Catholic — Ancient, Authoritative, and Complicated

This post is article 2 of 8 in the series: Know What You Believe and Why.

The Oldest Room in the House

If Christianity were a house, the Catholic Church would be the oldest room in it. That is not a compliment or a criticism. It is just a fact. For roughly the first thousand years of Christian history, there was essentially one church in the West. The institution that became the Roman Catholic Church was the primary keeper of Scripture, the primary trainer of theologians, and the primary structure through which the gospel moved across Europe.

That history matters. You cannot understand Christianity — Protestant, Orthodox, or otherwise — without understanding Catholicism. And you cannot have an honest conversation about where Catholicism gets things right and where it gets things wrong if you have never actually looked at what it teaches.

So that is what we are going to do. No cheap shots. No straw men. Just an honest look at the oldest room in the house — what is solid, what is complicated, and what every man who calls himself a Christian should understand.

What Catholics Actually Believe

Let me start here because the caricatures in both directions are unhelpful. Some Protestants treat Catholicism like it is barely Christian. Some Catholics treat Protestantism like it is barely serious. Both are wrong.

Catholics affirm the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. They believe in the Trinity, the full divinity and humanity of Christ, the virgin birth, the physical resurrection, the ascension, and the return of Christ. They believe in salvation through Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of sins. On the core doctrines we covered in Article 1, Catholics are standing on the same foundation as every other Christian tradition.

Where it gets complicated is in the layers built on top of that foundation.

The Catholic Church teaches that divine revelation comes through two sources: Scripture and Sacred Tradition. That means the teachings of the Church — passed down through councils, popes, and the Magisterium — carry authority alongside the Bible. This is not a minor difference. It is the difference that drove the Reformation.

The Authority Question

In 1517, a German monk named Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to a church door in Wittenberg. He was not trying to start a new religion. He was trying to start a conversation about whether the Church had the authority to sell indulgences — essentially, payments that reduced time in purgatory for the buyer or their deceased relatives.

Luther's argument, which he developed over the following years, came down to one Latin phrase: Sola Scriptura. Scripture alone. Not Scripture plus tradition. Not Scripture as interpreted exclusively by the Magisterium. Scripture as the final authority for Christian faith and practice.

The Catholic Church's response, formalized at the Council of Trent, was essentially: the Church has the authority to interpret Scripture, and that interpretive authority is itself part of divine revelation. The Church does not derive its authority from Scripture. Scripture and Church authority are co-equal sources of divine truth.

This is the central fault line. And it is a real one.

The Protestant concern is legitimate: if the Church's tradition carries equal authority to Scripture, then the Church can effectively override Scripture by claiming that a tradition is divinely revealed. History shows this has happened. Indulgences. Papal infallibility. The Immaculate Conception of Mary. None of these are taught in Scripture. All of them are taught as binding Catholic doctrine.

The Catholic concern is also legitimate: if every individual interprets Scripture for himself with no authoritative guide, you get 40,000 Protestant denominations and counting. Someone has to have interpretive authority, or the text becomes whatever any individual wants it to mean.

Both concerns are real. Neither side has a perfect answer. But the Protestant instinct — that Scripture must be the final check on any human institution, including the Church — is the right one. Hebrews 4:12 does not say the Word of God is living and active when filtered through an institution. It says the Word itself is living and active.

What Catholics Get Right

This is where I want to be careful, because there is genuine substance here that Protestants often dismiss too quickly.

The Catholic Church has preserved and transmitted the Scriptures for two thousand years. The canon of the New Testament — the 27 books every Christian reads — was formally recognized by councils that were, at the time, Catholic. The theological precision of the early creeds was hammered out in councils that were, at the time, Catholic. Whatever you think of where the institution went later, the debt is real.

Catholic theology also takes the Incarnation seriously in ways that Protestant evangelicalism sometimes does not. The idea that God became physically present in the world — that matter matters, that the body matters, that the physical and the spiritual are not enemies — runs deep in Catholic thought. That is good theology. It is biblical theology.

The Catholic emphasis on the sacraments as means of grace — that God works through physical acts like baptism and communion — is also worth taking seriously, even if you disagree with the Catholic understanding of how those sacraments work. The Protestant tendency to reduce faith to a purely internal, invisible transaction can leave men with a faith that has no weight, no form, no embodied practice. That is a real problem.

Where It Gets Complicated

Purgatory. Indulgences. Prayers to saints. The veneration of Mary. Papal infallibility. These are the doctrines that create the most friction, and they share a common problem: they are not taught in Scripture. They are taught by the Church, justified by Sacred Tradition, and accepted as binding by Catholics on the authority of the Magisterium.

This is where the authority question becomes practical. If Scripture alone is the final authority, these doctrines cannot be binding. If Sacred Tradition carries equal authority, they can be. The question is not whether Catholics are sincere. Most are. The question is whether the authority structure that produced these doctrines is legitimate.

The Reformation answer was no. And the Reformation answer was right — not because the reformers were perfect, but because the principle was correct. No institution, however ancient, however large, however sincere, has the authority to add binding doctrine that Scripture does not teach.

Practical Applications

Understand before you dismiss. If your only knowledge of Catholicism comes from anti-Catholic polemics or Hollywood movies, you do not actually know what Catholics believe. Read the Catechism. Talk to a serious Catholic. You will find more common ground than you expect, and the differences will be clearer and more honest.

Know the authority question cold. The debate between Scripture alone and Scripture plus tradition is the most important theological fault line in Western Christianity. Every man who calls himself a Christian should be able to explain it, defend his position, and do so without being dismissive of the people on the other side.

Give credit where it is due. The Catholic Church preserved the faith through centuries when there was no printing press, no internet, and no Protestant alternative. That is not nothing. Intellectual honesty requires acknowledging it.

Hold the line on Scripture. Respect for Catholic history and genuine Catholic believers does not require accepting the authority of the Magisterium over Scripture. You can honor the tradition without submitting to it.

The Closing Charge

The Catholic Church is ancient, complex, and impossible to dismiss with a bumper sticker. It has produced saints and scholars and missionaries who gave their lives for the gospel. It has also produced institutional corruption, doctrinal additions that Scripture does not support, and an authority structure that has at times placed itself above the Word of God.

Both things are true. A man who can hold both of those truths without flinching — who can respect the history without surrendering the principle — is a man who actually understands what he believes and why.

The oldest room in the house is worth knowing. Just make sure you know which walls are load-bearing.