Also, @ShawnTMurphy, there is a serious problem with an argument you keep repeating. You frequently point to the existence of thousands of Christian denominations, while overlooking the fact that the overwhelming majority of them originated within one particular branch of Christianity. And despite their many differences, these denominations share a foundational principle.
So the problem with your argument is straightforward: the sheer number of Christian denominations today does not establish either of the following:
That this degree of fragmentation has always existed throughout Christian history.
That such fragmentation is intrinsically inevitable and embedded in the very nature of Christianity from the very beginning, rather than a predictable consequence of the very foundational principle these denominations share.
You cannot simply point to the existence of widespread division and assume that it has always characterized Christianity to the same extent of today, or that it is an unavoidable feature of Christianity itself, without first examining where those divisions originated and what principle may have given rise to them.
For example here you write
Why would reincarnation be necessary to explain the existence of thousands of Christian denominations, that very often have mutually incompatible and contradictory beliefs, if their existence can be traced back to the adoption of a very specific foundational principle that made those divisions and multiplications of mutually contradictory denominations basically impossible to avoid?
Your argument would be at least conceivable (which doesn’t mean correct, at all) if you could demonstrate that the existence of thousands of mutually contradictory denominations is an inherent characteristic of Christianity itself. *
It becomes even less convincing, however, if we can establish that fragmentation on anything approaching this scale arose only after the emergence of one particular branch of Christianity, and that it was, from the very beginning, an almost inevitable consequence of the distinctive foundational principle that branch adopted.
Because in that case, the proliferation of denominations would have a perfectly straightforward explanation: a man introduced a revolutionary principle that was fundamentally foreign to the Christianity (western and eastern alike) that preceded him. That principle gained extraordinary traction, ultimately producing the unintended consequence (I’m quite sure neither he nor his fellows ever intended to produce the amount of division and fragmentation that emerged afterwards) of turning Christianity into something resembling the Tower of Babel, with countless competing voices, each claiming to proclaim the same divine truth.
*That would be quite a difficult case to make, especially in light of Jesus’ prayer that all Christians might be one, just as He and the Father are one.
Take your time, Shawn. I’d much rather you give me the strongest possible version of your argument than rush out a lackluster comeback. Steelman your position properly before responding. It’ll make the whole thing far more exciting.
So far, all you’ve done is make extraordinary claims without managing to provide even a less-than-modest amount of evidence to back them up. I’m sure you can do much better than that. I believe in you. Please don’t disappoint me again. Because i didn’t here no bell, Shawn.
But I think your objection overlooks a fundamental distinction: the difference between a schism caused by contingent historical circumstances and schisms that arise from the very principles on which a religious community is founded.
I’ve never argued that apostolic succession makes individual bishops infallible or renders schism impossible, the Arian controversy alone disproves any such notion. Apostolic succession is part of something broader: the preservation of apostolic teaching, sacramental continuity, episcopal communion, and an ecclesiastical authority capable of making binding doctrinal judgments.
The question is whether this structure is intrinsically incapable of preserving unity, and the history of the Church shows exactly the opposite.
During the first millennium, East and West maintained ecclesiastical communion despite enormous linguistic, cultural, political, and liturgical differences. There were disputes and temporary ruptures, but the fundamental unity of the West and the East endured for a millenium.
This is not merely a Catholic interpretation. The Chieti document of 2016, produced jointly by Catholic and Orthodox theologians, explicitly acknowledges in §20 that the unity of East and West was maintained through their common apostolic faith, episcopal succession, synodality, and primacy.
Now, if these structures were inherently incapable of maintaining unity, how do you explain the fact that they actually maintained it for such a long time?
And the circumstances of the eventual separation are particularly revealing.
In their joint declaration of 1965, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras acknowledged that the excommunications of 1054 were directed against particular individuals, not the Churches themselves, and that their eventual consequences went considerably further than their authors had intended.
Think about what that means: the events conventionally regarded as the beginning of a millennium-long schism were not even intended to produce that definitive rupture.
Furthermore, the Alexandria document of 2023, again jointly produced by Catholic and Orthodox theologians, explicitly recognizes in §1.1 the influence of cultural and political circumstances on the growing estrangement between East and West.
In short, what we have is a rupture that developed under specific historical conditions.
A historically contingent failure to preserve unity is not evidence of an intrinsic impossibility of maintaining it.
And there is another important consideration.
I can quite easily imagine the Catholic and Orthodox Churches recovering full communion in the future. Perhaps not tomorrow, but why not in the coming decades?
There are still some theological disagreements, but we share an extraordinary apostolic, ecclesiastical, and sacramental inheritance. Catholics and Orthodox aren’t attempting to invent an entirely new foundation for unity: we are trying to recover a communion that actually existed.
And this isn’t merely wishful thinking on my part, either.
These declarations certainly don’t mean that reunion is imminent, but they demonstrate that the restoration of communion is a real objective pursued by the leaders of both Churches, not some ecclesiological impossibility.
Now compare this situation with the Protestant Reformation.
Here, I would argue, we encounter a fundamentally different problem.
The foundational Protestant principle of sola Scriptura contains, as I have argued multiple times, an intrinsic tendency toward fragmentation, because it allows ecclesiastical judgments to be rejected whenever they are considered inconsistent with one’s interpretation of Scripture.
I’m perfectly aware that classical Protestantism possesses confessions, synods, pastors, and theological authorities. I’m not claiming that every Protestant simply invents his own Christianity, but none of these authorities possesses a doctrinal jurisdiction that all Protestants are bound to recognize as definitive when their interpretations of Scripture conflict.
Suppose two communities sincerely believe that Scripture teaches incompatible doctrines.
Both appeal to the same Bible. Both consider their interpretations faithful to apostolic Christianity. Neither recognizes a common ecclesiastical authority capable of definitively settling the dispute.
What happens?
Separation becomes a perfectly intelligible outcome and to some extent inevitable. Indeed, if one community believes that the other has abandoned biblical truth, separation may even appear to be a religious obligation.
And here is the crucial point: the very principle used to justify the original separation from the Catholic Church remains available to justify every subsequent separation.
A Lutheran can appeal to Scripture against Rome.
A Reformed Christian can appeal to Scripture against Lutheran teaching.
Another group can appeal to Scripture against the Reformed tradition.And the process can continue indefinitely.
Each new community can invoke exactly the same principle to justify rejecting the ecclesiastical authority of the community from which it separates.
This isn’t merely a theoretical possibility, the Reformers themselves disagreed almost immediately over fundamental questions. Luther and Zwingli could not agree concerning the Eucharist, while the Anabaptists rejected infant baptism. These were competing interpretations of Scripture, without a commonly recognized authority capable of resolving their disagreements definitively.
Naturally, political and social circumstances also influenced Protestant divisions, it would demented to deny them, but those circumstances don’t explain away the underlying structural problem.
The difference is that the ancient apostolic Churches were divided after a millenium despite possessing ecclesiastical principles requiring them to remain in communion.
Under sola Scriptura, however, the rejection of an existing ecclesiastical communion can itself be justified by appealing to the foundational principle.
In the first case, schism violates the principle of communion, in the second, the same principle that justified the first separation can repeatedly justify further separations.
That is why I regard the tendency toward fragmentation as intrinsic to sola Scriptura. It doesn’t mean that every Protestant disagreement must produce a schism, it means that the principle contains no universally binding mechanism capable of resolving serious interpretive disagreements, preventing them from becoming ecclesiastical divisions.
