If Christianity is True, then Protestantism is Not:
The Inherent Contradictions of Protestantism
It was not until I attempted to disprove Catholicism that I became aware of the many contradictions foundational to the beliefs of Protestantism. These contradictions quickly multiply as Protestantism further splits into denominations and non-denominations, but the beliefs I am specifically referring to are the overall teachings that comprised the so-called “Reformation” — the rejection of Catholic doctrine and the embrace of the “Sola’s.”
As a student of philosophy and a lover of wisdom, according to Jesus’ own teachings and the overall teachings of the whole of Scripture, I constantly strive to follow the truth wherever it takes me, because that is where God, the source of all truth, is most present. Of course, I’m not perfect, and often fail and fall prey to my own biases and illogical thought patterns at times. This is unavoidable to some degree. As Christians, we are called to prioritize wisdom above our own opinions, biases, and beliefs to the extent that we are psychologically able.
Theological and rational examination did not allow me to stay a Protestant once I attempted to defend Protestantism’s precepts. When I found serious logical and theological problems that had to be ignored for Protestantism to be true, I felt a moral and intellectual obligation to not only become Catholic, but expose the foundational inconsistencies at the heart of the beliefs I once held.
In no way do I believe that Protestants love God any less, or that they are bound for Hell as a consequence of their true striving to live for God. I believe anyone attempting to live God’s will for their life has a real chance at Heaven, especially if the pitfalls in their spiritual life were caused by following a heretic they believed was a true Christian hero. As a result of this belief, I will never judge the soul of another. I do not create conflict and argument for the sake of argument or for the sake of winning. I only do so as a means of spreading God’s truth and attempting to make more clear what I believe God’s intention is for His people. I think I am in a good position to do that as I have made it a major goal of my life to study these things and make precise distinctions about them using logic as objectively as I can. God “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4–6).
If there is anything we can know for sure about Christianity, it’s that God intends for man to act in particular ways and believe particular things. Finding out what those exact intentions are is worth the effort. This is not only the primary goal of my writing, but a major goal of my life as a whole.
People so often use Scripture to “find what God is trying to tell them today,” and while that is certainly a secondary intended purpose of the Bible, I find it problematic when it takes precedence over figuring out what the text itself is telling us to believe about reality, God, and the Christian life. This seems foundational, does it not? This foundation is often skipped in the name of the avoidance of argumentation, or dismissed because “central beliefs are shared” among all denominations. This is contrary to the spirit of Christianity and what Christ and his apostles taught about unity in belief among Christians.
With thousands of Christian and pseudo-Christian denominations (not 30,000 though), and the human race’s unfortunate psychological disposition towards believing what we’ve been brought up believing, it is all-too easy to ignore the fact that God only intended one religion to come out of his Book. It teaches one set of beliefs.
God cannot contradict himself. All contradicting denominations have come from human interpretive error.
St. Paul emphasized the importance of avoiding division among Christians. St. John wrote his gospel, in part, to combat heretical teachings. Christ himself used bridegroom imagery to emphasize the singular nature of Christ’s marriage to his Church. Thus we cannot treat the issue of what the Bible teaches we ought to believe as inconsequential. It is everything. Whatever conclusion we come to as an answer to that problem will dictate what traditions we follow in regards to everything else. And make no mistake: all Christians and all churches follow and believe traditions according to their particular interpretation of Scripture, not just Catholics.
The crucial inconsistencies I will cover in this article — which are only 3 of at least 9 of a similar magnitude — fall under two topics: The Christianity of the Historic Church & Biblical Prophecies Made Impossible.
The Christianity of the Historic Church
I will start with the most central and important contradiction of all, which is the proposition that Protestantism is meant to be the “original” form of Christianity, even though it clearly rejects many of the universally professed beliefs of the earliest Christians, while simultaneously believing that these beliefs were created by man centuries later. This is simply ignorance of history.
