Infallibility Of The Pope

Infallibility of the Pope: This is not biblical, first formally defined in 1870 with First Vatican Council.

Protestant Christian Understanding: Infallibility of the Pope: This is not biblical, first formally defined in 1870 with First Vatican Council.

Catholic Christian Understanding:  The infallibility of the Pope is biblical and it is important to understand that councils give specific meaning and understanding to doctrine, not make them up.  This is a practice Catholics have always held since the days of the Apostles.  

The biblical evidence of Papal infallibility and God speaking straight through the Pope is when Jesus pointed out that Peter was selected by God the Almighty to speak the Truth about Jesus and who He was in a time when there was a whole bunch of erroneous opinions about Jesus from the public.  It was PETER who spoke the Truth, THE ONE TRUE TRUTH, when he said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." and then Jesus replied making Peter the Rock from which the beam of light, the one truth, would shine through him as the foundation stone, through which God will speak and build His church.  The best way to understand it is by thinking of it as the infallibility of God Himself which is shown through the Pope.  It is God who is infallible and the Pope is His instrument.  

Paul says in 1st Timothy 3:15, "The CHURCH is the foundation and the pillar of the Truth."  

So the question to be asked here is:

 1) Can the Church be counted upon to fatefully pass on what Jesus has taught without error?  

2)  Can the TRUE Church teach heresy?  

3) Is there anything such as a church, any church, on earth that when it says it is speaking infallible and from God, does it have the power to do so? … If the answer to this is "NO", then the next logical question would be - 2) Then how do we possibly have an infallible Bible?  Because it was the Catholic Church that gathered the bible together at the Council of Carthage, guided by the Holy Spirit through humans to decide which books were Divine and which were not.  If you have a fallible Church, then you cannot have an infallible book (Bible) because God cannot error.

A very famous Protestant Theologian, R.C. Sproul, touches on this point.  Sproul is also famous for saying, "We (Protestants) have a fallible collection of Infallible books."  To which the Catholic would say, how is it possible to have that?  If those who compiled the bible were fallible, then how do we know the books (bible) are infallible?  Putting our emotions aside, it is logically contradictory.  If the Catholic Church is not fallible and it is full of error, then how is it that Paul is describing it  in 1st Timothy 3:15, "The CHURCH is the foundation and the pillar of the Truth."???

- "Upon This Rock" is a GREAT reference book for this topic as well, by Steven K. Ray. Jam packed with information and historical data and biblical backing to help understand this topic and back up what I just wrote.  

- Writer John Salza, "The Biblical Basis For The Papacy" another great reference for this topic.  

- Dave Armstrong also is very respected on this topic.