And this also explains why I’m considerably more optimistic about a future Catholic-Orthodox reunion than about the definitive healing of the divisions introduced by the Reformation.
With the Orthodox, we are dealing with a wounded communion whose original ecclesiastical foundations have substantially survived.
With Protestantism, even if numerous denominations reunited tomorrow, the principle that permits each community to reject another’s doctrinal judgments would remain intact. The same mechanism could produce new divisions.
Frankly, given how deeply this revolutionary principle has reshaped Western Christianity, I struggle to imagine how the damage done back there could be undone without extraordinary divine intervention. It is a principle so deeply divisive and disruptive (this isn’t an indictment against individual Protestants at all, many of them are very devout Christians) in its very nature that it’s really hard to imagine a solution without something properly extraordinaryand miraculous making it actually possible.
The problem concerns the ecclesiological consequences of the principle itself, not necessarily the intentions of those who embrace it. Those intentions are usually pure, it’s the principle itself that is fundamentally broken.
And this brings me back to your suggestion that the Nicene Creed might provide a sufficient foundation for Christian unity.
I agree that Nicene orthodoxy is fundamental. But how did the Nicene Creed acquire its authority?
It certainly wasn’t because Christians independently examined Scripture and spontaneously agreed on its meaning.
On the contrary, Christians appealing to the same biblical texts reached profoundlyincompatible conclusions concerning Christ’s divinity. At various stages, defenders of Nicene orthodoxy were even in a minority.
The Church addressed the controversy through its ecclesiastical authority, particularly the ecumenical councils. It employed the non-biblical term homoousios precisely because repeating biblical language was insufficient to exclude interpretations incompatible with the apostolic faith.
The Creed is therefore an authoritative expression of the Church’s faith, not a substitute for the authority through which that faith was identified and defended. Neither it was a foregone conclusion that could have easily been established with Scripture alone, which is why there was the need to introduce the non-biblical homoousios .
And what happens when controversies arise that the Creed does not explicitly settle? Who decides, and why should Christians who disagree consider that judgment binding? More importantly, how can the Nicene Creed be regarded as the bedrock of Christian unity when a foundational tenet of Protestantism is precisely the denial of the infallibility of post-apostolic ecumenical councils? And what about other central doctrines, such as the Eucharist? This is hardly a minor disagreement. For Catholics and Orthodox, the Eucharist is Christ Himself, truly present in His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. And the testimony of the Church Fathers is overwhelmingly realist on this point, leaving little doubt about how the earliest Christians understood the Eucharist.
Yet the Eucharist is just one example of the profound doctrinal ruptures introduced by the Reformation. I could mention many other doctrines; the Eucharist is “only” the most important of them, precisely because it is the Blessed Sacrament. In substantial parts of Protestantism, what emerged was not merely a different interpretation of a secondary doctrine, but a fundamentally different understanding of the apostolic faith. And these ruptures were made possible by the very foundational principle I have been discussing.
Going back to Nicaea, it shouldn’t be considered the moment where a visible institutional was built: as I mentioned multiple times, Clement’s intervention in Corinth, Irenaeus’ appeal to apostolic succession, and Origen’s insistence on the ecclesiastical tradition transmitted through succession already testify to a Christianity in which doctrinal authority was not reduced to the interpretations of independent communities, and even Adolf von Harnack, a major Protestant historian, recognized the existence of a historically identifiable Catholic Church possessing authoritative doctrinal standards and ecclesiastical organization long before Nicaea.
Biblically, Christ prayed that his disciples might be one (John 17:21). Paul speaks of one faith, one body, and the pastoral ministry established to prevent Christians from being carried away by conflicting doctrines (Ephesians 4:4–14). He explicitly condemns divisions within the Church (1 Corinthians 1:10–13).
So what concrete means did Christ establish to preserve that unity?
My answer is the apostolic Church, with its received faith, episcopal succession, sacramental life, and living teaching authority. I don’t see any other convincing answer. If there is one, I’d genuinely like someone to point it out.
Ultimately, my point is that citing historical instances in which Christians violated the obligations of ecclesiastical communion does not refute the existence or legitimacy of the Church’s authority, nor does it undermine the fundamental unity that existed between East and West for much of the first millennium.
The distinction remains fundamental: the schism between the apostolic Churches is a historical wound that their own ecclesiastical principles call them to heal. The divisions generated under sola Scriptura, by contrast, can be continually reproduced and justified through the very principle that made the original separation possible.
One is a rupture contrary to the foundations of ecclesiastical communion and very much dependent on historic contingencies, as I have shown at the beginning of this post. The other is a recurring possibility built into the foundational understanding of doctrinal authority itself. In other words, what starts as possibility built into that foundational principle becomes practically unavoidable when different individuals reach different conclusions on central doctrines of the faith and on very important moral matters.
And like I said, the genie is out of the bottle, God could fix this situation but i really think He is the only one who could.
You are listing the reasons why Jesus told His disciples:
I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. John 16:12
And the reasons why the restoration of all things is hated by Chirstains. They would much rather buy the idea that Jesu died for all our sins - past, present and future - and all I have to do is believe in Him and I will have eternal life. It sells itself.
The restoration of all things says that all of us sided with Lucifer against the King of Heaven and were cast out. 1/3 of the heavenly host has suffered an eternity in Hell and the King of Heaven incarnated as human to atone for this Sin - the sin against Him that 1/3 of Heaven committed. It was His victory over Death (Satan) that has allowed the fallen to return to Heaven after the long, long exile. But, God wants us back the way He created us - perfect. (Matt 5:48)
Yes, Jesus atoned the greatest Sin ever committed and yes, we need to follow Him to return to Heaven, but we also need to repay our debts to the last farthing.
I understand that most people would rather believe the former and not the latter. It takes logic, reason and humility to accept the restoration of all things. The Romans did a great job of erasing the evidence for the restoration of all things, because the realm is easier to control through the former.
“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. ”
Romans 6.v8-12
What’s missing is the biblical grounding for any of those claims. Do you believe that Jesus rose up from the dead and do you also approve Scriptures saying He will resurrect your body, not someone else’s body ?
“But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precedethose who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. ”
Our individual origin of each of Us is our new brain and it then begins to see, perceive, and with senses it begins to make conclusions(REASON). Of course I’m writing this of my own brain and existence of breathing air for over 73 years. I see the word nature used here and now I know it’s not nature it’s creation since I now know of Our Father the creator of this planet and all living creatures(CREATED DNA). The word nature becomes commonly used and We don’t stop using it when We began to believe of a Creator. This is why Jesus said “Father forgive them for they know not what They do”. We are all influenced by another person and learn or behave as such. This is also the attempt of renewing the brain when We are born again. We should then began to see and change the effect of others on each of Us individually. I know this sounds simple and I know it doesn’t come easy to change.
Thank you for the reply. Yes, I believe that Jesus rose up from the realm of the Dead, after having descended to defeat Satan, and break the chains of those imprisoned.
And yes, Jesus has resurrected my spiritual body from Hell. And I will one day return to Heaven in my spiritual body as God originally created it, once I have regained my lost virtues. (Matt 5:48)
You say I am missing the biblical grounding from my claims. They are not my claims, but since the one who made these claims was declared a heretic we all are suffering from survival bias. We do not have the dissenting opinions to all the councils and the texts that were declared anathema. So, this is why I only quote Jesus and mostly through John, because:
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63
Jesus was always speaking in spiritual terms, and that is why He was not understood, like Him being the King of Heaven and people thinking He wanted to be an earthly ruler. Or the Catholics thinking that Jesus wants us to eat His human flesh.
