question from a protestant

[Brother Adam]

[quote name='Diamond' date='Jan 4 2006, 12:05 AM']I did a cursory check, and all I could discover was that one of the Pious's made the decleration of the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Since I don't believe in the Papacy's infallibilty when making those sort of declarations, I'm simply wanting to know where those Doctrines, and the one of Infallibility were put into place. Did Peter believe that all he said on his seat when making decrees was infallible, as Popes of today do? I want to know what the beliefs were regarding Mary, Papal Infallibility and anything else that seperates Protestans and Catholics from one another were when the ORIGINAL Catholic Church was formed by Peter.
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That's great that you want to know those things, yet you will be hard pressed to be able to discover all of your answers by sticking to "The Bible Alone", especially since these early Christian communities and so on for at least 400 years did not have a New Testament. They trusted in the authority of the Apostolic writings.

So what about that Bible you have there? How do you know it is trustworthy? How do you know it has the correct number of books? Or do you have a "fallible list of infallible books"? It took a Catholic ecumenical council to decree that the Bible is infallible and the canon of the Bible contains so many books.

Also consider doctrinal development. As time goes on we discover more about the faith that we already have. The Apostles could not recite Aquinas' Summa Theologica, but the roots of what Aquinas would expound on were already there. As we explore what has been revealed to us, we learn more about it and what it means for our faith.

Peter was given the keys to the kingdom, this has special significant meaning. David's Kingdom was a "type" of the kingdom of Christ. He had a royal steward, second in command to the whole kingdom and he carried the 'keys to the kingdom'. When Jesus bestowed the keys to Peter and then told the apostles "What you bind on earth is bound in heaven and what you loose on earth is loosed in heaven" means something beyond 'allagory'. There is truth and force behind those statements on authority that Jesus made, giving to the Apostles authority to exercise over the Church. It is a servants authority.

Well...nough for now.