Arguments Against Protestantism Part I

A Personal Philosophical Essay

In a previous blog, Why I am Not a Protestant, I argued that I was intellectually moved towards Catholicism through mental frameworks rather than any particular argument. Any form of Protestantism requires a burden of proof, and no denomination met that for me. Lutheranism or Pentecostalism seemed less likely than Catholicism unless we assumed, before any investigation, that some of their fundamental doctrines were true. I also figured it would be unlikely that I would come to believe in the “right” denomination through self-studying the Bible and theology due to the vast amount of sin I was committing.

As I say in that essay, there was no “red pill” argument in my conversion to Catholicism, that is, an argument that definitively disproves Protestantism from my perspective. However, just because there wasn’t a red pill argument, that doesn’t mean there are no good arguments against Protestantism. In this three-part essay, I will present the three arguments I found most convincing.

In part I, I will present arguments for the Papacy based on Matthew 16, Isaiah 22, and Luke 22.

In part II, I will present a by their fruits you shall know them argument against sola scriptura, and also argue against the doctrine of clarity. I will add a further critique based on the de jure/de facto distinction in response to common Protestant replies.

In Part III, I will present a philosophical argument based on the fact that most Protestant denominations believe that contraception is morally permissible and that homosexual relations are immoral – which is logically incoherent. Any Protestant denomination that holds to a logical contradiction can be immediately dismissed as false.

Part I

Sola Scriptura is False

The falsity of sola scriptura can be argued in two ways:

1. Arguments for the Papacy or Sacred Tradition.*
2. By their fruits you shall know them.

*Notice I put “or” in the first set. Even if the inquirer finds the arguments for the Papacy unconvincing, they must still face the reality of Sacred Tradition found in both Catholicism and Orthodoxy. If either the Papacy or Sacred Tradition is true, then sola scriptura is false. However, I will be focusing on arguments for the Papacy in this particular essay.

St. Peter the Rock

One of the arguments for the Papacy that I found most convincing was the Eliakim typological argument based on Matthew 16 and Isaiah 22:

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Matthew 16:18-19

In that day I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your girdle on him, and will commit your authority to his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him like a peg in a sure place, and he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house.

Isaiah 22:20-23

Clear parallels exist between St. Peter and Eliakim. St. Francis De Sales points out,

Could anything fit better than these two Scriptures? For: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, because flesh and blood have not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven — is it not at least equivalent to: I will call my servant Eliacim the son of Helcias? And I say to thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell, &c. — does this not signify the same as: I will clothe him with thy robe, and will strengthen him with thy girdle, and will give thy power into his hand, and he shall be as a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Juda? And what else is it to be the foundation or foundation-stone of a family than to be there as father, to have the superintendence, to be governor there? And if one has had this assurance: I will lay the key of the house of David upon his shoulder, the other has had no less, who had the promise: And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And if when he has opened no one shall shut, when he has shut no one shall open; so, when the other shall have loosened no one shall bind, when he shall have bound no one shall loosen.

H. B. Canon Mackey, The Catholic Controversy (London: Burns & Oates, 3d ed. 1909), 253-255.*

*I found this specific passage at https://ecclesiaantiqua.substack.com/p/why-catholics-should-follow-the-saints

Let’s consider the common Catholic interpretation of Matthew 16. We hold that Jesus was establishing Peter as the primary authority of His Church, i.e., establishing him as the first pope. The role of the pope is to be the vicar (speaker on behalf) of Christ and a father to all Catholics.

Now, let’s consider who Eliakim was. Eliakim was a chief official and a royal guard in the court of King Hezekiah of Judah in 701 B.C. Shebna served as a prime minister under Hezekiah. The prime minister during this time was seen as second in rank, only subordinate to the king. It was this Shebna whom the Lord had replaced with Eliakim. Placing the keys of David in his hand, and the authority to bind and loose.

Around 700 years later, Jesus comes and takes the authority out of the hands of the Jewish leaders, and gives St. Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the authority to bind and loose.

When a typology occurs between an Old Testament character and a New Testament one, the New Testament character fulfills and exceeds the role of the Old Testament one. Jesus was the “new Adam,” because Adam was created without original sin but fell into sin. In comparison, Jesus was also created without original sin but did not fall into sin at all.

In the case of Eliakim and St. Peter, Peter fulfills Eliakim’s role but exceeds it, since he is second in rank in Christ’s Church, subordinate only to Jesus Himself. (Footnote: To explore this typological argument further, I highly recommend the work of Suan Sonna).

However, there doesn’t necessarily need to be a typology between the two biblical figures. As C’zar Bernstein from the Ecclesia Antique Substack puts it,

… you don’t need to assert that there is an intentional typological relationship between Isaiah 22:22 and Matthew 16:19 to establish the papacy. Instead, Isaiah 22:22 can be used as additional evidence to support an interpretation of Matthew 16:19 that is supported in the first millennium, i.e., that St. Peter and his successors had supreme jurisdiction over the universal Church.

