Last month,
we mainly dealt with 1 Timothy 3:15, which speaks of the
church of Jesus Christ being the pillar and ground of the truth, and we
addressed how the Catholic Church wrongly interprets this passage. See Part 1 here:
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-infallible-church-deception-part-1.html
This is just
one passage that the Catholic Church uses to attempt to claim infallibility for
itself. But they also use a few other
passages, like Ephesians 1:22-23 together with Colossians 2:9-10 to
assert their infallibility and we will talk about these today.
Confusion of Terms
Let’s read
the Ephesians
1 passage first. The author of
this epistle (the apostle Paul) says:
v. 22 –
And [God] hath
put all things under
his [Jesus’] feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
v. 23 – Which is his body, the fulness of him that
filleth all in all.
Ok, so we have
here a passage saying that the Father has put all things under Jesus’ feet
(that is, under His control) and He appointed Jesus as Head over all things,
including the church. Then Paul says
that the church is the “body of Christ” and it is the “fullness of Christ.” Catholics will also tie this in to Colossians
2:
v. 9 – For in Him [Jesus] dwelleth all the fullness of the
Godhead bodily
v. 10 – and ye are
complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power [or, “which is over every ruler and
authority” - NASV].
And somehow, they
take this to mean that the Church therefore has infallibility.
This is the logic of at least one popular Catholic apologist, John Martignoni, in his newsletter, “Apologetics for the Masses” #352. This particular newsletter is, for the most part, about the “infallibility” of the Catholic Church and Martignoni goes on to reason this way:
1) The church is the body of Christ (Ephesians 1:22-23)
2) Jesus Christ is the Head of that body (Ephesians
1:22-23)
3) Jesus is also the Head of all rule and authority (Colossians
2:10)
4) Therefore, the Church IS all rule and authority
(which gives them infallibility)!
See the article here:
But this logic is utterly ridiculous. This is like saying that a business owner has/owns
two separate shops in two different places.
One is a bait shop and the other is a flower shop. But it would be absolutely wrong to assume
that the two shops are one and the same just because he is the owner/head
of both. It just doesn’t follow.
Headship over multiple things does not make all of (or even any of) those things equal. God is Head over the animal world on earth
just as He is Head over all the galaxies in space, but they are certainly not
the same in any sense. Likewise, Jesus
is the Head over the church, and He is also Head over all rule and authority,
but that in no way makes these two things equal.
There is nothing in these verses about infallibility for the church,
either explicitly or implicitly. It is amazing the length that
Catholic apologists will go to in their desperation to exalt Mother Church!
Is the Church Christ?
Catholic
apologist Tim Staples, writing for Catholic
Answers, tells us:
“In Ephesians
1:22-23, Paul tells us that the Church is Christ, extended in this world” (Emphasis in original). See here:
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/mary-saves
No, I’m
sorry, but Paul is not telling us
that the church is Christ.
Maybe
Staples is just meaning that Jesus is giving us authority to spread the gospel
truth. That would be true. Perhaps he means that the church is an
extension of Christ’s will, behavior, character, etc. Maybe he’s saying that the church is closely
related to Christ. These are all true.
But then
again, maybe he is saying that the (Catholic) Church IS actually Christ
or that the Church has become Christ,
as it states in the Catechism of the
Catholic Church (CCC #795). And of
course, this would bolster their concept of Church infallibility, but this is
certainly not biblical.
See this
article:
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2017/05/can-we-become-christ.html
The Fullness of Christ
At
any rate, the Catholic Church makes much of the phrase concerning the Church
being “the fullness of Christ.” But in
what sense is the body (the church) the fullness of Christ? What does that even mean?
Just
as Jesus (the Son) is the full and true expression of the Father in Heaven (John
14:9), the church (when it is
functioning correctly and properly responding to God’s Word) is also the
full and true expression of Christ on earth.
