Are Catholics Christians?

"Are Catholics Christians?"
Dr. Gregory A. Wills answers in Honest Answers | Episode 47

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[karlwolf]

The Catholic Church has existed for two thousand years, and the oldest Protestant ones just over 500. These fundamental teachings that you speak of have existed long before any Protestant reforms, and Jesus said of this Catholic Church that he built, "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it." So then how can they be wrong, and how can the altered teachings about salvation and such be right?


Does it really make sense to say that the Catholic Church, handed down from the time of Jesus and the apostles, was the one true church for 1500 years, and then suddenly it was no longer so, and its doctrines became wrong? To think that God's own Church needed human reformers to "correct" its central doctrines is quite blasphemous, if you ask me.

[Jacob-hxkk]

Catholics believe we are saved by grace through faith. Where works enter the equation is that we are expected to not only accept the free gift of faith, which cannot be earned and is bestowed by the grace of God, but also *work* to maintain our life in that grace. We are expected to do good works in order to maintain our faith, but we do not believe that any amount of good works can *earn* saving faith.

In other words, we cooperate with the grace we are given by God for our salvation.

[michaelalguire]

I was raised Catholic. As far as I'm concerned if someone truly believes in Jesus, good works will come naturally. If someone is doing good works to avoid hell fire then the good works they do don't come from the heart.

[brendonpremkumar]

One thing that a lot of Protestants do not know about is that in 1999, the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation signed a joint document stating that salvation is by grace through faith. What Catholics need to realize about Protestants is that they do not believe that you get saved by saying a prayer. What Protestants need to realize about Catholics is that they do not believe you can work your way into heaven.

[connormacleod]

Ask a protestant who founded their church they will give a man's name. Ask a Catholic who founded the Catholic church they will answer Jesus, God the Son.

[sdboyd]

This is laughable. I can point to many people in every century since 33 AD that were Catholic. They believed in regenerative baptism, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, a hierarchical Church with the bishop of Rome as the head. When I was a Baptist I couldn’t find anyone that resembled my beliefs until the 16th century. The Bible is a Catholic book. We canonized it in the Councils of Rome, Carthage and Hippo. I don’t need anyone in this world to tell me that I’m a Christian.

[GratiaPrima_]

I studied the Bible in the Baptist Church and because of that the Catholic traditions made PERFECT sense to me as the whole truth. So. The opposite of what he said. And explains why Catholics who have studied are the ones who do NOT leave.

[Ornamentmountain]

Its really sad that this “Christian” comment section looks just like any other. Snarky and argumentative like the world. I was hoping to reason on here but it all looks a bit too much like the rest of YouTube.

[johnsteila]

The authors of this video are very ignorant. I’m asking them to engage with me in a debate on the legitimacy of Catholicism. Will you respond or will you hide?…

[eglantinepapeau]

of course we are christian, what question is this ? 🧐we pray to Jesus Christ our savior, what else could we be ?

[joshua]

The elephant in the room is the fact that for 1500 years the Christian church was catholic. So according to this line of thinking there were Christian’s at the time of Jesus and then they disappeared for a while and then popped back up with Luther. Either that or their were invincibly ignorant Catholics. But why would the Holy Spirit not guide the church into true doctrine for so long? Especially to the extent this man is talking about. He’s basically saying for most of church history a majority of Christian’s were actually damned because they didn’t believe in doctrines that didn’t even exist yet like scripture alone or faith alone.
I’m not a Catholic. I’m not even sure if I’m a Protestant. I’m struggling with it but I’m not going to play bias with this. I’m going to investigate and seek the truth.

[brianw.]

Catholics are the original Christians. Protestants came 1, 500 years later and are 30, 000 denominations.

[TruthHasSpoken]

Interesting, every time that you open the scriptures, you are reading from a Catholic book, even using the very same New Testament canon as decided by late 4th century Catholics, first Bishops meeting in Rome (382 ad) and then confirmed by Bishops meeting in Hippo (393 ad) and Carthage (397 ad). This list of 27 New Testament writings out of 300+ early Christian writings is not found in scripture. Inconsistently for you, you tacitly trust in their authority to have decided the NT canon - yet your reject their decision on the Old Testament canon when they said it was 46 writings (7 said not be inspired by Father Luther who had no authority 1, 100 years later). Inconsistent too, these 4th c Bishops ALL believed that through their words of consecration as priests, the bread and wine transformed into the resurrected Christ.

So this raises many questions for Southern Seminary :

1. Just HOW does the Holy Spirit work, consistently or inconsistently?

And what did Christ mean when he said :

2. Christ is the head of his Church. (Col 1: 18)
3. Christ''s Church is the pillar of truth (1 Tim 3: 15)
4. Christ's Church is the bulwark of truth. (1 Tim 3: 15)
5. Christ's Church is where the manifold wisdom of God is made known. (Eph 3: 10)
6. Christ PROMISED to lead it to ALL Truth. (Jn 16: 13)
7. Christ PROMISED that he would NEVER leave it. (Mt 28: 20)
8. Christ PROMISED that the gates of hell would not prevail (it will not teach doctrinal error) ; (Mt 16: 18)

9. Do you believe Christ was undependable and a liar as he failed repeated above, especially #6 and #8 (I hope not) ?
10. Do you believe that these 4th c Bishops - ALL Catholics - were pagans? And that you are using a (their) pagan book?

[amixofeverything]

You do realize that there were Christians around long before Martin Luther, don't you?

[versatilelord]

I actually believe Catholics (converts in particular) are the most passionate Christians on the face of the earth.

[prackertracker]

The Most Holy Catholic Church with the pontificate of the successor of the Apostle Peter is the only true Church, which was founded by Jesus Christ himself and to which the fullness of salvation has been entrusted. Anyone who knowingly and consistently rejects it rejects the visible body of Christ on earth and incurs the wrath of God with eternal damnation in the fires of hell.

[davidsousalopes]

As a very passive Catholic, I ask you - Who would you rather have interpreting the Bible, the Church that compiled it and has been working on it for 2000 years, or a televangelist from rural America?

[_Nasrani_]

Question:
Which one of the 200(approx) denominations of Protestants are the real Christians?

[edrain]

Not all Christians understand that the Church established by Jesus Christ was the Catholic Church. Some are of the remarkable belief that there was no "Church" and that the early Christians all just got baptized, read the Bible, and prayed together, and were "saved." 

Jesus Christ established the Catholic Church and commissioned the Apostle Peter as the person responsible for it after his Ascension. (Matthew 16:16-20). And we know Peter was recognized as such and that he fulfilled this role. (Mk 1:36; Lk 9:28, 32; Acts 2:37; Acts 3:6-12; Acts 9:40; Acts 20:28; 1 Cor 15:4-8; 1 Cor 9:5; 1 Pet 5:2; . . . among a great many others.)

[matthewbianco]

I love how all these anti-Catholics assume things about the church when they’ve never been Catholic themselves and never actually gone in depth into what the church teaches and it’s history it’s hilarious