The Bible and the Church fathers support the doctrine of papal infallibility.

Capitalization is provided for emphasis only. I would like to thank my opponent for his response. I found it interesting. Having said that, I did have a few concerns. He seems to be confused as to what the Catholic Church teaches regarding papal infallibility. I will give an example: CON'S CONFUSION: Last round, Con said: "The first thing that I"ll do is to clarify the definition of Papal Infallibility that I will be attempting to refute. As defined post-Vatican I, Papal Infallibility is the doctrine that, in layman"s English, the Pope can not only make no error when speaking ex cathedra on matters concerning doctrine, faith, and morals etc., but that he is also prevented from making errors, something that is supposedly the result of the Holy Spirit residing in him as a result of his papacy." MY RESPONSE: Con is only half right. The Church teaches that the Pope is ONLY infallible when speaking "ex-cathedra". Despite what Con said, he is NOT "also prevented from making errors... as a result of his papacy." The Pope isn't infallible in EVERYTHING he says. Certain conditions need to be met before the Church considers something the Pope says to be infallible: 1."the Roman Pontiff" 2."speaks ex cathedra" ("that is, when in the discharge of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, and by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority....") 3."he defines" 4."that a doctrine concerning faith or morals" 5."must be held by the whole Church" (Pastor Aeternus, chap. 4) [3] Con then goes on to say that "common sense" denies the possibility of a human being able to be protected from error, but this is problematic for his case. I say so because the Bible records several acts by human beings doing things that would normally defy common sense. But once you realize they are doing it with God's help, you understand how such a feat is possible. For example, Peter walked on water (Matthew 14:29), and Peter's shadow healed sick people (Acts 5:15). So considering how Jesus said "Whatever you bind on Earth is bound in Heaven" (Matthew 16:19), it is reasonable to believe that God protected Peter from teaching doctrinal error. CON MISQUOTED THE BIBLE My opponent claims Galatians 2:11-14 (NIV) states that Paul rebuked Peter for being "clearly wrong", but the phrase "clearly wrong" is not found anywhere in the passage. But even if it did, this passage could STILL not be used to deny papal infallibility. Peter was rebuked for what he DID; not for what he TAUGHT. The doctrine of infallibility is ONLY concerned with official TEACHINGS, not BEHAVIORS. (See condition 4 above) POPE STEVEN VI Ordinations are not doctrinal teachings, and as such, do not fall under the category of infallibility. With this in mind, Con's claims concerning Pope Steven VI are irrelevant when it comes our discussion (See condition 4 above). Again, Con seems confused as to what exactly the phrase "papal infallibility" means. POPE LIBERIUS Con offered no source to support his claim that Pope Liberius signed a heretical creed and /or condemned Athanasius. As such, His claim should be disregarded. I would submit that no such evidence exists: "Allegedly Pope Liberius not only held to an incorrect view of Jesus, but actually endorsed this by signing onto a heretical creed. The fourth century was a hard time for the Catholic Church. Despite all hopes of orthodox Catholics, the Arian movement was growing, especially when Emperor Constantius made it his business to spread Arianismthroughout the empire. He was gaining strong ecclesiastical support, but he wasn"t able to change Pope Liberius" mind. Constantius had Liberius arrested and taken to Milan to appear before him. He was pressured to comply with his will, but Pope Liberius resisted, thus Constantius banished Liberius to live in exile. After 2 years of imprisonment, harassment and exile Liberius was released. Why was he released"did he finally give in and sign this heretical creed, or did the emperor finally give up this battle of the wills? Although it"s possible that Liberius did buckle under the pressure the following evidence indicates he didn"t. Patrick Madrid writes, "Had he really given in to the emperor during his exile, the emperor would have published his victory far and wide; there would have been no possible doubt about it".." So if Pope Liberius did end up signing this creed, why was there only silence? While it"s true that this is an argument from silence, it can"t be ignored. Assuming the worst case scenario is true, Pope Liberius only signed the creed after two years of harassment, exile and coercion. The signing didn"t come from his own free will, and for this reason papal infallibility isn"t an issue" (Pope Fiction, pp. 144-147)." [4] AGAIN CON SEEMS TO NOT UNDERSTAND THE DOCTRINE My opponent tries to make the argument that a Pope could infallibly teach that murder was a moral act. This is not the case. The Church has already defined murder a immoral, so to reverse the position, the Church would have to admit she was initially wrong. Such a move by the Pope would automatically deny the doctrine of infallibility even before murder was declared moral. Therefore it's not possible to reverse a doctrine and still claim infallibility. EXPLICIT TEACHINGS FROM THE BIBLE Con attempts to argue that the doctrine of papal