Was the Roman Catholic Church Established by Christ?

Resolved:
"The Roman Catholic Church is the true Church of Jesus Christ according to the Scriptures."

see also below: Bibliography and my Review of Geisler / Betancourt Is Rome the True Church?

[This debate will center primarily on the Scriptures we both accept, although the Fathers can be brought in secondarily -- I (PhilVaz) accept the "burden of proof" in this debate]

Background to the Debate:

Have you read any of the following books? Do you believe they are true? Do you believe they can be defended? Do you think any of their arguments are sound? Would you like to discuss this in a friendly Email debate? (These are some of the more "scholarly" evangelical / fundamentalist Protestant books out there responding to Roman Catholic claims....)

       

or even more "controversial" or "sensationalist" books

     

This is a new idea I have for a proposal to debate the biblical and/or historical evidence for/against the Roman Catholic Church from the Scriptures and/or the first five centuries of Christianity. If you love James White, James G. McCarthy, William Webster, and/or (the more friendly) Norman Geisler and believe their writings, arguments and evidence are devastating against the claims of the Roman Catholic Church, Email me to discuss a possible Email debate (I know you are out there, I see you on the various boards, in Amazon.com reviews, and all over the Internet). I offer the following as a structure, but we can discuss where changes need to be made.....

Jason Engwer (JasonTE on AOL) accepted the proposition for the debate. This online written debate took place in 2002.

Bibliography (books quoted or mentioned in the debate)

• Karl Adam, The Spirit of Catholicism (Franciscan Univ Press, 1996, orig 1924)

• Robert McAfee Brown, The Spirit of Protestantism (Oxford Univ Press, 1961)

• World Book Encyclopedia (2000) on "Roman Catholic Church"

• (old) Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) on "Church" and "Pope"

• New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967, 2003 2nd edition) on "Church"

• Easten's Bible Dictionary on "kingdom of God/Christ/heaven"

• G. Kittel / G. Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) on ekklesia

• John Bowker (editor), The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (Oxford Univ Press, 1999)

• Henry Bettenson, Documents of the Christian Church (Oxford, 1963)

• R. Brown / J. Fitzmyer, et al, The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Prentice Hall, 1990)

• Norm Geisler / Ralph MacKenzie, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences (Baker, 1995)

• Robert Zins, Romanism: The Relentless Roman Catholic Assault on the Gospel of Jesus Christ (1994)

• Eric Svendsen, Evangelical Answers (1997)

• James G. McCarthy, The Gospel According to Rome (1995)

• William Webster, The Church of Rome at the Bar of History (1995)

• Craig Van Gelder, The Essence of the Church (Baker, 2000)

• David King / William Webster, Holy Scripture: The Ground and Pillar of Our Faith (2001, three volumes)

• Don Kistler (editor), Sola Scriptura: The Protestant Position on the Bible (1995)

• Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition (volume 1)

• J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (1978)

• B.C. Butler, The Church and Infallibility: A Reply to the Abridged "Salmon" (1954)

• Will Durant, Story of Civilization: The Age of Faith (1950, volume 4)

• Kenneth Whitehead, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: The Early Church was the Catholic Church (Ignatius Press, 2000)

• St. Francis De Sales, The Catholic Controversy (TAN, 1989, orig 16th century)

• Klaus Schatz, Papal Primacy (The Liturgical Press, 1996)

• Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (Baker, 1998, orig 19th century )

• Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Master Christian Library, 1998, orig 19th century)

• Dom John Chapman, Bishop Gore and the Catholic Claims (1905), also Studies on the Early Papacy (1971, orig 1928)

• Stephen Ray, Upon This Rock: St. Peter and the Primacy of Rome in Scripture and the Early Church (Ignatius Press, 1999)

• John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (Doubleday, 1991, volume 1)

• Max Thurian, Mary, Mother of All Christians (1963)

• Scott Hahn, Hail, Holy Queen (Doubleday, 2001)

• Juniper Carol (editor), Mariology (1955-61, three volumes)

• Luigi Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church (Ignatius Press, 1999)

• Oscar Watkins, A History of Penance (1961, orig 1920)

• Philip Hughes, The Church in Crisis: A History of the General Councils (AD 325 through AD 1870)

