The Arguments Against Catholic Additional Beliefs
NOTE AFTER WRITING THIS: This, to me, is the process many people need to take. Write out something for/against a belief and let your thought process carry you to the end. I started this article one way and finished it another (kind of, you’ll see where I disagree entirely).
In the recent articles, I’ve shown that there are many arguments in favor of how the Catholic Faith has progressed. There are many different nuances that we could look into showing that certain rites of Catholicism don’t adhere to the WHOLE of the Latin rite (so to speak).
For example, just the other day I learned that there are many Bishops that don’t hold to the Vatican Two, rather more intensely, they believe those that are within Vatican Two are a different religion entirely (that’s…too far IMO).
The argument that I want to put forth today is derived from a portion of Scripture that I may be taking out of context (I haven’t been convinced of this yet, but willing to be). This portion of Scripture is:
5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ 8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. 9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 11 But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban” ’ (that is, given to God)— 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
The Marian Dogmas makes me think of a “man-made” tradition that impedes people from coming to know Christ in His fullness (hold on Catholics, I’ll get there). If you take 10 minutes to go look at Twitter you’ll find accounts from Protestants who misunderstand much of Catholic theology (granted their ignorance as mercy) but you find the great majority of them up in arms over the “devotion” to Mary and posts that say “Mary, be My Salvation” which I have seen on several instances (even screen shot a few).
Paul, seemingly dismisses holiday traditions of man, Colossians 2:16-17 (NIV): "Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ."
He repeats here: Galatians 4:9-11 (NIV): "But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you."
It seems Paul has a view of the veil that’s been on my heart for ages now, but again, I could be wrong, that’s why we are here to explore these things. The roadblocks of theology are many, not few, but what are necessary and what are not? Do Protestants hold the key to this where denominations are proper but that can’t be because that’s not unified in any way.
So, how do we decipher between that which is necessary and that which is a roadblock to the faith we want so many to adhere to?
I refer back to something that sits between Prima and Sola Scriptura and I think that it will give context to the debate of Tradition v Scripture and these roadblocked dogmas.
This means that any tradition must be drawn from Scripture, that is to say, it does not need to be explicit in Scripture but must be drawn from the basis of Scripture. This leads us immediately to something else found in the church which is — who has the authority to decide such things? — this is where being unified is of the utmost. If you’re not unified, you can simply decide for yourself apart from the body. The finger can tell the head: “No, I don’t believe that because I am right” or the toe to the hand “Get away from me, I don’t believe that”.
Thankfully, history has given us the Ecumenical Councils of the church where the college of bishops, the collective whole, came together and decided on an array of issues which is why the Church itself has remained unified for so long (before Luther imploded it).
As I’m writing this, I may have to go add a subtitle to the document that says “I ended up defending Catholicism again oops” but let’s get to exactly where I wanted to get to today — I swear I took may Adderall — which is the Sinlessness of Mary.
I chose this because this seems to be one of the main roadblocks of Protestants today. This seems to be something that really impedes Prots from furthering down the road of a unified faith with the Historical Church. I say Historical Church because Protestants have no heir to the Historical Church, they are abundantly from Luther and to deny this is to deny history. Luther didn’t revert the church to some origin point, he fully created a new movement, new liturgy, new everything.
Is Mary Sinless?
The sinlessness of Mary refers to the doctrine in which Mary, mother of Jesus chose not to sin.[1][2] It is upheld by the Oriental Orthodox Churches, Eastern Orthodox Churches, as well as by high church Lutherans.
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Cyril of Jerusalem advanced the concept of Mary as the New Eve, drawing parallels to Eve in her prelapsarian state, free from original sin. Ephrem the Syrian similarly portrayed Mary as innocent as Eve before the Fall. Ambrose described her as incorrupt, a virgin preserved by grace from any taint of sin. John Damascene went further, suggesting that God's supernatural influence extended to Mary's parents, purifying them during her conception, thereby ensuring even the material of her being was pure and holy. This view of a sinless conception and the sanctity of Mary's "conceptio carnis" found favor among some Western theologians. Numerous Greek and Byzantine Fathers additionally maintained that Mary remained sinless throughout her entire life.
Therefore, it wasn’t absent from the Early Church but let’s not forget that some churches got things wrong IMMEDIATELY after receiving them from Paul: Galatians 1:6-9 (NIV): "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all.” However, the church at that point was infant, before 70AD, and wasn’t fully established by any stretch of the imagination. However, it’s possible they got this wrong right?
By the 4th century the sinlessness of Mary was a common belief. Augustine in the 5th century upheld that Mary had no personal sin, but Augustine did not clearly affirm that she was free from original sin. Ambrose also held similar views as Augustine concerning the sinlessness of Mary.