If you do not think in spiritual terms, it is hard to conceive the wisdom of the restoration of all things.
I have not invented it. It existed broadly before Christianity was neutered and declared the state religion. The adoption of the trinity allowed all pagan Romans freedom to accept the religion, while maintaining their belief in their three pagan gods. $
I simply follow what Jesus taught in the sermon on the mount.
Fine answer and it gave me some time to think about those things.
I’ll give you my premise for what makes or breaks unity in the church. The Scriptures are divinely inspired to teach and correct so we need to see if there were clear principles the Apostles deposited for the Church. Here are a few of those principles.
“Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease. For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.”
2 Peter 1.v15-16
“For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
Acts 15.v28-29
“Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all.”
Acts 4.v32-33
I see unity in morals, in spirit, in vision and in teachings. The unity inside the church neither rested upon a new type of Pharisaism nor it condones non-scriptural innovation allowing unrighteousness and immorality.
From there I posit that a council cannot enforce unity, and succession cannot change a heart of stone into a heart of flesh. This unity is made possible by the governance of Christ who is the head of the Church and by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, not by visible institutions enforcing unity through excommunication.
It follows that the expression of the Christian faith belongs to every gathering, and not even Protestantism claims to be removed from the profession of one holy catholic Church. What is contested is the idea that catholic means the Roman church specifically. I’m not saying that disunity is a necessity, I’m saying the body of Christ isn’t a building or a denomination.
Now the question that I have for you is, do you believe disunity is unavoidable where Jesus Himself said not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord’ will be saved but the one who does His will.
“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.’”
John 14.v23-24
What do you make of those cases where we have to reject Jesus’ teachings to maintain unity? I mentioned the Arian dispute because it grew out of the Scriptural grounding, it took over the institutions despite the Apostolic succession and it was corrected by Athanasius on the ground of the Scriptures while being in the minority.
If you did you would not be obsessed with Heaven and reincarnation. I agree that the Sermon on the mount is a good basis for living, but it also underpins the notion of selflessness. Any notion of the after life is self seeking.
Furthermore, your view of justice and personal restoration rides roughshod over the Passion where Christ died for ever sin not just the spiritual ones.
But I think your objection overlooks a fundamental distinction: the difference between a schism caused by contingent historical circumstances and schisms that arise from the very principles on which a religious community is founded.
I’ve never argued that apostolic succession makes individual bishops infallible or renders schism impossible, the Arian controversy alone disproves any such notion. Apostolic succession is part of something broader: the preservation of apostolic teaching, sacramental continuity, episcopal communion, and an ecclesiastical authority capable of making binding doctrinal judgments.
The question is whether this structure is intrinsically incapable of preserving unity, and the history of the Church shows exactly the opposite.
During the first millennium, East and West maintained ecclesiastical communion despite enormous linguistic, cultural, political, and liturgical differences. There were disputes and temporary ruptures, but the fundamental unity of the West and the East endured for a millenium.
This is not merely a Catholic interpretation. The Chieti document of 2016, produced jointly by Catholic and Orthodox theologians, explicitly acknowledges in §20 that the unity of East and West was maintained through their common apostolic faith, episcopal succession, synodality, and primacy.
Now, if these structures were inherently incapable of maintaining unity, how do you explain the fact that they actually maintained it for such a long time?
And the circumstances of the eventual separation are particularly revealing.
In their joint declaration of 1965, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras acknowledged that the excommunications of 1054 were directed against particular individuals, not the Churches themselves, and that their eventual consequences went considerably further than their authors had intended.
Think about what that means: the events conventionally regarded as the beginning of a millennium-long schism were not even intended to produce that definitive rupture.
Furthermore, the Alexandria document of 2023, again jointly produced by Catholic and Orthodox theologians, explicitly recognizes in §1.1 the influence of cultural and political circumstances on the growing estrangement between East and West.
In short, what we have is a rupture that developed under specific historical conditions.
A historically contingent failure to preserve unity is not evidence of an intrinsic impossibility of maintaining it.
And there is another important consideration.
I can quite easily imagine the Catholic and Orthodox Churches recovering full communion in the future. Perhaps not tomorrow, but why not in the coming decades?
There are still some theological disagreements, but we share an extraordinary apostolic, ecclesiastical, and sacramental inheritance. Catholics and Orthodox aren’t attempting to invent an entirely new foundation for unity: we are trying to recover a communion that actually existed.
And this isn’t merely wishful thinking on my part, either.
These declarations certainly don’t mean that reunion is imminent, but they demonstrate that the restoration of communion is a real objective pursued by the leaders of both Churches, not some ecclesiological impossibility.
Now compare this situation with the Protestant Reformation.
Here, I would argue, we encounter a fundamentally different problem.
The foundational Protestant principle of sola Scriptura contains, as I have argued multiple times, an intrinsic tendency toward fragmentation, because it allows ecclesiastical judgments to be rejected whenever they are considered inconsistent with one’s interpretation of Scripture.
I’m perfectly aware that classical Protestantism possesses confessions, synods, pastors, and theological authorities. I’m not claiming that every Protestant simply invents his own Christianity, but none of these authorities possesses a doctrinal jurisdiction that all Protestants are bound to recognize as definitive when their interpretations of Scripture conflict.
Suppose two communities sincerely believe that Scripture teaches incompatible doctrines.
Both appeal to the same Bible. Both consider their interpretations faithful to apostolic Christianity. Neither recognizes a common ecclesiastical authority capable of definitively settling the dispute.
What happens?
Separation becomes a perfectly intelligible outcome and to some extent inevitable. Indeed, if one community believes that the other has abandoned biblical truth, separation may even appear to be a religious obligation.
And here is the crucial point: the very principle used to justify the original separation from the Catholic Church remains available to justify every subsequent separation.
A Lutheran can appeal to Scripture against Rome.
A Reformed Christian can appeal to Scripture against Lutheran teaching.
Another group can appeal to Scripture against the Reformed tradition.And the process can continue indefinitely.
Each new community can invoke exactly the same principle to justify rejecting the ecclesiastical authority of the community from which it separates.
This isn’t merely a theoretical possibility, the Reformers themselves disagreed almost immediately over fundamental questions. Luther and Zwingli could not agree concerning the Eucharist, while the Anabaptists rejected infant baptism. These were competing interpretations of Scripture, without a commonly recognized authority capable of resolving their disagreements definitively.
Naturally, political and social circumstances also influenced Protestant divisions, it would demented to deny them, but those circumstances don’t explain away the underlying structural problem.
The difference is that the ancient apostolic Churches were divided after a millenium despite possessing ecclesiastical principles requiring them to remain in communion.
Under sola Scriptura, however, the rejection of an existing ecclesiastical communion can itself be justified by appealing to the foundational principle.
In the first case, schism violates the principle of communion, in the second, the same principle that justified the first separation can repeatedly justify further separations.
That is why I regard the tendency toward fragmentation as intrinsic to sola Scriptura. It doesn’t mean that every Protestant disagreement must produce a schism, it means that the principle contains no universally binding mechanism capable of resolving serious interpretive disagreements, preventing them from becoming ecclesiastical divisions.
And this also explains why I’m considerably more optimistic about a future Catholic-Orthodox reunion than about the definitive healing of the divisions introduced by the Reformation.
