That's the interesting thing about the ecumenical councils. Take the second council of ephesus was denounced by the pope and never really took hold. Pope Leo's tome to addressed the nature of Christ was sent to guide the council of Chalcedon, where they overturned the heresy that had been approved not too long before.AGC said:The Banned said:The pope helps make sure that what happens on the British isles stays in line with the church at large. If there wasn't early heresy cropping up there, that's great! But clearly heresies were being put down left and right, so the fact that it wasn't happening in your neck of the woods doesn't mean it wasn't happening.AGC said:The Banned said:I'll rephrase to be less combative: We quite literally have a local bishop that does all of these things. This is not something missing from the life of the churchAGC said:The Banned said:At yet close to a billion protestant Christians would say your episcopal structure adds to the bible... That's what you aren't seeing. You believe your stance is the neutral one where our adds. The fact of the matter is everyone adds their own framework to the bible. If you want to say the Catholic perspective is incorrect, that is fine. But you can't say that you're just reading the bible for what it is because it's literally impossible, as demonstrated by the past 500 years.AGC said:The Banned said:I didn't expect you to go all evangelical on me. This is blatantly untrue for literally ALL denominations. Hypostatic union, two will of Jesus, fully God and fully man, sola scriptura, trinity, you name it. All of these have roots in the bible. But if you want to say you stay silent where the bible is silent, you're going to have to start trimming a bunch of essential anglican doctrines down to their bare bones. And you can include the way you view the role of bishop as successors the apostles as something nearly a billion protestants would would say is adding to the bible where it is silent.AGC said:The Banned said:Anglicans describe plenty of things about their faith using church history. I'm not sure why this would be any different. You have been very adamant about what the bishop of Rome was not, but silent on what the bishop of Rome was.AGC said:The Banned said:Then why don't you offer an explanation for what you do think? You're more than happy to tell Catholics we're wrong about the early role of the bishop of Rome, but won't offer any sort of explanation about what it is that you believe.AGC said:The Banned said:Just to make sure I understand you: you believe that the bishop of Rome had no significance in the early church? And that the term "pope" wasn't applied to that bishop in the first 1000 years?AGC said:The Banned said:1. would you mind explaining what you think the pope's role was in the first 1000 years?AGC said:The Banned said:I agree in principal to this statement. I think it logically follows.Zobel said:
I don't really care to argue since the RCC cannot back down on this without losing all coherence as a religion, but you're arguing the wrong point. Even if we grant that St Peter was the leader of the apostles in a unique way, it says nothing whatever about how or why this authority or leadership functions, whether or not it is inherited by any particular person, how that person inherits it (by appointment? by particular See?), or that it goes to the current bishop of Rome (versus any other See established by St Peter), or that it comes with unique and particular charisms eg infallibility (however limited).
I would say the EO version of this is submitting to the authority of the local bishop, and through him, the patriarch of his particular church. With that in mind, I'd like to ask a hypothetical question: If your patriarch chose to align with Rome, and you local bishop agreed, how do you think you would respond to that?
You're looking for someone else's pope with this post, but correct me if I'm wrong. The episcopal structure exists in Anglicanism too. Yes, we have a bishop ordinary (as in ordinal, first among equals), but his powers are so far from what you conceive of with the pope, as to make it, well, orthodox and consistent with the early church. Not too different from orthodoxy.
When all you have is a pope, everything is a question of authority.
2. Zobel has said before that each bishop acts as their own "pope" in their own territory. I think the question is a fair one. Certainly he isn't applying infallibility upon his local bishop, but he seemed to agree with a papal level of authority granted to that local bishop.
I reject the framing of the questions outright.
1. Why would I assume there's a pope, so that I can explain something that isn't?
2. There is no paradigm for pope in the church outside of the RCC. It's not an episcopal office found in the scriptures or practiced. The bishops in our churches function as bishops, as they should. You have reversed the entire situation, as zobel pointed out, and rolled up to pope the authority of bishops.
Again, we had councils before y'all had a pope, many of them, and important decisions were made without this focal point of power.
This is the motte and bailey I don't want to enter into. It is in no way analogous to what is professed by modern day romans.
Throw the term pope out of it. I don't care what you call it. But don't run from conversation entirely. If you're willing to say we have our view of the primacy of Rome all wrong, it's common decency to explain what the correct view is so that we can test it.
ETA to see if you find this line of open ended questioning better: how would you describe the role of the bishop of Rome?
How would I describe something not described by scripture, outside of what the role of bishop is? Again, that's an odd question to me and illustrates the entire point: I keep saying the role of bishop is defined, and you keep asking what I think, like it's really unclear what a bishop does in scripture or how it's practiced in the early church. There's nothing confusing or hidden here.
This post makes it sound like you believe the bishop of Rome was just another bishop. If that is your view, that's fine. I would clearly disagree with it and, if I thought this was an open minded conversation, would provide evidence to the contrary. But up to this point you've been unwilling to even state that the italicized is your view.
I'm silent where the Bible is silent, ironically enough. It doesn't say much about a bishop of Rome (though it does talk about bishops and the disciples). I'm not denying there was/is one, so don't put me there, but you have a particularly roman Catholic problem of placing great weight on your system and asking everyone else how they deal with your post-schism reading of history. Pass.
If you don't want to expound upon the bishop of Rome, that's fine. But when you are more than willing to say that the way we view the papacy is absolutely untrue, you are again leaving the bolded and cease being silent where the bible is silent. His particulars are not enumerated in the bible, but the bible doesn't say those particulars don't exist either.
Why did you ignore the next two words and following sentence? You can't point to the papacy as it is, as you have practiced for centuries, or even the title of bishop of Rome in scripture or shared tradition (edit: with such authority) while you interrogate me over what I believe about it. Why would I add to scriptural episcopal structure and ecclesiology? We haven't done that as Anglicans despite how much we write because we don't see a need to; it is romish to do so.
My good faith response would be, lived practice in all our parishes demonstrates what we add or omit. I think we all agree on this. A Protestant's lived experience in my parish would reflect such, because the bishop is a part of parish life and knows about the people there. He comes at least once a year and is in constant contact with the priest. That's only one of the things missing for the pope; he's not at your confirmations or chrismations, he doesn't visit your parish regularly, he doesn't know the people or the issues of your church. His position necessitates your structure in a way that ours and the orthodox don't. You have to add to these things because they're not functional otherwise.
I agree, which is why it's so odd that you need a pope. The church functions without him as it always has. Remember, there was a Christian church in the English isles before Augustine got there. And it wasn't so far gone that we couldn't commune. I think that should be food for thought.
And to also use the Pope Stephen example for you. This saint made very direct claims to papal authority and apparently that wasn't so far gone that we couldn't commune
No heresies were ever addressed without the bishop of Rome enforcing orthodoxy? Not sure that foots with history given the ecumenical councils, but it's why anachronism is necessary for the Roman view. Modern claims must be supported with historical evidence, even if it doesn't exist.
The pope doesn't address all heresies unilaterally, but he does have to sign off on the findings of the councils. What I'm more concerned with is the fact that numerous popes going back to the 100s were claiming authority over churches in other areas. Maybe those popes were right. Maybe they were wrong. But there is plenty of evidence of popes making those claims. It didn't just come out of thin air like many non-Catholics claim.