Of course, the earliest writings of the Church are that of the New Testament. The Christian Church started in Acts, with Pentecost, and the following letters describe the first years of the Church. But what cannot be ignored is what the successors of the Apostles, and their close followers, wrote just after the New Testament was completed. We can argue over biblical interpretation forever, as humans have since the 1st century, and that is due to the Bible’s obvious interpretability. It is not a small problem that the Bible is not easy to read. Though it surely intends to teach specific things, many things can be gleaned from it, and even things that contradict each other.
This is why it is crucial for Christians to read what the first writers after the New Testament wrote regarding the New Testament writers’ intent. The earliest Christian writers, such as St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus of Lyon, and Eusebius, give us valuable historical accounts of what the Church of the earliest Christian centuries was really like, and what the apostles taught besides the New Testament. They are authoritative sources for this information because they were, in some cases, personal followers of the Apostles (Polycarp), some even ordained by the Apostles (Ignatius). In other cases, such as Irenaeus, they were followers of the Apostles’ followers. People in this position are immeasurably more reliable for teaching what the Apostles actually meant than our own intellect could possibly be, trying to interpret the Scriptures 20 centuries later. In the case of Justin Martyr, in his life and in his death his most passionate concern was that the truth of Jesus Christ be spread accurately and protected from corruption. Irenaeus, too, dedicated his life to disproving heresies. Even John the Apostle was an apologist. He wrote his book partly in response to Gnostic teachings, and in order to disprove them and spread the true gospel.
What the Earliest Christians Defended as Orthodox & Apostolic
The thing is, though, the man-made heresies these apologists were battling are now held by many Protestants to be the originally intended beliefs of Christianity, and the beliefs they were defending in opposition to the heresies are now considered by Protestants to be man-made corruptions! They defended with their lives and their writings that the center of the Christian life was the Eucharist, which was not just a symbol, but literally the actual body and blood of Christ, transformed into Jesus at the words of the priest during a Catholic mass. They venerated the Virgin Mary (and rejected her worshippers, as Catholics do), and asked for her intercession because they saw her as the Mother of God, the fulfillment of the Davidic Queen Mother, and thus the Queen of Heaven. They believed in purgatory, praying for the dead, the possibility of a Christian losing their salvation based on works, and confessing to priests. Finally, they believed that the bishop of Rome (yes, there were bishops in the first century) had primacy over all the others, and was the literal authoritative stand-in for Christ while the Church on earth awaited his return. These are just some examples of the Catholic-specific beliefs that are historically proven to have existed far before most people think Catholicism was “created” through church corruption. If you don’t believe this was what the early Church was like, I beg you to verify it yourself. Their writings are available online for free.
What the Earliest Christians Rejected as Novelty & Man-Made
At the same time, the early Christian writers rejected those who taught things dangerously reminiscent of Sola Scriptura, always supporting Paul’s exhortation to “stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter” (2 Thess 2:15). They rejected the small minority who believed Christ was speaking figuratively about communion being his body. They rejected those who said we were guaranteed in our salvation. They rejected those who said works were not absolutely necessary to getting to Heaven. They also rejected, as Catholics still do, that works in any sense “earn” your way to Heaven. Nobody ever thought to reject the “accept Jesus into your heart” prayer, though, because that hadn’t been invented yet. They taught universally that baptism and the Eucharist, like Jesus taught, is what brings eternal life, not a simple one-time-deal prayer.
Here I will provide just two examples of the early Church’s clear ‘Catholicity’ in the form of quotes. There are many, many more that could be included. For free access to the majority of early christian writings, visit http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/churchfathers.html or http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/. I always recommend double checking the scholarly historical position on these writings to verify their likely authenticity, especially because these websites do not only include legitimate writings, but also ones known to be spurious. Double checking multiple translations is always a good idea, too. The following quotes’ authenticity are attested to by the most reputable scholars, including Protestant and atheist ones.
