The Seventh-day Adventist-Roman Catholic Dialogue

The Seventh-day Adventist-Roman Catholic Dialogue - Part 8
Stephen Korsman (Roman Catholic)

Hi !
> At last! I have some time to reply!

Well, I think you mentioned in another e-mail that it is ironic that now that you have time to reply, I am offline !

I got your e-mails on about 18 Dec; it's now 30 Dec, and I will probably get my telephone online sometime next week or the week thereafter, assuming Y2K doesn't kill the phone system in this country, which I doubt. But I do know the hospital is fully prepared, and there will be doctors standing by in ICU to manually ventilate all patients in case the power goes off, in the few minutes before the hospital's emergency power kicks in ... power which only lasts 7 days.

> > Please let me know in the mean time what your impression
> > on the early popes was ? And history ? I'm not asking for a
> > doctoral thesis on it or anything like that, but I'm interested to know what
> > your reaction to it all is.

> What I find interesting is the debate about authority obviously going on in
> the early church.

I would hesitate to call it a debate ... at least not in the early church. I think that everyone accepted papal authority, and the authority of the bishops and councils. It is more in modern times that this authority is questioned, because such authority is too Catholic for most Protestants to stomach.

> Apparently up until Pius I the church was governed by a
> council or group of bishops, where the popes were simply the more
> prominant members of the govening group.

There is evidence that the pope did have a strong voice, and he was certainly the leader of the council of bishops. I totally agree that the first century papacy was not the same as the 20th century papacy. While I fully support all the authority that the 20th century papacy weilds and claims, I think that the role of the papacy will, in the 21st century, return to more like it was in the first millennium, in order to accommodate unification with other denominations.

> Even when you go back to Peter it is clear
> the church was not authoritarian - there was debate and discussion with
> Peter, no one just did what he said.

It's sad that the papacy has become so much beaurocracy. Perhaps that's an unfair statement - it's not the papacy, but the Curia, that weilds the destructive force of beaurocracy, and while the departments certainly are necessary and do an excellent job, they are no longer the simple government by Peter and the Apostles that existed in the first century. On the other hand, if God had intended that the papacy remain static, the papacy would not have grown into what it is today. I believe the papacy was instituted by Jesus Christ, and is a divine insitution guided by the Holy Spirit ... whatever form it takes is a combination of the will of God and the will of man, but the will of man will never override the will of God in the rule the papacy provides, as promised in Matt 16:18.

> However there is a trend which I am against in seeing the church as having
> authority over its members. Clement I in particular argues for a very strict
> obedience to the church, praising the Roman military as a model of
> obedience.

Clement I was an immediate contemporary of the Apostles - he was pope in the late 80's and early 90's, and died before the Apostle John. The fact that the first century papacy was as it was without biblical reprimand is very significant indeed. Even Peter, though, holds a very prominent place in the Bible. Of every time an apostle is mentioned by name, Peter's name is mentioned more than 60% of the time. With one exception, he is always mentioned first ... the exception being an incident which occurred in the diocese of James, where James is mentioned first. I think the biblical evidence for Peter's primacy is overwhelming. We seem to have disagreements on how that primacy should be exercised, but it seems that you agree that it was exercised in some manner from early on ... you mention Clement I, the 4th pope.

> > > I am not a BDSDA! I think their beliefs are interesting and I have
> > > written an introduction to their ideas.

> >
> > Do you agree with their ideas ?

> No, what I like about a number of offshoots from SDA is the fact that
> they still see God as very active with his people, whereas the traditional
> SDA church acts as if God was active in the 19C and now has stopped
> sending prophets and messages to the church.

Okay. The reason I ask is because one person objected to your site being listed as an SDA site on my website, and he claimed that you were Branch Davidian. I see no evidence that you are, so I'll accept that as spite on his part.

> > Are you mainstream SDA ?

> Er.. not really that either. What has happened to the SDA church in the last
> 30 years are a number of fairly fundamental divisions, between evangelicals
> and traditionists, modernists and conservatives etc, and I don't actually
> align myself with any particular group. I see each element has having
> something interesting and important to say, and would describe myself as
> neo-orthodox, accepting the basic truths but re-interpreted and
> re-understood in the light of modern realities.

Could you explain some of the differences between you and mainstream SDAs, and which truths you accept but reinterpret ?

God bless,
Stephen

Stephen Korsman is a Roman Catholic
John Mann is a Seventh-day Adventist