“In order for me to continue our discussions about Catholicism” I said to my friend, “Please tell me how you know that you are right?” After a short pause, he replied that he reads the Bible and prays to the Holy Spirit for guidance. “Well, all Protestants do that and yet they still disagree with each other so that can’t be right.” I countered. He said Protestants are in agreement on the major issues such as the Trinity so it is fine to have disagreements on the minor ones. “Is salvation a minor issue?” I inquired. For instance, some denominations agree with Catholics that baptism is necessary for salvation while others do not. Or how about the “Once saved, always saved” doctrine? That teaching is highly contested in Protestant circles. How do you settle the matter? He never satisfactorily answered my question and our discussion ended that day without any further debate.
“How do you know that you are right?” I asked a protestant coworker. He thought about it for a minute and then directed the question back at me. “How do you know that you are right?” This is a good question for all Catholics. How do we know that the Church is right? It is the same question that Pilate asked Jesus; “What is truth?” And the truth was standing there right in front of him when he asked it. We know the truth is available. Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit so that we will know all truth into perpetuity. "I will ask the Father and He shall give you another Paraclete that He may abide with you forever, the spirit of truth . . the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, will teach you all things, and will bring all things to your mind whatsoever I shall have said to you." (John 14 :16)
Why do we say the fullness of the truth subsists within the Catholic Church? The answer is not elusive - we have apostolic succession. We have a documented unbroken line of popes all the way back to Peter. But this alone wouldn't amount to much if it could be proven that our doctrines had changed over time. For objective truth is immutable and cannot change. Just as God is truth and cannot change. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. I can’t stress this point enough; 2000 years of church history wrought with many questions, heresies and opinions and yet there emerges a Church whose doctrines (when defined as binding) have remained the same. No doctrine declared by the Church as binding ever contradicted and rescinded an earlier one. This is an important fact and is known as the infallible magesterium of the Catholic Church. Only the Catholic Church claims to teach infallibly. Protestants don’t claim to teach infallibly. As a matter of fact, they have taught certain things in the past that were accepted as a sure norm only to be reversed at some later date. Some examples would be: allowing women ministers, divorce and remarriage, and contraception. Also today we see a growing trend toward greater acceptance of homosexuality and abortion. Protestantism is a house built on shifting sand.
I asked a popular Christian writer to define a “Bible based” church. What criteria does one apply? While he had written much about his journey from atheism to Christianity he wrote nothing on his process of discerning which Christian Church to attend. He told me that I asked a great question and that he would address this topic on his web site. He informed me he had joined several different churches in the process of discernment and his experiences could help others find a good church. The fact is, he never got around to putting that information on his web page. How could he? At the time I told him that he would never be able to write such a guide without having an authoritative majesterium (teaching) to base it on such as exists only in the Catholic Church. There are more than 33,000 protestant denominations all teaching different doctrines while claiming to be “Bible based”. So how could he write such a guide? The only area in which all Protestants seem to agree on is the Catholic Church is wrong.
Instead of looking to see if a church is based on the Bible one should look to see where the Bible came from. The Bible itself is a Catholic tradition that came out of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church existed some 390 years before there was a Bible. The canon (table of contents) of the bible was determined by the Catholic Church at the Council of Carthage and monks preserved the scriptures by copying them down through the centuries. Truly the Bible is a Catholic book and who is more qualified to interpret it?
I like to read about Catholic conversion stories and there are many to be found on the Internet. I've read testimonies from staunch Protestants that have found their way into the Catholic Church in spite of their initial extreme prejudice. Invariably they overcame their bias when their quest for truth pointed toward the Catholic Church. Also they never look back with disdain on they church they left. In contrast I have also searched the Internet looking for the opposite scenario - conversion stories of “strong” Catholics that left the Church and became Protestant in their search for truth. Inevitably, they would cite a long list of reasons for their disdain of Catholicism but cite precious few reasons for their selection of which Protestant Church they feel is teaching the truth in its fullness. Sometimes their answer is simply any church—as long as it’s not Catholic.
My rhetorical question; “How do you know you're right?” is not about winning a religious debate. Rather, it is about finding truth because finding truth is finding God.
