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In preparation for the currently ongoing papal conclave, I decided to read the official rules currently in force, UNIVERSI DOMINICI GREGIS, issued by John Paul II in 1996. The document contains this provision (emphasis added):
Seems simple enough right?
Whoops.
Here I was, a schmuck, reading the canonically promulgated apostolic constitution as if it mattered, as if the supposed men of God involved in this 2000-year-old institution might care about established procedures.
Sure, Francis could have changed the rules, as many popes have done throughout the centuries, but he didn’t. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care, and neither did anyone else with influence within the Vatican either. How am I supposed to take this seriously if the cardinals and popes don’t even take it seriously?
I wish Christianity were true. I really do. It would certainly make my dating life easier. I’d have a sense of purpose in life, defined rules of virtue to follow, but it just doesn’t make any actual sense. The inconsistency I cited above is relatively minor, but it is illustrative of what one finds everywhere when one digs into the claims of Christianity and treats them with the truth-preserving tools of logic. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus and Vatican II, Matthew 24:34, these are fundamental truth claims that can’t be handwaved away like the finer points of ecclesiastical law.
Obviously, as a Mormon (member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, whew) I think you're actually on the right track. It's so blindingly obvious that the Catholic church is bumbling along, with zero internal consistency, for centuries and centuries. It shows up all over. Even today, Catholics are very loud about a number of major issues, but very small numbers of actual Catholics actually agree with their own church's doctrine, much less practice it, and that's even before you look at any history at all. Don't get me wrong, I respect Catholics, I get along with many, I still view the religion as an overall net good, etc. but their doctrine is a mess. I genuinely extra respect the Catholics who attempt to pull the doctrine together into a coherent whole, but I just don't see the hand of God guiding them.
Now, doctrinally, to me, this all goes away quite neatly when you give up on the idea of the Catholic line of authority being unbroken. Clearly they strayed, it's self-evident, so my own faith has the nice idea of needing someone to restore and clarify things and have a modern guide/prophet. I'm not saying that people don't find any inconsistencies in Mormon doctrine, there's a people component to be sure, but it's several orders of magnitude less. I strongly reject this idea that doctrine is developed by groups of people hashing it out. Council of Nicea? Convened by Constantine, he basically says I don't care what you produce as long as it's something unifying, and once you do, we'll burn the writings of dissenters and exile anyone not with the program. All this to say you should meet with the missionaries :)
As a Protestant, I agree with you that the papacy is no guarantor of doctrinal fidelity. But the core question is this: The pope is said to be the vicar of Christ – is he? Flawed historical assertions and doctrinal contradictions count as evidence against the claim, but the claim itself is true or false and should be addressed as such. (Whether this is the right forum to go deep on that question is a separate issue.)
The same is true of claims about the president of the Mormon church: Is he a true or false prophet? Having a true prophet may be useful, but that doesn’t determine whether Joseph Smith and Russell Nelson qualify. Flawed historical assertions and doctrinal contradictions count as evidence here too. And I think it’s audacious to say that the LDS score well.
What about the Mormon history of pre-Columbian America, which doesn’t jive with any historical source or archeological finds? Or the book of Abraham, whose source manuscripts turned out to be Egyptian funerary texts once we could read hieroglyphs? Or the edits to the Book of Mormon regarding the nature of the godhead? Or the doctrines which were said to be unchangeable but were nevertheless changed, like plural marriage?
I believe that the idea was to have an apostolic guidance for the church as a whole but persecution, deaths, unauthorized doctrinal changes, undue pagan influences, power grabs, a view that the Second Coming was imminent, and the gradual loss of divine revelation made the church fundamentally changed and eventually bereft of authority. Perhaps some city bishops had some legitimate authority for a while, but the connection that e.g. the Bishop of Rome would have any actual special sway over the church as a whole is highly suspect, as was especially the consolidation under Constantine. The later "sins" of the Catholic church are some evidence, but not the primary evidence. I agree that to the extent historical matters should be considered in coming to spiritual conclusions, that history both theological and otherwise are fair game for examination - though my comment was more about the theological history of the Catholics than their more political/historical acts.
Getting a little off topic I guess, but in terms of Book of Mormon history, the position has long been (and is mildly supported in-text) that the people there were simply one of many living side by side. Archeologically speaking, we simply do not have anywhere close to a comprehensive survey of all peoples who lived in Mesoamerica. Among the Maya, for example, we've only excavated about 1% of the sites and of those sites only 10% of what's there, approximately. The Book of Abraham I feel was used as a starting point for inspiration on Abrahamic writings rather than a true transliteration, though admittedly there are decent reasons to think otherwise I certainly wouldn't begrudge others for believing. A few edits to a single section don't really change anything about LDS in-text our out-of-text teachings on the Trinity. Many Old Testament prophets were polygamists, so clearly it's compatible with Christianity, yes? It's I believe a plausible or even likely reading of the history that Joseph Smith was forced into accepting plural marriage (obviously it brought nothing but trouble) as part of the "restoration of all things", i.e. re-treading parts of earlier pre-Christ Christianity as part of the doctrinal point that the gospel (Christianity broadly from Adam to now) is now in its ultimate and most complete form (though some allowance is made for new knowledge, teachings, and practices to be either restored or newly given). At least under this model of Christian history, there's far less confusion over having to litigate and reexamine each and every piece of modern practice and belief - Protestant, Catholic, or otherwise - for accuracy. Study is helpful for understanding true religious principles, and might be a rewarding activity, but it is not the cornerstone of doctrine, nor is there a need for major political activism to influence church leaders at the church-wide level.
