Karlo Broussard - Meeting the Protestant Challenge: How to Answer 50 Biblical Objections to Catholic Beliefs

You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God, in order to keep your tradition... thus making void the word of God through your tradition which you hand on. Mark 7:9,13

Wheres that in the Bible?

Any Catholic who talks religion with Protestants has at some time been challenged with this question. It stems from the Protestant belief that we shouldnt accept any doctrine that isnt explicitly found in the Bible since it alone is our infallible rule of faitha belief known as sola scriptura (Latin, Scripture alone).

Much of Catholic apologetics, especially since its revival in the late eighties, has centered on answering that question, offering positive arguments for the biblical basis of Catholic doctrine. But, since Catholics dont operate on the principle of sola scriptura , we dont believe that every Christian truth has to be explicitly found in Scripture. We also appeal to truths revealed by God and preserved outside of the Bible in Sacred Tradition.

For example, Protestants may ask, Where is Marys bodily assumption in the Bible? But a Catholic can simply reply, I dont need to justify it with Scripture since I can accept it on the basis that its a part of Sacred Tradition as infallibly defined by Pope Pius XII ( Munificentissimus Deus, 1950).

Of course, a Protestant is not going to find the above response persuasive (and it would open up other debates about Christian teaching authority). But at least he cant charge a Catholic with incoherence in his belief.

There is another kind of Protestant challenge, however. This kind does charge a Catholic with incoherence: How can the Catholic Church teach X when the Bible says Y?

For example, how can the Catholic Church teach that Mary remained a virgin after Jesus birth when the Bible says that Jesus had brothers (Matt. 13:55)? Or how can the Catholic Church teach that works have a role to play in our salvation when the Bible says in Romans 3:28 that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law.

This is the kind of challenge that a Catholic must meet because whatever the Church teaches, even if derived principally from Sacred Tradition and not the Bible, cannot contradict the Bible. Scripture and Tradition are two streams of revelation that flow from the same source: God.

Our task as Catholics, therefore, is to show that Catholic teaching doesnt contradict those Bible passages that some Protestants think pose a threat to it. The purpose of this book is to help you fulfill this task.

We will examine fifty challenges that Protestants commonly make from the Bible, covering a variety of topics concerning Church authority, Scripture and Tradition, salvation, the sacraments, Mary and the saints, eschatology, and Catholic life and practice. Most of the challenges come from mainstream Protestantism, but some come from smaller groups within Protestantism, such as Seventh-day Adventists.

Each chapter offers you a series of ways to meet these challenges, ultimately showing that the challenges dont succeed in proving Catholic beliefs to be contrary to the Bible. Following these is a counter-challenge you can propose to help your Protestant friend think more critically about his own assumptions.

Of course, these fifty biblical challenges dont exhaust the challenges that Protestants make against Catholic teaching. But they do offer a good sampling of what a Catholic might encounter.

I hope this book will help you be more efficient in your conversations with Protestants. Also, I hope it will strengthen your own faith, helping you to know that in embracing Catholic teaching you are not making void the word of God through your tradition which you hand on (Mark 7:13).

I

Church Hierarchy & Authority

Many Protestants dont think Jesus established a church with any hierarchical structure, much less with a single figure who has the highest rank of authority, like a pope. They argue that Jesus Church is merely an invisible community of believers united by grace rather than a society with visible markers.

Their motivation for this belief is commendable because they think its what the Bible teaches. And there are certain biblical passages they commonly bring up as evidence for their belief.

As well see, though, its not a matter of either a hierarchical and visible Church or an invisible community, but of both/and. As you meet these challenges, you may help Protestants come to a fuller, more biblically accurate view of the Church that Jesus established.