The Question of Authority in Protestant-Catholic Dialogue

When engaging in Protestant-Catholic theological discussions, debates often focus on specific doctrines: purgatory, Marian devotion, the Mass, or the papacy. However, these discussions frequently remain unproductive because they address symptoms rather than the underlying issue.

The fundamental Protestant-Catholic disagreement concerns authority itself. Understanding this helps explain why doctrinal debates often reach impasses—the parties are arguing about conclusions while operating from incompatible premises.

The Central Protestant Rejection

The Protestant Reformation fundamentally rejected four claims of Catholic authority:

Once these claims are rejected, virtually all distinctively Catholic doctrines become suspect as "unbiblical traditions" requiring elimination.

The Protestant Alternative: Sola Scriptura

"Scripture Alone" represents the Protestant response to Catholic ecclesial authority. This principle asserts that Scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith, and that individual believers or communities can interpret it without requiring an authoritative teaching office.

The appeal is understandable: it seems democratic, accessible, and aligned with individual conscience. However, from a Catholic perspective, this approach has produced significant problems over five centuries of Protestant history.

Consequences of Rejecting Catholic Authority

When Catholic teaching authority is rejected, several things follow:

Doctrinal Uncertainty: Every doctrine becomes subject to revision. Questions about baptismal necessity, eucharistic presence, perseverance in salvation, and infant baptism receive different answers across Protestant communities. Without a teaching authority, doctrinal questions become matters of opinion rather than settled truth. The result: over 40,000 Protestant denominations, all reading the same Bible, reaching contradictory conclusions.

Sacramental Understanding: If the Church lacks Christ's delegated authority, then ordained ministers possess no special sacramental power. The Eucharist becomes symbolic. Confession becomes optional. Ordination becomes mere human ceremony rather than sacramental commissioning.

Moral Teaching: The Church cannot bind conscience on moral matters. Contraception, divorce and remarriage, and application of moral principles become matters of individual judgment rather than authoritative guidance.

Sacred Tradition: Practices and doctrines not explicitly found in Scripture are discarded. Purgatory, prayers for the dead, and much of what Christians practiced for 1,500 years are eliminated.

The pattern is clear: reject ecclesial authority, and the entire traditional structure of Christian faith and practice becomes negotiable.

The Core Protestant Concern

Protestant unease with Catholicism centers on what they perceive as human authority interposed between believers and God:

From a Protestant perspective, this constitutes spiritual authoritarianism—a religious system creating dependence on institutional obedience rather than simple faith in Christ.

The "Simple Gospel" Perspective

Many Protestants, particularly evangelicals, articulate their objection straightforwardly: "Catholicism obscures the Gospel."

Catholic teaching on works cooperating with grace, sacraments necessary for salvation, penance and confession, purgatory and indulgences—all these appear to them as additions that complicate salvation. They see the transformation of salvation by grace through faith into salvation by grace plus works plus Church obedience plus sacramental participation.

From this view, Catholics have complicated what Jesus made simple: "Believe and be saved."

The Catholic Response

From a Catholic perspective, the Protestant position fails on several grounds:

1. Christ Established a Church With Authority

Matthew 16:18-19: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church... I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven."

Jesus did not simply promise to inspire a book that individuals would interpret independently. He established a visible Church with real, binding authority.

St. Cyprian of Carthage (c. 250 AD): "He can no longer have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother."

St. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110 AD): "Let no one do anything of concern to the Church without the bishop. Let that be considered a valid Eucharist which is celebrated by the bishop or by one whom he ordains. Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church."

2. The Apostles Passed On Their Authority

Acts 14:23: "When they had appointed elders for them in every church..."

1 Timothy 4:14: "Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophetic utterance when the council of elders laid their hands upon you."

2 Timothy 1:6: "I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands."

Apostolic succession is not a later Catholic innovation but reflects apostolic practice. The apostles ordained successors and transmitted their authority.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 180 AD): "It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times."

St. Clement of Rome (c. 96 AD): "Our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the office of bishop. For this reason, therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those who have already been mentioned and afterwards added the further provision that, if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry."

3. Tradition Existed Before Scripture

2 Thessalonians 2:15: "Stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter."

Paul instructed believers to maintain oral tradition—not only written Scripture. This makes sense because most Christian teaching was transmitted orally before the New Testament was written.

Furthermore, the New Testament canon itself was determined by the Catholic Church at the Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397). Protestants thus employ a canon compiled by Catholic authority while simultaneously rejecting that authority—a significant irony.