- St. Ignatius, who as bishop of Antioch, friend of Polycarp (a close follower of John), and likely a friend of Peter and Paul, may have the most reliable integrity as a Christian writer of anyone, wrote in A.D. 107: Heretics are those who “abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ… those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes. Yet it would be better for them to treat it with respect, that they also might rise again. It is fitting, therefore, that you should keep aloof from such persons, and not to speak of them either in private or public… But avoid all division, as the beginning of evils… See that you follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ follows the Father. Follow the priests as you would follow the apostles. And reverence the deacons as you would reverence the command of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the Bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist which is administered either by the bishop or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the assembly also be — just as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. Apart from the bishop, it is not lawful to baptize or to celebrate an agape [early term for the Mass/the Eucharist]. But whatever he shall approve is pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid” (Smyrnaeans 6–8. ~107/110. Emphasis and parentheticals added).
- Origen, a church scholar who wrote over 6,000 commentaries on Scripture, wrote in 248 A.D.: “The Church received from the apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants. The apostles, to whom were committed the secrets of the divine sacraments, knew there are in everyone innate strains of [original] sin, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit” (Commentaries on Romans 5:9. [A.D. 248]).
Biblical Prophecies Made Impossible
This next category includes a few examples, and these are perhaps the most indisputable contradictions that I will mention. One may argue that somehow, even though the reliable Christians listed above (and there are many more) were personally connected to devotees of Jesus’ actual Apostles, and had a much more reliable chain of custody than us concerning the accurate intention of the doctrines taught in the New Testament, they weren’t actually accurate representations of the whole Church at the time, or that even at that point, the Church had already been corrupted by “man-made Catholicism.” But when Protestantism relies upon the contradiction of a straightforward and easily interpretable Scriptural prophecy, things cannot be denied so hastily
Recall that Sola Scriptura, a central rally-cry of Protestantism that rejects Catholic Tradition, is the belief that the Bible is not only sufficient for all necessary Christian truth, but that it is the only authoritative source of such a thing, and is explicit and clear enough in its teachings that one must not deny the plainest and most straightforward interpretation of Scripture in favor of one that requires “workarounds.” This, so Protestants say, is how Catholics get their doctrine — by twisting Scripture and not taking it at its most explicit meaning. Whether your denomination explicitly teaches something called Sola Scriptura or not, all Protestant denominations follow this teaching of Luther, which, of course, is self-refuting, since the Bible teaches nowhere that the “Bible alone” is the only source of Christian truth and authoritative teaching (no, 2 Timothy 3:16 does not say that).
This tradition is why, for example, Protestants believe that Catholics are in error when they call priests “father.” Because Jesus clearly taught that it is forbidden (Matt. 23:9). It’s why they reject the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist — “it simply can’t be so that Jesus is truly changing bread into his body, because that’s absurd and the Bible doesn’t say anywhere explicitly that he did such a thing.” It’s why they reject the Mass, and the Saints, and the beliefs we have regarding the Virgin Mary, and the 7 books we have that they don’t. Sola Scriptura holds that the Bible is sufficient for us to get what we need to know out of it. It is explicit enough that we can understand it, and where it is explicit, that’s all there is to it. We are bound to what it says in all circumstances. The incredible authority placed upon the Bible with this Protestant tradition is what ultimately disproves the foundations of Protestantism altogether.
If Sola Scriptura is true, there are at least 3 prophecies that prove Protestantism incorrect as a whole.
Malachi’s Prophecy of a Pure, Continual, Gentile Sacrifice
Looking back at the ancient Church one more time, we must acknowledge that the early Church was literally obsessed with a certain prophecy from Malachi that they considered fulfilled in the Christian Church. In the last book of the Old Testament, which, as a whole, was written and compiled in large part to prepare God’s people for his incarnation and subsequent Church, there is a prophecy that looks to the future when “from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts” (Malachi 1:11).
This prophecy was proclaimed as fulfilled in the Mass by virtually every Christian writer of the Early Church. From Justin Martyr, to Augustine, to the Didache (see some quotes here), which may have been written as early as 50 A.D. and claims to be a short summary of the teachings of the Twelve Apostles— all Christians unanimously agreed that this prophecy was looking forward to the time of the Christian Church, where a truly pure sacrifice would be offered to God by even Gentiles.
