Calvin rages against the church in Rome: In my experience the Catholic church offers not only the visible reminder of the Holy, but is concerned for the spiritual welfare of its members. The RC Catechism calls the Church God's response to the caos brought into the world through sin.
"By their double-horned argument they do not press us so hard that we are forced to admit either that the church has been lifeless for some time or that we are now in conflict with it. Surely the church of Christ has lived and will live so long as Christ reigns at the right hand of his Father. It is sustained by his hand; defended by his protection; and is kept safe through his power. For he will surely accomplish what he once promised: that he will be present with his own even to the end of the world [Matt. 28:20]. Against this church we now have no quarrel. For, of one accord with all believing folk, we worship and adore one God, and Christ the Lord [I Cor. 8:6], as he has always been adored by all godly men. But they stray very far from the truth when they do not recognize the church unless they see it with their very eyes, and try to keep it within limits to which it cannot at all be confined.
Our controversy turns on these hinges: first, they contend that the form of the church is always apparent and observable." Preface to The Institutes of the Christian Religion 5,6.
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Comment by my Catholic Priest friend.
At issue in Calvin's "The Nature of the Church" is whether or not a
true
Church can ever act less godly? Although one would never dispute that
His Church must act or should act, or hope to act godly; to believe
that
the Church, or perhaps better said, its members can never act unsaintly
to be a credible church would seem to turn St. Paul's call to
conversion
on its head. The early Church leaders, indeed the Apostles themselves
never admitted to live fully pure and sainted lives. But to then
maintain that because they (the Apostles) sometimes "do things which
they should not do" (to paraphrase St. Paul) they are not part of the
true Body of Christ would be preposterous from the onset.
What Calvin suggests is that the sometimes sinful institution (or
visible structure) of the Catholic Church is not part of the Body of
Christ because of its inability to maintain purity at all times. Would
one suggest that all followers of Calvin (and the spin off churches),
indeed Calvin himself has never fallen short of pure life in Christ?
Has Calvin or any of his followers, at any time hesitated in living a
godly life? If so, they must be devoid of being connected to the Body
of Christ? But if it is possible that sin exists among the Calvinists
and their churches ... then is it wise to cast stones? What is Calvin
attempting to prove?
Calvin legislates the impossible: If the visible Church sins, then
only
the invisible Church ultimately triumphs. The invisible Church, means
a
church without observable structure, codes, doctrine, etc. It is a
church in the imagery of the individual congregant alone. It is not
the
Church of the Apostles who gathered in the upper room in fear in
trembling. This fantasy structure would not even allow for Calvin's
Institutes to be promulgated. For once an error is found within the
Institutes--the whole treatise, the whole written structure, must be
suspect, for it is corrupted human formulation.
I appreciate the reformation period as a time to "clean up the church";
however to believe that the Church can be replaced by a church of the
invisible will rationally, quite frankly, disprove itself in the end.
The "church of the perfect" is indeed both unrealistic and quite
invisible, BECAUSE IT DOESN'T EXIST. The Church that Jesus founded
included Peter who denied Christ three-times and Paul who struggled to
witness to the end.
Saying this however does not warrant a sinful Church; it simply states
the obvious, the Church is made of up of human beings hoping for a
kingdom beyond themselves. Conversion is the call of the Christian.
Fr. Mike Weber
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