<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Non Catholic Christians often grumble about the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, but they miss the point that for any religion to be considered\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/05\/infallible-me.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Infallible Me...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Non Catholic Christians often grumble about the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, but they miss the point that for any religion to be considered\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2015\/05\/infallible-me.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fr. 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