As I mentioned in Part 1 of this
series, Jesus (the Head) is indeed infallible, but the body (the church) is
not, since it is not always
functioning correctly and not always properly
responding to God’s Word. Even when members of the church are indeed
functioning as God wants them to, it is still not infallible. So, being the “fullness of Christ” has
nothing to do with church infallibility in the contexts of Ephesians 1 and
Colossians 2.
A “Concrete Application”?
Another
passage that the Catholic Church uses to try and bolster their claims of
infallibility is Acts 15:1-31. This is
about the very first church council (the Jerusalem Council), which involved the
question of the Law of Moses and justification (i.e., “Must a person follow the
Mosaic Law in order to be saved?” Acts 15:1, 5). Catholics will claim that this debate in the Jerusalem
Council is a prime example and a “concrete application” of the need for an infallible church.
I
beg to differ.
Catholics
want to compare this Jerusalem Council in the very early church to the modern
Catholic Church’s councils and their operations (and claims). Catholics are claiming that we must have an
infallible church today to be able to interpret Scripture correctly and to
provide the world with true and authoritative doctrine with certainty, just like
they did in Jerusalem. Catholics will say
that the Jerusalem Council is the example to follow for the church today. Furthermore, they’ll emphasize that the Holy
Spirit agreed with the decision of the Council (Acts 15:28), so if the
Holy Spirit agreed, then it must have been an infallible decision, right?
No,
although the early church described in Acts 15 could indeed claim to have a
certain level of infallibility, it was only
an infallible decision because
there were APOSTLES present in this Council (v. 7, 12, 13). In other words, the church in that day
was still receiving new divine revelation from God, and this was
only because apostles and prophets were still around then, who enjoyed at least
some measure of infallibility.
But
we don’t have apostles and prophets today who operate in the same capacity as
they did back then in the early church. Furthermore,
why should the Holy Spirit’s agreement with that specific church council prove
the concept of church infallibility for today? The Holy Spirit “agrees” with anyone who proclaims biblical
principles, but that doesn’t imply infallibility for that person or group in
the post-apostolic church. Again, the
difference is the Holy Spirit working through apostles and prophets in
the early church.
As
I said, the post-apostolic church does not have the benefit of receiving new
divine revelation like the early church did.
Even the Catechism of the Catholic
Church would agree with me on that (CCC #66).
So,
the Jerusalem Council simply does not prove the need for an infallible church today.
The only infallible source of truth we have today is the Holy Scriptures
(2
Timothy 3:16-17), so there is no need for infallible Tradition, nor for
an infallible Magisterium. Interestingly,
the Catholic Magisterium only claims to be infallible on very rare occasions,
but Scripture is infallible ALL the time.
Conclusion
There
are more passages that the Catholic Church would call upon to attempt to
demonstrate that their Church is infallible.
We’ve only covered a few of the main ones here. Of course, we haven’t forgotten Matthew
16, which is probably their main
argument. But this chapter has been
dealt with elsewhere on this blog. See
here:
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/search?q=matthew+16
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2016/09/
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2016/08/
They
also refer to Matthew 18, concerning “binding and loosing,” but that topic is
covered in the Matthew 16 links just above.
There
is also Luke 22:31-32, where Jesus prays for Peter’s faith. Jesus did this because He knew that Peter
would be weak in his trial and end up denying Him. But Jesus intercedes for all of us, myself included, but that certainly does not make me
infallible.
They
sometimes also use John 16:13 to say that “… when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He
will guide you into all truth.”
That is true, but is there any one person or group who actually,
literally, possesses “all truth”? No,
that’s not what the verse is saying: Jesus is telling us that when the Holy
Spirit comes, He will give you all the truth
you NEED for any particular occasion.
I think it is safe to say that God has never given any single human
being “all truth,” i.e., every bit of
truth in Heaven and earth in human history.
Not even the Bride of Christ, the whole church collectively, has this
level of knowledge, but only the Trinity.
I’m
sure that there are other passages that I haven’t mentioned, but I believe that
what we have shared is sufficient to show that, according to Scripture, the
concept of an “infallible church” is truly a deception, a mere figment of the
Catholic Church’s imagination.