With the Orthodox, we are dealing with a wounded communion whose original ecclesiastical foundations have substantially survived.
With Protestantism, even if numerous denominations reunited tomorrow, the principle that permits each community to reject another’s doctrinal judgments would remain intact. The same mechanism could produce new divisions.
Frankly, given how deeply this revolutionary principle has reshaped Western Christianity, I struggle to imagine how the damage done back there could be undone without extraordinary divine intervention. It is a principle so deeply divisive and disruptive (this isn’t an indictment against individual Protestants at all, many of them are very devout Christians) in its very nature that it’s really hard to imagine a solution without something properly extraordinaryand miraculous making it actually possible.
The problem concerns the ecclesiological consequences of the principle itself, not necessarily the intentions of those who embrace it. Those intentions are usually pure, it’s the principle itself that is fundamentally broken.
And this brings me back to your suggestion that the Nicene Creed might provide a sufficient foundation for Christian unity.
I agree that Nicene orthodoxy is fundamental. But how did the Nicene Creed acquire its authority?
It certainly wasn’t because Christians independently examined Scripture and spontaneously agreed on its meaning.
On the contrary, Christians appealing to the same biblical texts reached profoundlyincompatible conclusions concerning Christ’s divinity. At various stages, defenders of Nicene orthodoxy were even in a minority.
The Church addressed the controversy through its ecclesiastical authority, particularly the ecumenical councils. It employed the non-biblical term homoousios precisely because repeating biblical language was insufficient to exclude interpretations incompatible with the apostolic faith.
The Creed is therefore an authoritative expression of the Church’s faith, not a substitute for the authority through which that faith was identified and defended. Neither it was a foregone conclusion that could have easily been established with Scripture alone, which is why there was the need to introduce the non-biblical homoousios .
And what happens when controversies arise that the Creed does not explicitly settle? Who decides, and why should Christians who disagree consider that judgment binding? More importantly, how can the Nicene Creed be regarded as the bedrock of Christian unity when a foundational tenet of Protestantism is precisely the denial of the infallibility of post-apostolic ecumenical councils? And what about other central doctrines, such as the Eucharist? This is hardly a minor disagreement. For Catholics and Orthodox, the Eucharist is Christ Himself, truly present in His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. And the testimony of the Church Fathers is overwhelmingly realist on this point, leaving little doubt about how the earliest Christians understood the Eucharist.
Yet the Eucharist is just one example of the profound doctrinal ruptures introduced by the Reformation. I could mention many other doctrines; the Eucharist is “only” the most important of them, precisely because it is the Blessed Sacrament. In substantial parts of Protestantism, what emerged was not merely a different interpretation of a secondary doctrine, but a fundamentally different understanding of the apostolic faith. And these ruptures were made possible by the very foundational principle I have been discussing.
Going back to Nicaea, it shouldn’t be considered the moment where a visible institutional was built: as I mentioned multiple times, Clement’s intervention in Corinth, Irenaeus’ appeal to apostolic succession, and Origen’s insistence on the ecclesiastical tradition transmitted through succession already testify to a Christianity in which doctrinal authority was not reduced to the interpretations of independent communities, and even Adolf von Harnack, a major Protestant historian, recognized the existence of a historically identifiable Catholic Church possessing authoritative doctrinal standards and ecclesiastical organization long before Nicaea.
Biblically, Christ prayed that his disciples might be one (John 17:21). Paul speaks of one faith, one body, and the pastoral ministry established to prevent Christians from being carried away by conflicting doctrines (Ephesians 4:4–14). He explicitly condemns divisions within the Church (1 Corinthians 1:10–13).
So what concrete means did Christ establish to preserve that unity?
My answer is the apostolic Church, with its received faith, episcopal succession, sacramental life, and living teaching authority. I don’t see any other convincing answer. If there is one, I’d genuinely like someone to point it out.
Ultimately, my point is that citing historical instances in which Christians violated the obligations of ecclesiastical communion does not refute the existence or legitimacy of the Church’s authority, nor does it undermine the fundamental unity that existed between East and West for much of the first millennium.
The distinction remains fundamental: the schism between the apostolic Churches is a historical wound that their own ecclesiastical principles call them to heal. The divisions generated under sola Scriptura, by contrast, can be continually reproduced and justified through the very principle that made the original separation possible.
One is a rupture contrary to the foundations of ecclesiastical communion and very much dependent on historic contingencies, as I have shown at the beginning of this post. The other is a recurring possibility built into the foundational understanding of doctrinal authority itself. In other words, what starts as possibility built into that foundational principle becomes practically unavoidable when different individuals reach different conclusions on central doctrines of the faith and on very important moral matters.
And like I said, the genie is out of the bottle, God could fix this situation but i really think He is the only one who could.
Of course no council can turn a heart of stone into a heart of flesh. Only God’s grace can do that. And I certainly don’t believe Christians should ever reject Christ’s teachings merely to preserve an appearance of institutional unity.
But I think you’re drawing a conclusion that doesn’t follow from those premises.
The fact that Christian unity must be spiritual does not mean it cannot also be visible and ecclesiastical. Nor does the fact that Christ governs His Church through the Holy Spirit mean that He cannot exercise that governance through an authority He Himself established.
In fact, I think the very passages you quote point toward a rather different conclusion.
Take Acts 15, for example.
You quote the council’s decision not to impose unnecessary burdens upon Gentile Christians. But consider what actually happens in that chapter.
A serious controversy arises concerning whether Gentile converts must be circumcised and observe the Mosaic Law.
What do Paul and Barnabas do?
They don’t simply tell the various Christian communities to consult Scripture and reach their own conclusions, they bring the matter before the apostles and elders in Jerusalem.
The apostles and elders discuss the question, Peter and James intervene, and a decision is reached and communicated to the Churches.
And notice how that decision is presented: it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to them.
That is precisely the combination of divine guidance and visible ecclesiastical authority that I have been defending.
The words about imposing no greater burden concern the specific controversy over the obligations of Gentile converts. They are not a declaration that the Church lacks authority to settle other questions of faith.
And Acts 16:4 makes the implications even clearer: Paul and his companions deliver the decisions of the apostles and elders in Jerusalem to the Churches for observance.
If this isn’t an example of an ecclesiastical council exercising binding authority under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I’m genuinely curious what you think it is.
If you want to make the argument that only the apostles possessed the protection and guidance from the Holy Spirit I think it requires considerable evidence, because the New Testaments doesn’t suggest anything of the sort, nor does the faith of the first Christian communities.
Your quotation from Acts 4 is equally important for my position.
The early Christians were united in heart and soul. Absolutely. But they were also united under the teaching and authority of the apostles. Acts 2:42 explicitly tells us that they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching. They didn’t question them, putting what made sense to them and their own interpretation above the apostolic teaching.
Why should we treat these two dimensions of unity as mutually exclusive?
As for 2 Peter 1:15–16, I completely agree that the apostolic teaching had to remain accessible after the apostles’ deaths. But the passage doesn’t establish that the Church would subsequently possess no living teaching authority.
Indeed, the same letter warns that some people distort the Scriptures (2 Peter 3:16). And Paul commands Christians to preserve the traditions they received both orally and in writing (2 Thessalonians 2:15).
How do you determine who are the people who distort the Scriptures? Clearly Scripture alone isn’t enough otherwise there wouldn’t be thousands of different denominations all accusing each other of distorting the meaning of Scripture and using the same passages to support wildly different doctrines.
So the issue isn’t whether Scripture is divinely inspired. Of course it is.
