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I read William's article defending the church office of priesthood, and was not impressed at all. He argues mostly from silence. At the most, he showed biblical warrant for A New Testament sacrifice (The Book of Revelation is highly symbolic) for a bishop or apostle, but he did not show evidence for a separate church office of priesthood. He did not show that priests were hearing and forgiving sins (absolution) in the west before the seventh century. Whatever happend to universality, antiquity and consent as being the norm of authentic Christian belief? (St. Vincent of Lerins). And the patristic quotes he gave (assuming they are correct translations) say nothing about confession to a PRIEST and receiving absolution from a PRIEST. He's dishonest, like Catholics have always been. He overstates his claim, and exagerates in his conclusion. St. John says in 1:9 that if we confess our sins, God will forgive us. There was no auricular confession when he penned those words. Since we receive forgiveness when we confess to God, then confessing to a priest is unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteThe evidence shows that confession evolved from public confession to private confession, and was made to monks, not priests. Public confession is found in the Didache (William argued that thie is talking about priests) and Epistle of Barnabas 6:2. J.N.D Kelly of Oxford writes:
"With the dawn of the third century the rough outlines of a recognized penitential discipline were beginning to take shape. In-spite of the ingenious arguments of certain scholars, there are still no signs of a sacrament of private penance (i.e. confession to a priest, followed by absolution and the imposition of a penance) such as Catholic Christendum knows to-day...The system which seems to have existed in the Church at this time, and for centuries afterwords, was wholly public, involving confession, a period of penance and exclusion from communion, and formal absolution and restoration - the whole process being called exomologesis." (Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines: Revised Edition, p. 216.).
The Harper Collins Encyclopedia of Catholicism states: "Modern biblical scholars today, however, do not find either in the text or in the context of these passages [Matt. 16:16; 18:18; John 20:23] an account of an institution of a reconciliation ritual." (Osborne, The Harper Collins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, p. 1083) (brackets mine).
In Augustine's later writings, confession was for grave sins like adultery. (On the Creed, 15,16). Smaller sins were taken care of by prayer to God.(On the Creed, 15, 16).
See this article by Keith Thompson against the church office of priesthood.
http://www.reformedapologeticsministries.com/2014/03/refuting-catholic-priesthood-and-penance.html
William is a filthy and dishonest Roman Catholic liar, like "Catholics" have always been.