To correctly discern the meaning of words or phrases in a text, we sometimes need to see how similar words and phrases were used in similar contexts in other texts. If one isn’t sure about the meaning of a Jewish idiom as it is used in Scripture one might see how Josephus uses the idiom to help one understand it. For example, binding and loosing is an idiom that most famously appears in Matthew 16:19 itself, in a context involving a kingdom, and Josephus uses a similar idiom, also in a context involving a kingdom:

And now the Pharisees joined themselves to [Queen Alexandra], to assist her in the government. … Now, Alexandra hearkened to them to an extraordinary degree, as being herself a woman of great piety towards God. But these Pharisees artfully insinuated themselves into her favor by little and little, and became themselves the real administrators of the public affairs; they banished and reduced whom they pleased; they bound and loosed [men] at their pleasure; and, to say all at once, they had the enjoyment of the royal authority, whilst the expenses and the difficulties of it belonged to Alexandra. (Josephus, Jewish War 1.5.2, transl. William Whiston, The Works of Josephus (Hendrickson 1987), 551-552 (emphasis added).)

There is obviously no intended typological connection between this passage and Matthew 16:19, but it does shed important light as to the meaning of the similar idiom in Matthew 16:19.

https://ecclesiaantiqua.substack.com/p/why-catholics-should-follow-the-saints

So, even without the typological argument, it seems we could at least give more credence to the claim that Jesus was building His Church on St. Peter, compared to Protestant interpretations. It would be superior to interpretations that say Peter was a “small rock,” and that Jesus, and Peter’s faith, are the “big rock.”

Within a certain dialectical context, the common response made by Catholics is that Jesus was speaking in Aramaic when He first spoke these words to Peter. An odd counter-response from Protestants is that the Holy Spirit intended the small rock/big rock distinction, since the distinction appears in Greek in Matthew’s Gospel. In that context, I don’t see why the Catholic couldn’t further claim that the Holy Spirit intended Jesus’ words to Peter to be similar to Isaiah’s prophecy. Unless the Holy Spirit forgot what Isaiah said? Given how unlikely that would be, the parallel between Eliakim and St. Peter is at least more probable than the anti-papacy interpretations made by Protestants.

Luke 22

Some may argue that Jesus gave the authoritative role to all the Apostles, not just Peter. To argue against this claim, let’s look at Luke 22, where Jesus says to St. Peter:

Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.

Luke 22:31-32

This may seem insignificant upon first reading. However, if we look at the passage in the Greek, the first two yous are in the plural. Jesus is referring to the Twelve. In the latter part of the passage, the yous and yours, are singular. Jesus is specifically praying for Peter and his faith, so that he may strengthen the other Apostles. You may think of it like this:

Simon, Simon, behold, Stan demanded to have y’all, that he might sift y’all like wheat, but I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith may not fail; and when you, Peter, have turned again, strengthen your brethren.

Again, this may seem insignificant at first glance, but look at the passage’s prior context. During the Last Supper:

A dispute also arose among them, which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. And He said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For which is the greater, one who sits at table, or one who serves? Is it not the one who sits at table? But I am among you as one who serves. You are those who have continued with me in my trials; and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”

Luke 22:24-30

Jesus doesn’t explicitly say, “None of you are the greatest.” Nor does He imply it. In fact, given the prayer in verses 31-32, Jesus implies that St. Peter is the greatest among the Apostles. Put this in conjunction with Jesus calling Peter the “Rock” on which He will build His Church, and it becomes clear that Peter is much more than just another Christian or one of the Twelve. It thus seems that St. Peter serves a special role for the Church, and his successors have fulfilled that role for almost 2000 years.

Apostolic Succession

After presenting these arguments for the Papacy, I’m often met with the objection that these arguments don’t establish papal succession. True enough, but these arguments aren’t meant to address papal succession; they are meant to establish that Jesus gave St. Peter a special role and that he is the Rock of His Church.

This objection is on par with the atheist objections that contingency or Kalam arguments fail because they don’t prove Christianity. This was Dawkins’ objection in The God Delusion to St. Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways,

Even if we allow the dubious luxury of arbitrarily conjuring up a terminator to an infinite regress and giving it a name, simply because we need one, there is absolutely no reason to endow that terminator with any of the properties normally ascribed to God: omnipotence, omniscience, goodness, creativity of design, to say nothing of such attributes as listening to prayers, forgiving sins and reading innermost thoughts.

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (2006)

It is evident that Dawkins failed to flip the page after reading the article on God’s existence in the Summa Theologica. Had he done so, he would have seen that Aquinas goes deeper into God’s attributes. Nevertheless, Dawkins objection that arguments for the unmoved mover don’t establish a God who hears prayers does no harm to the argument itself.

Likewise, the arguments I’ve presented above aren’t harmed by the fact that they don’t prove papal succession: they don’t seek to prove it. Perhaps that’ll be another essay for another time, but this essay needn’t reach that far.

Citations

• H. B. Canon Mackey, The Catholic Controversy (London: Burns & Oates, 3d ed. 1909), 253-255.
• https://ecclesiaantiqua.substack.com/p/why-catholics-should-follow-the-saints
• Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (2006)

Biblical Citations

• Matthew 16:18-19
• Isaiah 22:20-23
• Luke 22:31-32
• Luke 22:24-30

Bibliography

• H. B. Canon Mackey, The Catholic Controversy (London: Burns & Oates, 3d ed. 1909), 253-255.
• https://ecclesiaantiqua.substack.com/p/why-catholics-should-follow-the-saints
• Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (2006)
• Joe Heschmeyer, Pope Peter: Defending the Church’s Most Distinctive Doctrine in a Time of Crisis (Catholic Answers Press 2020).
• Scott Hahn & Curtis Mitch, Commentary on Isaiah 22:15–22, in Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testaments, 1198–99 (Ignatius Press 2024).