What could possibly fulfill this except the sacrifice of all sacrifices, that of Christ on Calvary? What else could be considered a “clean oblation” after Christ sacrificed Himself as the oblation of all oblations? His is the sacrifice that ended all sacrifices, so how could this be fulfilled except in a divinely guided ritual that makes present that same one sacrifice over and over in all locations? It could only be fulfilled in the Mass. I know, it sounds crazy, but the only thing that sounds crazier is a sacrifice as a part of Protestantism. Even if the Mass is not what fulfills this prophecy, Protestantism excludes whatever else could fulfill it. Protestantism was literally founded to reject the idea of sacrifice, as the Mass was seen as corrupt and not truly what God intended for his people precisely because it is a sacrifice. But that’s exactly what this prophecy points toward. Thus, this prophecy is either fulfilled in Catholicism, or it isn’t fulfilled at all. Either way, Protestantism does not have room for the fulfillment of this prophecy because of their rejection of continual sacrifice in the New Covenant. So where does that put Protestantism except necessarily opposed to Scripture?
Besides outright denial, I’ve never heard a Protestant argument for this. Nobody can explain how this can be interpreted, while being honest to Scripture, and aligned with Sola Scriptura, without condemning Protestantism’s central tenets. This attitude is present for all of the contradictions I bring up in this article. These arguments are not met with counter-arguments, but with denial and accusations of twisting Scripture. Maybe it’s so emotionally and spiritually disengaging for Protestants that it is bound to be met with condemnation of Catholic doctrine, whether it’s true or not. Something doesn’t have to be true for it to cause offense and elicit an immediate response of offense. Many Protestants, like me until a few years ago, have never challenged such beliefs. But, it could also be because they are actually good points that have no good answer. Until I see a good response, I have to believe it’s a combination of the two.
Jesus’ Promise of Protection for His Church
Prophecies 2 & 3 go together, in a way, as they are both promises from Jesus guaranteeing a similar result: the protection of his Church from doctrinal corruption.
In John 14, Jesus promises the Apostles that they will receive the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the “Spirit of Truth.” In Chapter 16, he tells them the Advocate will “guide you (the Apostles/the Church) into all truth. The Holy Spirit clearly comes to them at Pentecost, and this is fulfilled. So, from that point, Christ’s true Church should be guided by the Holy Spirit from teaching doctrinal error. We need not get into Catholic ideas of Magisterium, the difference between teaching discipline and doctrine, or the pope’s official teaching authority. The point is, Jesus promised his Church would not be corrupted doctrinally, because it would be protected by God Himself. Therefore, it is God’s clear will that his Church will not be corrupted and fall to evil false teachings.
In Matthew 16, a famously “Catholic” Bible verse, Jesus elevates Simon from his position as the clearly-already-head-of-the-Apostles, to Peter, the holder of the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. This was neither incidental nor insignificant. The implications of this event are huge.
According to the Old Testament and Jewish tradition, the Davidic King (which Jesus is the fulfillment of) would literally give the keys to the gates of the kingdom to his prime minister while he was away, and from that point until the king came back, the holder of the keys would be “acting king.” As Isaiah puts it, God said “I will commit your authority to his hand, and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open. I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his ancestral house” (Isaiah 22). This is where Catholics get the idea of the pope. Considering the context, this “giving of the keys” is indisputably a call-back to Isaiah’s prophecy. Christ says: “you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Sound familiar?
There’s a whole lot more to that, but for now, we will focus on what Christ says after he names Peter “the rock.” He says that he will build “my church (singular), and the gates of Hades (Hell in most translations) will not prevail against it.”
What does this mean? The early Church (and nearly everyone since) has universally understood this promise to mean that Christ will guide his Church as a whole and keep it from doctrinal corruption. What else could it mean, really, especially if one is bound by Sola Scriptura? It seems to be an extension of what Christ said in John 14 and 16, and elsewhere where Jesus, in many places, seems to hand over his authority to the Apostles, while looking forward to a time where they would act in his place while he is gone.