The issue is whether Christ intended the preservation and authoritative interpretation of the apostolic faith to depend exclusively on competing interpretations of Scripture, without any living ecclesiastical authority capable of resolving doctrinal disputes.
I don’t see that principle established in the passages you’ve quoted.
I also find your objection to excommunication difficult to reconcile with the New Testament itself.
In Matthew 18:15–17, Jesus explicitly instructs believers to bring unresolved disputes before the Church and describes the consequences of refusing to listen to it.
In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul goes so far as to command the exclusion of a member guilty of serious immorality.
So ecclesiastical discipline, including exclusion from communion, is not some medieval invention or a new form of Pharisaism. It is already present in apostolic Christianity.
Naturally, such authority can be abused, and abuses deserve condemnation. But the abuse of an authority does not establish that the authority itself is illegitimate.
And I agree that catholic means universal. The question of Rome’s particular role within the universal Church is a further ecclesiological question, one that requires historical and theological arguments (and it can be shown historically that Rome had much more of a mere primacy of honor during the first millenium, with the eastern fathers and Churches behaving accordingly). I have never suggested that the mere meaning of the word catholic proves the papacy.
But neither does the universality of the Church imply that every Christian gathering possesses an independent right to determine apostolic doctrine.
The early Church consisted of many local Churches, certainly. But those Churches understood themselves as belonging to one apostolic communion, not as doctrinally autonomous communities.
Now, regarding your question about Christians who profess Christ without doing His will, I don’t see why their existence would invalidate the authority Christ established.
The existence of unfaithful Christians, including unfaithful bishops, is something the New Testament itself anticipates. I’ve never claimed that ecclesiastical office makes anyone personally incapable of PERSONAL error or sin.
Nor do I believe that genuine unity can be obtained by sacrificing the truth. That would be a contradiction in terms.
But here we arrive at the question I keep raising: when Christians disagree about what fidelity to Christ actually requires, who has the authority to settle the matter?
And this brings me to Athanasius, because I think your interpretation of his role is historically mistaken and it can be shown. You are interpreting his ideas through lens and principles that he never adopted
Athanasius did not single-handedly correct the Arian controversy through his own interpretation of Scripture.
The Council of Nicaea had already condemned Arius and formulated its doctrinal judgment in 325, when Athanasius was still a deacon. He became bishop of Alexandria only in 328.
What Athanasius subsequently did, with extraordinary courage, was defend the Nicene faith against those who attempted to undermine or overturn it, often with imperial support.
And he certainly did NOT appeal exclusively to Scripture while disregarding ecclesiastical authority.
Athanasius explicitly defends the authority of the Fathers gathered at Nicaea. He explains why they employed the term homoousios, even though it does not appear in Scripture.
And why was that necessary?
Precisely because the Arians were perfectly capable of quoting Scripture while interpreting it in ways that the Nicene Fathers considered incompatible with the apostolic faith.Now imagine what would have happened if sola Scriptura had been the governing principle back then. If Christians had believed that the Holy Spirit did not protect the doctrinal judgments of ecumenical councils from error, on what grounds could Nicaea’s ruling have been considered definitive and binding? The controversy would have remained a dispute between competing, potentially fallible interpretations of Scripture, with no universally recognized authority capable of settling the matter once and for all.
The council therefore employed terminology that made the intended meaning of Scripture unambiguous. And it did that using a WHOLLY UNSCRIPTURAL term. The interpretation of the Arians could indeed be defended using Scripture alone, they had powerful and compelling arguments, just like we had ours, but nobody could settle the matter just using Scripture, otherwhise it would have been done.
This is extraordinarily important.
If the mere citation of Scripture were sufficient to settle the controversy, why was such a formulation necessary in the first place?
And Athanasius’ appeal to ecclesiastical authority becomes even more explicit in his Letter to the Bishops of Africa, written in the name of ninety bishops of Egypt and Libya.
There he defends the pre-eminence of Nicaea, appeals to the testimony of earlier bishops, and rejects attempts to replace its doctrinal judgment with the conclusions of rival synods.
He even refers approvingly to the actions of Damasus, bishop of Rome, and other Western bishops in defending the Nicene faith.
This is not a portrait of someone who considered his personal interpretation of Scripture sufficient to overturn an ecumenical council.
Quite the contrary.
Athanasius used Scripture to defend the apostolic faith authoritatively expressed at Nicaea. He emphatically did NOT set Scripture against the Church’s received tradition and conciliar judgment.
And his eventual vindication was not simply the triumph of one individual’s biblical interpretation. Nicene orthodoxy was defended and clarified by numerous bishops and theologians and reaffirmed through the Church’s conciliar life, notably at Constantinople in 381.
The fact that many bishops fell into error, or that imperial power was sometimes used against defenders of orthodoxy, proves that individualbishops (which is a very different thing from stating that the Church gathered in an Ecumenical Council can be deserted by the Holy Spirit and actually teach error) and political majorities are not infallible.
But I’ve never claimed otherwise.
It does not prove that the Church possesses no authoritative means of distinguishing apostolic doctrine from heresy.
Indeed, the very appeal to Nicaea made by Athanasius demonstrates the importance of such a means.
And here is something I find particularly difficult about your argument.
You acknowledge that the Arians appealed to Scripture, but you also recognize that their conclusions had to be rejected.
Fine. We agree completely.
But on what authority was their interpretation definitively rejected?
If the answer is simply that Athanasius and the Nicen fathers interpreted Scripture correctly while others interpreted it incorrectly, without explaining how you can determine that they in fact interpreted it correctly, we haven’t solved the problem, this is CIRCULAR REASONING, because just like you argue that they interpreted it correctly an Arian would argue that they didn’t; and an Arian would argue that they didn’t using the same instrument you think establishes that they did: the Scripture. So, again, the Scripture wasn’t sufficient. Not because the truth of Christ’s divinity isn’t present in the Scripture, but because its identification is far from obvious (unless you assume the nicene faith as true from the outset), which is the exact reason why the fathers used a completely unscriptural term to establish the correct interpretation.
The question remains: what makes that interpretation an authoritative expression of the apostolic faith, rather than one theological opinion competing with another?
Nicaea did not merely offer a persuasive interpretation for individual Christians to accept or reject at their discretion. It issued a doctrinal judgment in the name of the Church.
And Athanasius spent much of his life defending precisely that judgment.
So I don’t think the Arian controversy undermines my argument. If anything, it illustrates why the Church needs a living, authoritative means of preserving and identifying the apostolic faith.
We agree that Christ is the head of the Church, that the Holy Spirit guides her, that Scripture is inspired, and that unity without truth and charity is worthless.
Our disagreement is whether Christ’s governance through the Holy Spirit excludes a visible, authoritative Church. I see no reason to think it does.
On the contrary, the New Testament repeatedly shows Christ’s authority being exercised through the apostles, their teaching, their judgments, and the communities entrusted to their care.
And the historical evidence shows that this understanding of ecclesiastical authority continued in the generations that followed.
That is the point I am asking you to address.
Not whether ecclesiastical authority can be abused, whether individual bishops can err, or whether genuine unity requires the work of the Holy Spirit. I agree with you about all three.
The question is whether Christ established a living authority capable of preserving and authoritatively identifying the apostolic faith when Christians sincerely disagree about its meaning.
I believe He did.
And I think Acts 15 and the actual history of Athanasius provide rather strong evidence for that conclusion.