infallibility cannot be true because it is not explicitly taught in the Bible. I would assert this argument is self-refuting. That's because the belief that every doctrine we are to accept needs to be explicitly found in the Bible is itself NOT explicitly found in the Bible. In other words the doctrine that says we should ONLY accept explicit teachings is not explicitly taught. So since the Bible doesn't explicitly teach we should ONLY accept explicit teachings, there's no reason to accept Con's argument. IS MY OPPONENT AN INFALLIBLE INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE? Con offers his own interpretations of the Bible verses I offered in round one. This leads me to an obvious question: Does my opponent believe he is protected from error while interpreting the Bible? In other words, is he infallible? If the answer is "no", then he really can't say that the Catholic Church is wrong. All he can say is that he disagrees. And if he can't say the doctrine of infallibility is wrong, then he can't say the doctrine is unreasonable. WILL GUIDE YOU TO ALL TRUTH Con claims that when Jesus says we will be guided to all truth, that all individual Christians (instead of the Pope) will recognize the truth. This may sound nice, but it doesn't work in reality. The reason we have over 23,000 denominations in the United States alone is because none of them completely agree with each other. Each of them thinks what.they believe is true, but they can't all be right. So either Con is wrong when it comes to his interpretation of the verses from John, or the Holy Spirit is guiding us into error. LUKE 10:16 My opponent says this verse is referring to preaching the good news. Considering his earlier claims that we should reject what is not explicitly found in the Bible, this is a rather curious statement. I say so because nowhere in the verse is "good news", or "the.good news" or "the gospel" mentioned. In reality, the verse says "Whoever hears you, hears me." So the question is, if you hear Jesus, is it possible you are hearing an error? What could Jesus be wrong about? Matthew 16:19 Con claims that this verse is only referring to "healings and other miracles". The problem with this interpretation is that neither healings or miracles are mentioned (let alone singled out). Here's what the verse ACTUALLY says (emphasis mine): "WHATEVER you bind onEarth will be bound in Heaven. WHATEVER you loose on Earth will be loosed in Heaven." So you see, Jesus didn't limit this authority to just healings and other miracles. He said WHATEVER you bind... Finally, we've already seen that Galatians 2:1 doesn't refer to doctrinal errors. DOES THIS AUTHORITY EXTEND TO PETER'S SUCCESSORS? When Jesus spoke those words to Peter, he was referring to a passage in Isaiah 22. 19 I will thrust you from your office, and you will be cast down from your station. 20 In that day I will call my servant EliR42;akim the son of HilkiR42;ah, 21 and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your girdle on him, and will commit your authority to his hand; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. 22 And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. Notice a couple of things here. One, the position God is referring to is one of succession. One person is being replaced by another person. Secondly, notice the parallel language between this passage and Matthew 16:19: Isaiah 22:22 "And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open." Now compare this to Matthew 16:19: " I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Both include the handing over the keys of authority, and binding and loosing. Clearly Jesus had the Isaiah 22 in mind when he spoke in Matthew 16, and Isaiah 22 is a story of succession. With this in mind, it seems pretty clear to me Jesus was promising the same authority of the.keys and binding and loosing to Peter's successors. MATTHEW 23:1-3 Con says this passage only says we should have good morals. But that's not all it says. It specifically says we should do "whatever they tell you." So the question is, would Jesus tell you to follow WHATEVER they tell you if they didn't speak with God's authority? DID CYPRIAN SUPPORT PAPAL INFALLIBILITY? Con said what Cyprian said was not clear, but let's take another look: "If someone [today] does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he [should] desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?" Does that sound like someone who has any doubts about what the Pope teaches? MORE CHURCH FATHERS Origen "[I]f we were to attend carefully to the Gospels, we should also find, in relation to those things which seem to be common to Peter . . . a great difference and a preeminence in the things [Jesus] said to Peter, compared with the second class [of apostles]. For it is no small difference that Peter received the keys not of one heaven but of more, and in order that whatsoever things he binds on earth may be bound not in one heaven but in them all, as compared with the many who bind on earth and loose on earth, so that these things are bound and loosed not in [all] the heavens, as in the case of Peter, but in one only; for they do not reach so high a stage with power as Peter to bind and loose in all the heavens" (Commentary on Matthew 13:31 [A.D. 248]). [5] Sources: 3.http://en.m.wikipedia.org... 4.http://www.catholicfaithandreason.org... 5.http://www.catholic.com...