Protestant apologist, James White has argued that many Greek Fathers denied the sinlessness of Mary, this includes John Chrysostom, Origen, Basil, and Cyril of Alexandria. J.N.D. Kelly also argued that Tertullian and Hilary of Poitiers believed that Mary had imperfections.
The irony is that Protestants want to use the Early Church when it’s convenient for them. Almost like a grab bag for when it supports them. Origen also believes that Genesis was essentially fictional (as well as Basil), do they also want to hold to that? Do they want to hold to what Ignatius of Antioch relayed from John the Apostle? What about Polycarp?
Should we work down the list and see if there was a consensus? The issue with this is that at this time, there was no “infallible rule” in place, which meant Bishops really were in charge of the Church before them in a unique way YET COULD NOT CROSS THE SEE OF ROME (which meant anything of dogma or doctrine needed to pass through Rome first — just historical fact). So, would the Bishops agree on dogmatizing this? We don’t really know because they were never given their historical right. The Papacy abused it’s nuance - in my opinion.
At this point in the time of the Church, the Marian Theology was something spoken of but not dogmatized. This is where, and I will touch on this in another article, why I adhere to the “Paleo” nature of the church or the “mere” nature of the church when it comes to these things. I do not think the nature of Mary should impede one from coming to Jesus — but I find it perfectly reasonable to believe this.
Let me expand on that briefly because there are two avenues for which these things press against each other.
The first is that we believe Mary was a virgin who gave birth. That’s ridiculous and if it wasn’t attested to in Scripture we’d all be like “Ya, no” but because it’s in Scripture we accept such a crazy miracle.
The second is that if we believe such a miracle, it’s added salt to that meal that she was protected from Original Sin and therefore, like Jews of her time, forgiven and sanctified by belief in the Savior (it was simply applied to her in this life for the sake of the birth of Jesus).
Some Issues With These
This implies that something must be found in Scripture in order for it to be true. This raises so many questions… “Whose canon? The historical canon or the Lutheran one?” and “What about Jesus being a Nazarene?”
Before we loop back to Mark and Jesus’ words about tradition to finalize the context there, we should look at this problem of Scripture. Jesus in Matthew 2:23 says: And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.
One problem, this isn’t anywhere in the Old Testament, it’s not found in the Prophets writings at all. You have two options here if you want to not abandon the whole cart of faith: (1) You choose to accept some Scripture is lost which denies Sola (2) You choose to believe oral tradition was authoritative which denies Sola
But does this warrant that one MUST believe in the sinless nature of Mary?
(which by the way, the Church states it was fully by the ordained Grace of God, not by anything Mary did or did not do, solely for the purpose of Christ)
If I’m remaining as unbiased and true to my convictions, no, I don’t think this should be dogmatized and a required faith. This is where the CC would assert: “But you believe in the teaching of the Church, we teach this, therefore you need to submit to this” — I think that’s dangerous, but let’s return to Mark 7 to see where we are with the context of “bad tradition”.
The circumstances surrounding Jesus' disciples eating without washing their hands are unclear. It's possible that water was unavailable, and unlikely that they did so to provoke the Pharisees.
Jesus criticizes the Scribes and Pharisees for emphasizing human traditions over honoring God's law, particularly regarding the support of aging parents. In Jewish society, parents relied heavily on their children for support. The tradition of Corban, where one could claim to have dedicated all their possessions to God as an excuse to avoid financial responsibility towards their parents, exemplifies this hypocrisy.
I believe Isaiah can help with some contextual nuance and for an understanding of what Jesus is rebuking here:
“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? 8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.”
This would be like a monk or priest today denying something to someone in need because he has to give it to God, but what does James tell us? “Pure and undefiled religion is taking care of the sick, the widow, the poor…” James 1:27
Therefore, Jesus is being very specific with the whole of his mission, he’s not taking a wide brush and saying “tradition is wrong”, but He is rather showing that when we give to the poor we are giving to God.
Isaiah actually continues: “If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; 14 then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
An example is when Jesus chooses to come in on a donkey, while prophesied, this is a tradition held by the ancient Hebrews and their king. Jesus doesn’t poo-poo on the whole of tradition, but only when it impedes the ultimate goal of “loving others as yourself” which we see in Mark 7.
This sort of leaves us right back where we always are…which is do we believe the Historical Church has the right to maintain doctrine? Does it have to be explicit in Scripture?
The core of the roadblocks aren’t Mary, it’s actually the Papal Office and Sola Scriptura. This is what keeps someone from coming to Rome, this is what kept me away from Rome, because if I can believe Mary gave birth as a Virgin, I can believe that God applied sanctification to her on the basis of her forward faith. That doesn’t mean that I would make it dogmatic — which leads us to the questions: “What is dogma? How does it relate to salvation? What is necessary for salvation?” and “Can you commune and disagree?”
We will address those next. But let me say, nothing Rome has put forth should keep you from remaining in the Historical Church, you CAN commune and disagree with the parts.