The Holy Spirit cannot lie. The Holy Spirit is God and for God is impossible to lie, as Scripture establishes. Therefore, if there are denominations that, from the very beginning (after accepting the foundational principle named Sola Scriptura), kept splintering and forming rival denominations that teach mutually contradictory things (which is exactly what Scripture condemned when it condemned divisions and factionalism, as well as when Scripture commanded Christian to have the same Faith), where is the evidence that they are being guided by the Holy Spirit?
Again, God is not the author of confusion but of peace and for Him impossible to lie. I think we can all agree on this as Scripture itself teaches it.
I read both of your sentences the same way. They place the unity in the keeping of the faith not in the office. If the office cannot make a man holy, and the unity cannot survive the sacrifice of truth, then the united man is the one keeping what was handed down, and the institution can only recognize him or fail to do so. That is what I mean by unity in morals, in spirit, in vision and in teachings.
Take Apollos,
“Now a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord, though he knew only the baptism of John.”
Acts 18.v24-25
He arrives with no ordination on record and only the baptism of John, yet is described as mighty in the Scriptures, instructed in the way of the Lord, fervent in spirit and teaching accurately.
Aquila and Priscilla heard him and the brethren exhorted the disciples to receive him in verse 27. The letter did not make him one of them explicitly but It recognized what he already carried. What he did was showing from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ and then Paul counted him a fellow worker, not a competing faction in 1 Corinthians 3.v6.
If unity runs through the institutions, Apollos should have stood outside until the institution processed him, while the Holy Spirit shows him inside by the content.
Now a case I have met more than once that goes at the root of the orthodoxy of one’s faith. Take a man who calls himself a Catholic and rejects what Jesus taught about marriage and about hell, receives the sacraments and counts himself in full communion. Meanwhile a non-denominational Christian who keeps those teachings is told he stands outside the one Apostolic communion. If the unity runs through the institutions, the first man is the united one and the second is the divided one. Correct?
Common sense and Scriptural grounding would read it the other way around, and I want to understand your reading. Where do you see the record make the unity run through the institution, rather than through a unity in morals, in spirit, in vision and in teachings?
Thanks, Arvis. I agree with you that genuine unity requires fidelity to Christ, and that holding an ecclesiastical office does not automatically make someone holy. But the huge problem is you’re drawing a conclusion that simply doesn’t follow from those premises.
The question is not whether personal holiness matters more than an institutional title. Of course it does when we’re talking about someone’s relationship with God (a bishop or even a patriarch of Constantinople or a Pope can go to hell, actually Scripture warns that to whom much is given, much will be required ).
The question is whether Christ established a visible Church with the authority to preserve, teach and safeguard the apostolic faith. These are two different issues.
And I don’t think the example of Apollos supports your argument at all.
First, Acts 18 doesn’t tell us whether Apollos had been ordained. The absence of that information proves nothing. Nor does Catholic ecclesiology require everyone who teaches Scripture to be ordained. Priscilla herself is an excellent example of that.
More importantly, you quote verses 24–25 but overlook what happens immediately afterwards(this is the problem with cherry picking).
Verse 26 tells us that Priscilla and Aquila took Apollos aside and explained the way of God to him more accurately. In other words, his sincerity, eloquence, knowledge of Scripture and fervour for Christ did not make his understanding complete or beyond correction.
Then verse 27 tells us that, when he wished to travel to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. Notice that the text attributes this recommendation to the brothers, not specifically to Priscilla and Aquila.
So what we actually see is a gifted preacher being instructed more fully within the apostolic community, then receiving its recognition and support. Nothing suggests that Apollos regarded his own interpretation of Scripture as an independently sufficient authority, or that he established a separate communion because he considered himself faithful to Christ.
Of course the community did not create his faith by recognising it. Nobody is claiming that. But the fact that recognition does not create faith doesn’t mean that ecclesiastical communion and authority are irrelevant.
Your hypothetical about the Catholic who rejects Christ’s teachings and the non-denominational Christian who faithfully observes them rests on a similar misunderstanding.
The Catholic Church doesn’t teach that someone is necessarily united to Christ simply because he calls himself Catholic, receives the sacraments or appears on a parish register. Quite the contrary. Lumen gentium14 explicitly warns that someone may remain within the Church outwardly while failing to persevere in charity. And obstinately rejecting what the Church definitively teaches is hardly compatible with the full profession of Catholic faith.
Conversely, the Catholic Church explicitly recognises that baptised non-Catholic Christians are genuinely united to Christ and share a real, though imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church. They can possess authentic faith, grace, charity and holiness. A Protestant may certainly be far holier than a Catholic who lives in deliberate rebellion against Christ.
So no, I wouldn’t say that the first man is spiritually united to Christ while the second is spiritually divided from Him. That is not the Catholic position, and I don’t see why I should have to defend it.
But neither does the second man’s personal fidelity automatically resolve the question of full ecclesiastical communion. Holiness and visible communion are related, but they are not interchangeable concepts.You seem to be treating them as though they were. They aren’t.
And Scripture itself gives us reason not to collapse them into one another.
You asked where Scripture shows unity operating through visible ecclesiastical authority.
What about Matthew 18:17, where Jesus tells His disciples to bring an unresolved dispute before the Church? What about Acts 15, where a serious controversy over the requirements of the Christian faith is referred to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem, who reach a common decision? Acts 16:4 then tells us that Paul and his companions delivered those decisions to the churches for observance. What would have happened if someone in those Churches had told the apostles that they were full of crap?
That’s particularly relevant because you yourself previously appealed to Acts 15.
The Jerusalem decision wasn’t presented as merely one interpretation among many, which each congregation could accept or reject according to its own reading of Scripture, it was a decision of the Church’s recognised apostolic authority, communicated to other communities as something they were to observe.
Paul also exercises real disciplinary authority in 1 Corinthians 5. And Ephesians 4:11–16 explicitly connects the ministries Christ established in the Church with the preservation of unity in faith and protection against doctrinal instability. You know full well what doctrinal instability means.
None of these passages, taken individually, settles every subsequent question but they certainly soundly refute the idea that the New Testament presents Christian unity as an exclusively inward reality, independent of visible ecclesiastical structures and their authority.
More fundamentally, I think your argument leaves my original question unanswered.
You say that the institution can only recognise the person who has preserved the true faith. Fine. But when two Christians sincerely believe they are preserving that faith while holding mutually contradictory doctrines, who determines which one is right?
Both may be morally upright. Both may be fervent in spirit. Both may know Scripture extremely well. Both may sincerely believe they are following Christ. Yet they cannot both be right if one affirms a doctrine that the other denies.
Simply saying that the true Christian is the one who keeps the apostolic faith does not resolve the difficulty. It merely restates it. The entire dispute concerns what the apostolic faith actually requires.
That is precisely the problem I see with sola Scriptura: human beings INEVITABLY disagree in their interpretation of texts. When there is no universally binding teaching authority whose definitive judgments are protected from error, there is no final ecclesiastical criterion capable of settling those disagreements. Each community can ultimately appeal to its own understanding of Scripture, even when that understanding directly contradicts another community’s.
And this is not merely a hypothetical possibility, it is exactly what we see in the proliferation of mutually incompatible doctrines, including disagreements over matters as fundamental as baptism, the Eucharist and salvation.
I’m not suggesting that ecclesiastical authority guarantees that Christians will never sin, the history of the Church plainly shows otherwise. Nor am I suggesting that truth must be sacrificed to preserve institutional unity.