• E. Calvin Beisner, God In Three Persons (Tyndale House, 1984)

• Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (TAN, 1974)

• James (Jimmy) Akin, The Salvation Controversy (Catholic Answers, 2001)

• Gary DeMar, End Times Fiction (Thomas Nelson, 2001)

Further Bibliography (older scholarly Anglican vs. Catholic books for those who love this kind of Catholic-Protestant debate)

• The Pope and the Council [pdf] by "Janus" (von Dollinger)

• Anti-Janus: A Reply to "The Pope and the Council" [pdf] by Hergenrother

• Plain Reasons Against Joining the Church of Rome [pdf] by Littledale

• Catholic Controversy: A Reply to "Plain Reasons" [pdf] by Ryder

• St. Peter: His Name and His Office [pdf] by Thomas W. Allies

• The Primitive Church and the See of Peter [pdf] by Luke Rivington (also HTML version)

• Bishop Gore and the Catholic Claims [pdf] by Dom John Chapman (also Studies on the Early Papacy)

• The Infallibility of the Church [pdf] (A Refutation) by George Salmon

• The Church and Infallibility: A Reply to the Abridged "Salmon" by B.C. Butler

• The Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God [pdf] by Archbishop Ullathorne

• What Faith Really Means [pdf] by Henry G. Graham

Update June 2010: a recent book I need to review by Norman Geisler and Joshua Betancourt:

Is Rome the True Church? A Consideration of the Roman Catholic Claim (Crossway Books, 2008)

(I give it 3 out of 5 stars)

text here

text here

text here

text here

text here

text here

text here

text here

text here

text here

text here

A major sign of the weakness of the book's arguments is that Norm Geisler's co-author, Joshua Betancourt, became a Catholic shortly after the book's publication. The book was based on a "Master's Thesis" by Betancourt for Southern Evangelical Seminary (SES):

"I formally studied Catholicism during the course of my undergraduate and graduate studies. Dr. Geisler, who served as my academic advisor and primary thesis reader at Southern Evangelical Seminary, suggested that I do my master’s thesis on the topic of papal infallibility. He supplemented and improved it for publishing, and the end result is this book....If in fact Rome is the only infallible church that Christ established on earth, then we have a moral obligation to join her ranks....Our book provides both objective and reasonable answers as to why evangelicals should not convert to Rome." (Joshua Betancourt, from an interview with Crossway Books and Bibles on "Is Rome the True Church?" [PDF] Summer/Fall 2008)

The author has since obviously changed his mind about the "strength" of his arguments. From the (mainly) poor reviews of the book at Amazon.com, we learn this from someone who worked at the book's publisher:

"(E. Johnson, a reviewer): You say, "I believe that this will make many people think hard about their affiliation with the 'Mother Church.'" Well, for over 30 years I thought hard about my non-affiliation with the Mother Church and concluded that I was wrong. I corrected my error on Easter of 2005, and couldn't be happier. By the way, I was Editorial Director of Crossway Books, the publisher of Is Rome the True Church, for nearly two decades.... I don't know why Crossway took this book out of print. I don't think it sold very well, and it was widely panned by reviewers familiar with the issues. My brother, Lane, who runs Crossway Books, is quite sensitive to negative criticisms of the books Crossway publishes, so given the difficult reception the book has received from critics and reviewers, plus the coauthor's conversion to Catholicism, plus poor sales -- all these taken together would probably explain its disappearance." (Jan P. Dennis, from Feb 2010 at Amazon.com in review comments for the book "Is Rome the True Church?")

So the book has apparently already gone out of publication, and folks connected with the publisher have become Catholic, but I am glad I was able to acquire the book before it disappeared altogether. Norm Geisler, my favorite evangelical Thomist, "was not built in a day," and I appreciate his Protestant attempts to counter the Catholic claims, but his biblical and historical arguments for "evangelical Christianity" just aren't very good. May he follow his co-author into the Catholic Church, the historic Christian faith, the original One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of Christ.

See also the blog article by Betancourt's friend at SES, Doug Beaumont (12/21/2009), "Roman Catholicism: The True Church or a Terrible Cult?"

PhilVaz (June 2010)

Back to Apologetics Articles

Back to Home Page

About | Apologetics | Philosophy | Spirituality | Books | Audio | Links