So we have 2 prophecies that seem to be divine guarantees of purity in Church belief. One specifically mentions the truth, and the other clearly implies it. Jesus certainly did not mean a particular physical building would not be prevailed against. He didn’t mean physical or spiritual protection over the members of the Church, since all Christians are guaranteed spiritual battles alongside physical discomfort and suffering throughout their lives by Scripture. Most likely, by far, he was guaranteeing that the Church he prepared for his people over thousands of years — the Church he literally died to save — would not be prevailed against in its doctrine. If it were, there would be no opportunity for his sacrifice to truly bear fruit because the teachings surrounding it would be lost.
Jesus specifically said the reason he came to the earth was to testify to the truth (John 18:37). Why wouldn’t he spend the effort (as if God even expends “effort”) to keep that truth pure, in at least one place, for all time? Of course that is what he did. To deny it would put a large burden of proof upon the denier, and would be dishonest to the text which clearly implies that this is the precise meaning Jesus had in his promise to Peter and the Apostles.
The Problem
But wait. Wasn’t the Reformation all about cleansing the Church of “over a thousand years of doctrinal corruption”? Wasn’t the whole point that Catholicism had tainted the faith and made it into a new religion, and that it had to be ‘reformed’ back to its correct state? Aren’t the “Solas” and the anti-Catholic doctrines of Protestantism supposed to be clarified versions of what Scripture originally taught, and what the Church was originally meant to be?
The fact is, Christ’s promises guarantee that such a thing would never be necessary, and could not possibly happen, because His Church could never be doctrinally corrupted in the first place. Think about it — with all that Christ did, and with these promises in place, it is demonstrably God’s Will that his Church be taught the truth, and that that Church would be the one place in all the world where God guides his people authoritatively, with no possibility of error. At least one place must have this quality, or God failed. But God is all-powerful, and cannot fail. His perfect will is always accomplished. He is also all-knowing, and would foresee the possibility of corruption, so of course he would implement some system of keeping the doctrine pure so that his people could know they are being taught the truth about God’s will for them.
Such an immense scandal as the Reformer’s proposed “corruption theory,” considering Jesus’ promises, and God’s overall qualities that we know he possesses, is impossible. God is perfectly moral; all-good. This would mean that God allowed his Church to fall under the devil’s temptation for 15 centuries, effectively allowing billions of Catholics to go to Hell for believing in blasphemous doctrines which they learned from the Church they believed was the same one Christ started, and more importantly, simultaneously not allowing anyone access to true Christianity for 1500 years. That, or he welcomed them to Heaven, disregarding their blasphemous lives and all of his clear teachings regarding truth, wisdom, heaven, and hell in the New Testament.
And all this, just to lead Luther, a man who said Moses should be condemned to Hell, profaned the Ten Commandments on multiple occasions, & rejected books of the Bible such as James, Hebrews, and Revelation as illegitimate, to be the model and reformer of Christian doctrine (check out my post on Luther here)? If this doesn’t constitute a prevailing of Hell against the Church, what possibly could?
This must be the case for Protestantism to be true because from the very beginnings of written Church history, it is obvious that the Church was Catholic. We can see this plainly by reading the writings of St. Ignatius, a friend of potentially multiple apostles and a staunch defender of the Eucharist. It is also apparent in the writings of just about every other Christian writer of the Early Church, who all testify that Peter was the first pope, the other apostles were all bishops, and they held traditions that match up with Catholicism, not Protestantism.
To accept such a view of history and God’s working in his Church would be to reject all we know about God, and change our view of Him to be a god that is not all-good. At this point, all of Christianity and even theism as a whole is at stake. This is why it is clear from Christ’s promises regarding the purity of his Church, that if Christianity is true at all — if Christ did in fact promise such things, then Protestantism cannot possibly be true.