St. Basil the Great (c. 375 AD): "Of the beliefs and practices whether generally accepted or publicly enjoined which are preserved in the Church, some we possess derived from written teaching; others we have received delivered to us in a mystery by the tradition of the apostles; and both of these in relation to true religion have the same force."

4. The Church's Authority Is Christ's Authority

Catholic teaching maintains that the Church does not add human authority atop Christ's authority—rather, it exercises the authority Christ delegated to His Church.

Matthew 18:17-18: "If he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. Truly, I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven."

The Church binds and looses with Christ's authority, not independently of it.

St. Augustine: "I would not believe in the Gospel myself if the authority of the Catholic Church did not influence me to do so."

5. Sola Scriptura Produces Division

The practical failure of sola scriptura appears in Protestant denominational diversity. Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, Pentecostals, Anglicans, and non-denominational churches all claim to follow "Scripture alone"—yet they contradict one another on major doctrines:

Same Bible. Different conclusions. Constant division. From a Catholic perspective, this demonstrates what happens when teaching authority is rejected and each community becomes its own interpretive authority.

The Unanswerable Question

Consider this question posed to Protestant theology: "Which Protestant denomination has the correct interpretation of Scripture, and how do you know?"

Any answer requires appealing to some authority:

Authority cannot be escaped. The question is which authority is legitimate. Protestants rejected Catholic ecclesial authority and replaced it with individual or denominational interpretation. Each person or community effectively becomes its own magisterium, determining Scripture's meaning based on private judgment.

From a Catholic perspective, this is not freedom from authority but authority fragmented into chaos.

What Protestants Understand Correctly (And Incorrectly)

Protestants correctly identified genuine problems in the 16th-century Church. The Renaissance papacy exhibited serious corruption. Indulgence abuse was real. Clerical misconduct existed.

However, from a Catholic perspective, the solution was to reform the Church, not to abandon the concept of ecclesial authority entirely and establish thousands of competing denominations.

The appropriate response to corruption is purification and reform, not rejection of the institution's essential nature and authority.

The Catholic View: Authority Protecting Freedom

Catholic teaching maintains that ecclesial authority does not eliminate freedom but protects it:

The Church's teaching authority:

From this perspective, this is not authoritarianism but what Christ established to preserve His teaching across time and cultures.

The Fundamental Choice

The Protestant-Catholic divide ultimately reduces to one question: "Is the Catholic Church what it claims to be—the Church Christ founded with His authority to teach, govern, and sanctify?"

If the answer is YES:

If the answer is NO:

Comparing the Results

After 500 years, Protestantism has produced:

After 2,000 years, Catholicism has maintained:

From a Catholic perspective, this comparison suggests which system possesses divine guidance and which represents human innovation.

Why This Matters for Every Debate

Understanding the authority question explains why Protestant-Catholic debates often prove unproductive:

Catholic: "The Church teaches purgatory based on Scripture and Tradition." Protestant: "I don't see it clearly in Scripture, so I reject it."

The Protestant is not primarily arguing about purgatory. They are asserting: "I don't accept Church authority to teach anything beyond my interpretation of Scripture."

Catholic: "The Mass is a sacrifice because the Church has always taught this." Protestant: "I interpret Hebrews to mean Christ sacrificed once for all, so no more sacrifice."

Again, this is not fundamentally about Hebrews. It concerns who possesses authority to interpret Hebrews—the Church that compiled the canon, or individual Protestants reading it centuries later.

Every doctrinal debate is actually an authority debate beneath the surface.

Conclusion

The Protestant objection to Catholicism ultimately states: "We don't believe the Catholic Church has the authority it claims, and we believe that claimed authority has been used to add unbiblical doctrines and create barriers between believers and God."

Every argument about Mary, purgatory, the papacy, or the sacraments flows from that fundamental rejection.

The Catholic response maintains: Christ established a Church. He gave it authority. He promised the gates of hell would not prevail against it. He sent the Holy Spirit to guide it into all truth.

One can reject that authority, but then personal or denominational interpretation becomes the final arbiter of Christianity's meaning. From a Catholic perspective, the last 500 years of Protestant fragmentation demonstrates the inevitable result:

When everyone becomes their own interpretive authority, Christianity disintegrates into competing personal opinions organized into denominations.

Therefore, when engaging in Protestant-Catholic dialogue, the authority question deserves primary attention. Debating specific doctrines without first addressing whether the Catholic Church possesses teaching authority from Christ often proves unproductive. The authority question is foundational; everything else follows from one's answer to it.