My point is that the possibility of disobeying a legitimate authority does not make that authority illegitimate, and the personal failings of those who hold office do not make the office unnecessary.
In fact, your argument seems to assume that because the Church’s authority cannot guarantee personal holiness, it cannot play an essential role in preserving doctrinal unity. I simply don’t see how that conclusion follows.
So I would return to the same question: when sincere Christians disagree about what Christ and His apostles actually taught, what authority can settle the disagreement for the whole Church? If the answer is “there is no such authority” then preserving unity is, for all intents and purposes, impossibile even in principle.
Because unless that question has a positive answer, I don’t see how the unity of faith can remain anything more than an aspiration.
Would Jesus Himself have prayed that Christians might be one, just as He and the Father are one, if such unity were inherently impossible to achieve and preserve?
“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matt 5:44-48)
Also let me double down on this example you’ve made because it deserves to be analyzed much more carefully than I previously did.
You describe a Catholic who rejects what Jesus taught about marriage, contrasting him with a non-denominational Christian who faithfully observes that teaching.
But there’s an assumption hidden in that example: that we can already identify, without any serious difficulty, which interpretation of Jesus’ teaching is correct.
Let’s consider a concrete case.
Suppose two baptised Christians enter into a perfectly valid marriage, consummate it, and live together for several years. Eventually, one spouse commits adultery. The innocent spouse obtains a divorce and subsequently marries someone else while the first spouse is still alive.
Is that second marriage adulterous?
As a Catholic, my answer is yes, because the original sacramental marriage remains binding. But a Christian who accepts sola Scriptura can construct a VERY SERIOUS BIBLICAL ARGUMENT for the opposite conclusion.
Start with Matthew 19:3–9.
Jesus is questioned about divorce. He appeals to Genesis, recalls that husband and wife become one flesh, and teaches that human beings must not separate what God has joined together.
So far, there is no disagreement.
But then comes verse 9, where Jesus condemns divorcing one’s wife and marrying another, while introducing an exception for porneia, usually translated as sexual immorality.
Now consider the argument a Protestant might make.
Jesus doesn’t merely say that divorce is wrong, with an exception for sexual immorality. He speaks about divorcing one’s wife and marrying another. The exception appears within that very statement.
A Protestant interpreter can therefore argue that the exception qualifies the entire situation Jesus describes, including the subsequent marriage. On this reading, someone who divorces an unfaithful spouse and marries another person doesn’t fall under the condemnation of adultery.
And since porneia can refer to sexual immorality, he can understand the exception as applying to adultery committed during a genuine marriage, rather than limiting it to unions that were invalid from the beginning.
You might object that Mark 10:11–12 and Luke 16:18 condemn divorce and remarriage without mentioning any exception.
But the Protestant can answer that these passages express the general rule, while Matthew preserves an important qualification. The fact that one Gospel gives a more general formulation doesn’t, by itself, establish that an exception recorded in another Gospel has no force.
He may also appeal to 1 Corinthians 7:15, where Paul says that a Christian abandoned by an unbelieving spouse is no longer bound in those circumstances. Some Protestants take this as further evidence that the New Testament recognises situations in which a marriage can be dissolved and remarriage becomes possible.
Now, to be precise, that Pauline passage concerns a particular situation involving a non-believing spouse. Catholic teaching itself recognises the Pauline privilege in certain non-sacramental marriages. So it would be incorrect to pretend that this verse, by itself, proves that a consummated sacramental marriage can be dissolved.
But it remains part of the broader biblical argument advanced by some Protestant interpreters.
The Catholic reading is different.
It takes seriously the unqualified prohibitions in Mark and Luke, Paul’s instruction in 1 Corinthians 7:10–11 that separated spouses should remain unmarried or be reconciled, and his statement in verse 39 that a wife is bound to her husband for as long as he lives.
It also interprets Matthew’s exception differently, notably by understanding porneia in this context as referring to an unlawful union, rather than permitting the dissolution of a valid marriage followed by remarriage.
These are competing interpretations of the biblical texts. They cannot simply be made identical by appealing to the sincerity of the people who hold them.
A Catholic who rejects the Church’s teaching on marriage can be corrected by appealing to a definitive teaching authority that he, as a Catholic, professes to recognise. But what about a Protestant who holds the very same position while rejecting the existence of any universally binding ecclesiastical teaching authority protected from error by the Holy Spirit?
You can certainly argue that his interpretation of Scripture is wrong. But he can just as confidently argue that yours is wrong. What authority can definitively settle the dispute for the whole Church? Under sola Scriptura, there is no infallible ecclesiastical judgment to which both parties must ultimately submit. It is as simple as that.
The Arian controversy illustrates precisely this problem. The Arians were perfectly capable of appealing to Scripture and using biblical language to defend their theology. The dispute could not be definitively settled simply by exchanging biblical quotations: it required the Church to define the apostolic faith at an ecumenical council, employing the explicitly extrabiblical term ὁμοούσιον (homoousion, “of one substance”) to exclude interpretations incompatible with that faith.
.
The issue, then, is not whether Scripture is infallible. It is whether the Church possesses a divinely protected authority capable of definitively determining what Scripture teaches when Christians arrive at mutually contradictory interpretations.
If we talke about marriage again, the historic Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 24, paragraph 5, explicitly permits the innocent spouse to divorce and remarry following adultery committed after marriage. Its own scriptural proofs include Matthew 19:9.
Paragraph 6 also recognises irremediable wilful desertion as grounds for dissolving a marriage.
Importantly, the Westminster Confession doesn’t endorse arbitrary divorce or unrestricted remarriage. It requires serious grounds and an orderly process involving the Church or civil authorities.
In other words, we are not talking about somebody casually dismissing Jesus’ teaching because he finds it inconvenient. We are talking about a major historic Protestant confession, produced through sustained theological reflection, claiming biblical authority for a conclusion that Catholicism rejects.
Now think about what that means for your example.
A Catholic who remains faithful to the Church’s definitive teaching must hold that a valid and consummated sacramental marriage cannot be dissolved while both spouses are alive.
A Presbyterian who faithfully follows the Westminster Confession may hold that the innocent spouse is free to remarry after adultery.
Both understand themselves to be obeying Christ. Both appeal to Scripture. But their moral judgments are incompatible.
So who is actually preserving Christ’s teaching?
You may believe that one interpretation is obviously wrong. But that is precisely what the other side may say about yours.
And simply repeating that the true Christian is the one who obeys Jesus does not resolve the disagreement. The disagreement concerns what obedience to Jesus requires.
Here is where the difference in ecclesiology becomes decisive.
As a Catholic, I am not free to adopt the Westminster interpretation merely because I find its reading of Matthew 19:9 plausible.
I recognise that Christ established a Church with the authority to teach definitively on faith and morals, and that the Holy Spirit protects the exercise of that authority from error under specific conditions.
The Catholic Church holds definitively that a valid, sacramental and consummated marriage between two baptized persons cannot be dissolved by any human authority, not even the Pope. Adultery may justify separation, but it does not dissolve the marriage bond or give the innocent spouse the right to marry someone else while the first spouse is still alive. This is explicitly taught in the Catechism, paragraph 1640, and in canon 1141 of the Code of Canon Law.
More importantly, this is not a merely disciplinary rule that the Church could reverse tomorrow.
