What is Protestantism without Catholicism?

Scales and Eggs

In John 17, Jesus prays a dying intention to the Father. He asks that His followers would be one, as He is one with the Father. He asks for unity to confirm that Jesus is who He says He is. Two things--Jesus cares about church unity and He wants unity to prove His Divinity. In Christianity, our 2 options are Protestantism and Catholicism. What is the difference? We say the human body is a composition of limbs, organs, blood, hair, nails and other components. What makes it a unified human body? Christians believe the body encapsulates the soul which is the image and likeness of God. What unites Protestants? A Protestant might say, "faith in Christ and the Bible." Yet, both are true of Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Catholics believe in Christ, as evidenced by the ancient Nicene Creed, which is recited weekly at Holy Mass. In addition, Catholics believe the inspired Word of God. So those 2 things cannot define Protestantism. Can 2 things define any serious faith? What makes reptiles a single category? We cannot say scales and eggs because that turns fish into reptiles. So, how do Protestant define faith?

Saturn's rings

The unification of all Protestants into a single identity is the opposition to the Catholic Church. Without it, there is a wandering diaspora of factions. For example, the rings around Saturn are composed of millions of objects orbiting around it. Without Saturn, the rings lose their foundation and meaning. Without Catholicism, Protestant ideas mimic loose asteroids that meander in disorganized directions. If the Catholic Church ceased to exist, how would Protestant denominations and communities relate to each other? Some believe baptism is essential for salvation while others do not. Some believe infants can be baptized, others do not and so forth. Agreement is unreachable, which means one thing is certain. As long as the Catholic Church exists, it remains the sole, unifying common denominator for Protestants, as they "protest" Apostolic tradition.

Splitting hairs

In the Catholic Church, there is a visible governing structure starting with St Peter the 1st pope, down through a hierarchy of ordained clergy who all minister the 7 sacraments. Protestant hierarchy, structure and visibility is unarticulated. As Catholics, we celebrate the Lord's Day in any town or country with unbroken unity. We know our place in the hierarchy and how to express the 4 marks of our faith: one, holy, catholic and apostolic. For Protestants, mental gymnastics is needed to describe unity. Is it mystical unity or an invisible body of unity? If they are united, why and how are hairs split between denominations? Within this chaos, how does the Father fulfill Christ's prayer for unity meanwhile demonstrating Jesus' full legitimacy to non-believers? The visible signs of unity within Protestantism appear to be rivalry, disagreement and inability to organize in a visible way. Zooming out, how would a reasonable outsider see hundreds of Protestant denominations as supernatural intervention?

Islamic perspectives

Persuasively, Muslims argue that Christian disunity and incoherence prove infidelity since, paradoxically, half of their members are used to both define and rival the other half. To the objective observer, Protestantism appears fragmented in the most basic, key doctrines of baptism and salvation. This disunity among believers led to the invention of new faiths: Lutheranism, Calvinism, Wesleyan, etc. How is this unified and universal, if each minister broke the Apostolic succession, naming religions after themselves? Currently, the unifying proof of denominations is "not Catholic." To attract non-believers, the burden on every Protestant is the same for Catholics: how do we prove we are the religion established by Jesus? Is it suspect when proof depends on negative terminology? Some denominations' proof-of-unity is membership numbers to justify fractions, slivers and populations. How do numbers prove a faith?

Sola Scripture

When outsiders see the extreme dependency that Protestants have on Catholicism, the landscape changes. The massive Catholic Church is prioritized by its substantial unity in doctrine, ecclesiology and history. It is traceable to the pre-Biblical ancient world. Opposing this, groups disagree on countless questions after the Bible was written--which was not present immediately post Jesus Christ. Therefore, how did we manage without Bibles? Moreover, Protestant Bibles have been subjectively modified, chapters removed and interpretations self-derived. For example, where in the Bible does it call for Sola Scriptura? Regarding hierarchy, a good visual is a sole Catholic Church family tree at the top with offshooting roots of breakaway movements. No faction has been able to outgrow Catholic membership, its sources, unity, compatibility and the magisterial richness of the faith. The attraction to Catholicism is that Pope Peter I and his apostle/bishops were given direct binding authority from Jesus. This inability to drift creates Protestant-faction dubiousness. Who oversees the authority that oversees the pastors? Do pastors choose their own board of directors? What if they dislike board members, decisions or are called out on bad behavior? Many leadership teams get burned and leave amidst clouds of scandal, creating the new colloquialism of our time, "church hurt." 

 Chains of Command

Sts Irenaeus and Ignatius of Antioch, firmly believed in apostolic succession based on the authority given to Peter the Rock, upon which the Catholic Church was built. Jesus delegated all decision-making to Peter. Over time, this Divine authority was meticulously documented, depicting each ordained successor. Why would Jesus establish apostolic authority, only to have it falter in the times of Luther et al? Why spend time and bloodshed building a succession structure if ordination need not descend from Himself? Moreover, the early church had sacraments. Jesus, in His bread of life discourse, repeatedly states His transubstantiated body/blood is the only true form of worship, see John 6. This is described by Sts Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr from the 1st century who include strict instructions on Holy Eucharist consecration. These instructions clearly state, not to give the Holy Eucharist to the unbaptized and uninstructed. 

What is Truth?

Catholics believe in the True Presence of Jesus in the bread and wine. Protestants do not. If the Eucharist is a "symbolic" ceremony of remembrance, how can it be described as intrinsically holy? And why withhold it from the unbaptized and uninstructed? Once baptized, further sacraments are layered over time following clear, discrete formation. Sins must be confessed before receiving the Eucharist--purifying the heart to receive the unbloodied sacrifice on Calvary. Ordained priests, not just anyone, are the sole performers of sacraments. Protestants mention Catholicism in sermons because it is our collective DNA, upon which contingencies hang. Conversely, Catholics rarely sermonize Protestants unless out of concern but certainly not with rivalry.

A house of cards

An outsider searching competing options, sees 2 possible directions. However, the deeper one looks into Protestantism; its unity is contingent upon opposition to Catholicism. Without the Catholic Church, Protestantism cannot exist. Early Catholic fixtures--apostolic authority, a sacrificial Eucharist, confession and other sacraments, deference to the bishop of Rome, veneration of saints, etc--form Catholics into a unified, mystical body of Christ. The word protestant, by definition, means rebellion. Logic dictates that an effect cannot surpass its cause, a stream cannot rise higher than its source or a derivative cannot exceed its principle. Protestantism cannot surpass Catholicism because it depends on every one of its doctrines for existence. It cannot lay claim to anything original that Catholics don't already possess, except deviations. Jesus established Catholicism as independent, formal, unified, complete and edifyingly Divine. Anything else is a dilute, dependent variation.

Source

What is Protestantism without Catholicism? | Brian Holdsworth