Returning back a little bit to the original point, it's amazing to me that anyone would read the Epistles of Paul and come to any conclusion other than that there were serious doctrinal misunderstandings by new converts everywhere, on top of the rampant persecution, on top of the behavior problems, on top of the cultural difficulties popping up as many new members tried to blend their previous beliefs into the new religion. The vibe is that there's definitely a bit of a mess out there, yeah? Paul was obviously, I think everyone agrees, capable of correcting misunderstandings and offering some excellent guidance, but there were only so many people like Paul, and fewer by the year. And there's little evidence as far as I'm concerned that anyone satisfactorily took his place, much less the Bishop of Rome, though a few bishops tried to a limited extent.
I appreciate the summary. Could you clarify what you mean by authority in this context? You seem to be using it in a particularly Mormon way.
It likely goes without saying, but the Protestant take is that the Bible is the inspired and authoritative guide to the apostolic faith and that all subsequent teachers are to be judged by that standard; the canon is closed.
Obviously, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox have their takes on the apostolic succession, but I don’t think their notion of authority is the same as yours, and it would be interesting to see it explained from your side.
Yeah, so to illustrate I’ll work backwards a bit. In LDS theology ant least, authority is given directly from God and is never assumed, nor transferred implicitly. For us, a modern council of 12 apostles is where the overall legitimacy resides, as it did anciently, given by various figures literally appearing and laying on hands in the earlier days of the church - a specific prophet in some cases for specific authority (Moses and John the Baptist, for example). Peter James and John jointly appeared to ordain the first set of apostles and prophet to those roles, including Joseph Smith. Succession is done by unanimous choice of the apostles to whom authority reverts, though historically it’s always been the most senior in time served selected as the next prophet.
We would distinguish that all authority is not equal - although the “priesthood” is the power to act in God’s name more generally, authorizing an eternal marriage is different than authorizing say a baptism. Only the 12 hold every “key”, in our vocabulary, to do every relevant action. Authority is also nearly synonymous with the actual right to receive specific guidance for your position, such as leading the church, and at the top that encompasses doctrinal revelation. Authority more generally is theologically important for many reasons, but most fundamentally, for one to give force and validity to promises made on behalf of God it seems like you’d obviously need His permission, as He ultimately is the one with the power to guarantee His part of the deal - marriage, baptism, communion, etc. I would view it as a great error to assume humans are allowed to do it all by themselves with their own permission (Hebrews 5:4).
This applies on a mundane level too. For example the various sacraments (we would call them ordinances) such as baptism or communion are only able to be performed because of an explicit line of delegation - all again through selection (we have a lay clergy and it’s impossible to seek priesthood as a career) and laying on of hands for specific permission and again, authority. But all of it has a source, both in acting capacity (church governance, who is above you in the leadership tree, which is strictly hierarchical, think military in the sense everyone has a commanding officer, if you will) and in ordination (I can trace my personal general priesthood ordination, who laid hands on who, back through the same) which is an important distinction. In other words, delegation can occur, but it still has an ultimate source. To illustrate, although I’ve been granted the authority (capability we could say) to baptize generally, I’d still need the permission of the relevant authority to do so (in the case of a non-convert baptism, the local bishop, himself delegated that down through the chain).
Jumping back in time, eg Stephen and the others are set apart via laying on of hands (Acts 6:5-6) and it is mentioned as a way of commissioning (Acts 13:2-3, 1 Tim 4:14 ), though other passages aren’t as explicit. We all know Jesus gave Peter the sealing power. He also specifically ordained the 12 in the first place, giving them power (Mark 3:14-15). Jesus talks about authority coming from him on a few occasions, and granting power (eg Luke 10:19). The scriptures are great, my church did actually come from a Sola Scriptura initial background, but in general the intention is for them to be used alongside current divine guidance (eg 2 Tim 3:16-17). Throughout a number of other references, there is a link drawn between having authority and also specifically doctrinal teaching as well (Titus 2:15, 1 Tim 1:4, 2 Tim 2:2, 2 Peter 1:20, etc), though of course settling debates between those with authority has very few examples (we only really see the Jerusalem meetup in detail). And self evidently, the Bible is not self explanatory enough for everyone to arrive at the same position, which is actually one opinion we might share with the Catholics, though the approach varies significantly, there are still some commonalities in the details even.
So all of this basically hinges on the argument that Joseph Smith was a legitimate prophet, and took the line of succession with him entirely, correct?
Well of course LDS truth claims as a whole depend on Joseph Smith but the core idea of authority to me seems Biblical and pretty innate. At least in the respect that the chain of custody for priesthood is important, and that having some sort of claim to divine permission to conduct rites also shouldn’t be glossed over.
Except we strongly disagree on what Biblical actually means.
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