As early as 1563, the Council of Trent, Session XXIV, Canon 7, explicitly condemned the claim that the Church errs in teaching that adultery cannot dissolve the marriage bond and that even the innocent spouse cannot remarry during the lifetime of the other. Notice that this addresses precisely the interpretation of Matthew 19:9 that I mentioned earlier.
Now, there is a theological distinction worth making here. The canon is framed as a condemnation of the claim that the Church has erred, rather than as a straightforward solemn definition of every aspect of matrimonial indissolubility. But Catholic infallibility is not restricted to solemn conciliar definitions or ex cathedra papal pronouncements. As Lumen gentium 25 explains, the bishops in communion with the Pope also teach infallibly through the ordinary and universal Magisterium when they agree that a doctrine of faith or morals must be held definitively.
And in his address to the Roman Rota on January 21, 2000, particularly paragraph 8, John Paul II expressly stated that the Church’s teaching that not even the Pope can dissolve a ratified and consummated sacramental marriage. He grounded this conclusion in the constant teaching of his predecessors and of the bishops in communion with Rome.
So, as a Catholic, even if I personally found the Protestant interpretation of Matthew 19:9 persuasive, I could not legitimately adopt the conclusion that adultery dissolves a valid and consummated sacramental marriage. I believe the Church has already settled that doctrinal question definitively, under the protection of the Holy Spirit, so I would humbly accept that my own understanding is wrong and I would pray God to enlighten my soul. But I would never, under any circumstances, assume that an interpretation that contradicts the interpretation of the Church of Christ should be more authoritative only because I, as a fallible and weak human being, find it more persuasive. I would accept that I’m wrong and ask God the grace to understand what I currently cannot understand, I would never have the pride and arrogance to believe that my own interpretation can be above and beyond correption.
That is the fundamental difference I’m trying to explain. I’m not claiming that Catholics cannot misunderstand Scripture or disregard Christ’s teachings. Of course they can. I am saying that Catholicism possesses a doctrinal authority which, under specific conditions, can settle such disagreements definitively for the universal Church.
If you reject the possibility of any such infallible teaching authority, you can certainly argue that your interpretation of Matthew 19:9 is better than the Westminster Confession’s. But the Westminster theologians can appeal to Scripture in defence of their interpretation too. Neither side can appeal to a doctrinal judgment that both acknowledge as divinely protected from error and binding upon the whole Church.
And that is precisely the problem I have been raising all along.
Consequently, my private interpretation of Scripture cannot overturn the Church’s definitive judgment concerning the indissolubility of a valid and consummated sacramental marriage.
That does not imply that every bishop or pope is personally infallible, or that every ecclesiastical statement is protected from error. I’ve never claimed anything of the sort.
It means that the Church possesses a divinely assisted teaching authority capable, under the appropriate conditions, of settling doctrinal controversies definitively.
But if you deny that any such authority exists, what do you have instead?
You can appeal to Scripture. So can the denominations that permit remarriage. You can explain your interpretation. So can they. You can sincerely believe that the Holy Spirit is guiding you. But they can sincerely believe the same thing.
What makes your interpretation a judgment binding on the whole Church, rather than another fallible interpretation competing with other fallible interpretations?
That is the question I keep asking.
And the problem becomes even more serious when we move from marriage to the sanctity of human life.
Consider abortion.
Here again, I am not referring to isolated opinions expressed by individual Christians. I am referring to positions officially adopted by Protestant denominations after theological deliberation.
The statement explicitly affirms the Bible as the authoritative source and norm for Christian faith and life. It appeals to passages including Genesis 1:27–28, Psalm 139, Jeremiah 1:5, Luke 1:41, Romans 6 and Micah 6:8.
Its reasoning begins with the conviction that human beings are created in God’s image and that human life, including developing life in the womb, is a gift from God.
But it also emphasises the moral dignity and responsibility of the pregnant woman, the Christian obligation to love one’s neighbour, and the complexities of living in a world affected by sin.
From these biblical and theological premises, it concludes that abortion can sometimes be a morally responsible decision, including in cases involving a serious threat to the woman’s life, pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, or extreme fetal abnormalities associated with severe suffering and very early death.
To be fair, this denomination does not endorse abortion without restriction. Its statement describes abortion as a last resort and strongly favours protecting unborn life wherever possible.
Nevertheless, it reaches conclusions that are incompatible with Catholic teaching on the intrinsic immorality of direct abortion.
The report acknowledges that Scripture does not expressly address elective abortion. It nevertheless appeals to biblical principles concerning creation, human dignity, moral responsibility and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
It concludes that abortion can be morally acceptable in certain grave circumstances and that Christians who prayerfully study Scripture may reach different conclusions on the issue.
But the denomination has gone further than merely recognising moral disagreement.
In 2022, its General Assembly approved a resolution affirming women’s moral agency as persons created in God’s image and rejecting government attempts to reduce, restrict or eliminate access to abortion care.
You can read the denomination’s own account of the decision here.
And the United Church of Christ has adopted an even more explicit position concerning restrictions on abortion.
The resolution affirms access to abortion, condemns laws banning abortion or restricting reproductive healthcare, calls for peaceful resistance, including civil disobedience, against abortion bans, and urges the denomination’s institutions to explore legal challenges to such restrictions.
These are not views presented by the denomination as a rejection of Christianity. Quite the contrary.
In a 2022 statement, its national officers explicitly explained their defence of abortion access as arising from their faith and their understanding of Scripture, particularly their understanding of the God-given dignity and moral agency of human beings and the obligation to care for others. They are presenting the defense of abortion access as according to the will of God, claiming that their position is scripturally based. I could not imagine a greater blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, honestly.
This leaves us with an extraordinary contradiction.
Some Protestant denominations defend the moral permissibility of abortion in certain circumstances and actively oppose laws restricting access to it.
Other Protestant denominations, appealing to Scripture and Christian moral principles, regard abortion as gravely wrong and actively advocate legislation to restrict or prohibit it.
It explicitly invokes Genesis 1:26–28, Psalm 139:13–16, Jeremiah 1:5 and Luke 1:41 to affirm the sanctity of prenatal human life and advocate restrictions on abortion.
Notice something remarkable here.
The Southern Baptist Convention and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America explicitly appeal to several of the very same biblical passages, including Genesis 1, Psalm 139, Jeremiah 1 and Luke 1, yet their official moral conclusions concerning abortion differ substantially.
And the disagreement does not end with whether abortion can be morally justified.
It extends to whether Christians should support legislation restricting abortion or actively resist such legislation.
How can those contradictory positions both constitute fidelity to the same Christian moral teaching?
Again, I’m not saying the two positions are equally correct. I certainly don’t believe they are.
I’m asking how you determine, in a way that is authoritative for the whole Church, which interpretation preserves the apostolic faith and which contradicts it.
You previously described Christian unity as unity in morals, spirit, vision and teaching.
But what kind of unity in morals and teaching exists when one Christian denomination considers certain abortions morally permissible and condemns legal efforts to restrict access to them, while another regards abortion as a grave moral evil and considers the defence of unborn life a Christian obligation?
And what happens when both sides ground their conclusions in Scripture and their understanding of what Christian faithfulness demands?
It seems to me that your proposed solution simply assumes away the problem.
You say that the true unity of the Church consists in keeping the faith rather than belonging to an institution.
But when Christians disagree about what keeping the faith actually entails, you still need a criterion capable of distinguishing authentic apostolic teaching from interpretations that contradict it.
Otherwise, each denomination can continue to identify its own interpretation with faithfulness to Christ, even when that interpretation is incompatible with those upheld by other denominations.
