The One True Church
Note: The primary purpose of this website is to guide you to heaven. It was written to provide evidence that there is a God interested in the salvation of your soul. Jesus Christ is that God and he established the Catholic Church to lead you to a moral life and heaven. This section examines the evidence for the existence of only one true church, whose teachings can guide you to heaven.
Posted: 2/3/2020 Updated: 3/26/2020
Table of Contents for this Section
What is Truth?
Divine founder
Apostolic succession
Sacraments
Deposit of Faith – Scripture & Tradition
The Magisterium
Doctrinal Continuity
Doctrinal Development
The Catholic Church – True and False
The raison d’etre for this website is to help you know how to get to heaven. God, the creator of heaven and earth, knows from all eternity what is required to reach heaven. His son Jesus revealed the necessary information to his apostles and founded his Church to “make disciples of all nations.” That church will become evident by its adherence to Truth.
What is Truth?
[Jesus said,] “… for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.” [Pontius] Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” John 18:37-38
Truth is that which is in agreement with reality. When there is a great deal at stake, as is the case with salvation, it is extremely important to know the truth. The first step is to know which Christian church has the fullness of Truth.
The task of identification seems daunting, since the number of Christian denominations is huge. One well-known source (WCE) estimated that there are more than 33,000! Wikipedia lists about forty major Christian denominations. Whatever the actual number, there are several hallmarks of the one true church that will enable you to identify it.
• Divine Founder
• Apostolic Succession
• Sacraments
• Deposit of Faith – Tradition & Scripture
• The Magisterium
• Doctrinal Continuity
• Doctrinal Development
• Cafeteria Catholicism – A False Religion
Divine Founder
The chart lists the founders of several non-Christian religions and some Christian denominations. The most important thing to notice is that the Catholic and Orthodox Churches have Jesus as their founder … God himself! All other Christian churches and non-Christian religions are founded by men. This conclusion is based on the notion of apostolic succession.
Founders of Major Religions and Christian Denominations
| Religion or Denomination | Year | Founder |
|---|---|---|
| Hinduism | ca. 1500 BC | Unknown |
| Judaism | ca. 1300 BC | Abraham |
| Buddhism | ca. 500 BC | Siddhartha Gautama |
| Catholic/Orthodox Christianity | 33 AD | Jesus Christ |
| Islam | 610 AD | Muhammad |
| Catholic/Orthodox Schism | 1054 AD | Leo IX/Patriarch Cerularius |
| Lutheran | 1517 AD | Martin Luther |
| Anglican (Church of England) | 1534 AD | King Henry VIII |
| Presbyterian | 1560 AD | John Knox |
| Baptist | 1605 AD | John Smyth |
| Methodist | 1744 AD | John Wesley |
| Mormon | 1829 AD | Joseph Smith |
| Jehovah's Witnesses | 1870 AD | Charles Russell |
| Pentecostalism | 1900 AD | Charles Parham |
| Nondenominational Christianity | ca. 1950 AD | Numerous human founders |
Apostolic Succession
Apostolic succession is the idea that the validity of a Christian church or denomination is tied to the claim that its bishops can trace their offices back to Jesus and his apostles (bishops), by “the laying on of hands.” The biblical reference for this is 2 Tim 2:2 in which the apostle Paul talks about the first four generations of apostolic succession (Paul, Timothy’s generation, the generation Timothy will teach, and the generation after that). The quote is, “and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”
The sacrament (see below) that is relevant to apostolic succession is Holy Orders, i.e., priestly ordination. This sacrament leaves a permanent mark on the soul. When two Christian churches separate, their bishops still retain the power to ordain new bishops. That is what happened at the Catholic/Orthodox Schism (split). So, these two churches still retain apostolic succession.
The Catholic/Anglican split is more complicated. Catholics claimed the Anglicans lost apostolic succession after the initial group of English bishops died, because of a technical issue; the Anglicans disagreed. But there seems to be another major obstacle to valid Anglican succession. Namely, the manner in which the split came about.
Henry VIII was so determined to divorce his wife, that he did so over the pope’s objection. Then he forced the bishops to separate from the Vatican and approve his divorce. He went so far as to execute (by beheading) a dissenting Cardinal John Fisher and the Lord High Chancellor Thomas More (see A Man for All Seasons). They both refused to take the oath of supremacy, which would have acknowledged Henry VII as the supreme head of the Church of England.
Regarding Lutherans and Methodists, their claim to legitimate succession appears to be even more tenuous. Most other Protestant denominations don’t even claim an apostolic lineage.
Sacraments
Christian theologians are virtually unanimous that grace is required for salvation. As Thomas Aquinas wrote in his Summa Theologica (I-II:109:2-10), “special grace is necessary to do any supernaturally good act, to love God, to fulfill God’s commandments, to gain eternal life, to prepare for salvation, to rise from sin, to avoid sin, and to persevere.”
Sacraments are the normal means of obtaining grace and seven are shown in the photo and chart.
A sacrament is a visible sign, instituted by Christ and faithfully passed on by the apostles, to give grace. All except baptism require a validly ordained priesthood, and only Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy can make that claim. Anglicans have all seven sacraments, but their claim to apostolic succession is questionable. Protestants generally have two sacraments, baptism and Eucharist (or the Lord’s Supper). Most Protestants have no priesthood; therefore, their Eucharist is not the real body and blood of Christ. So, it is not a means of grace.
Of course, God can use any means he chooses to give grace. For example, many Protestant denominations say that only faith is necessary to obtain the grace for salvation. However, that assertion is refuted in the Epistle of James 2:24 (“man is justified by works and not faith alone.”).
Evidence that works (keeping the commandments & doing good deeds) are also required for salvation is given by Jesus himself: “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And [Jesus] said to him, “… If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” (Mt 19:16-17) But, as was previously mentioned, grace is required to do good works, and grace normally proceeds from the sacraments. There are two religious bodies that can legitimately provide these to you – Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
(Special Note: Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians can receive an abundance of graces through the sacraments. But they can freely defy the will of God and fall from grace, like anyone else.)
New Testament (NT) Evidence for the Seven Sacraments
| Sacrament | Quotation | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Baptism | [Jesus said,] “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” | Mt 28:19 |
| Confirmation | When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. | Acts 8:15-17 |
| Eucharist | And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise, the cup after supper. | Lk 22:19-20 |
| Penance | “And when [Jesus] had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” | Jn 20:22-23 |
| Anointing of the Sick | Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and … if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. | Jas 5:14-15 |
| Holy Orders | the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. | Acts 13:2-3 |
| Matrimony | “For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery (sacrament), and I [Paul] mean in reference to Christ and the church. | Eph 5:31-32; Mt 19:5; Gn 2:24 |
Deposit of Faith – Scripture & Tradition
In the present day, and especially with the advent of high-capacity digital transcription and storage, large organizations don’t use oral communication to pass on important information. However, in the early days of Christianity, when the process of transcription was time-consuming and expensive, oral traditions were dominant. These Traditions were “handed down” from the apostles to their followers and included their preaching, their example, and the institutions they established. Over time, these were supplemented by the written word – the Scriptures. Together they comprise the Deposit of Faith.
The Catholics, the Orthodox and the Anglicans view both oral and written forms equally significant in the life of the Church. There is no comparable concept in most Protestant churches because they were founded hundreds of years after the apostles died. Their only source of revealed Truth is the bible (sola scriptura). Protestants could tap into the oral traditions through the written works of the early church fathers, but that might lead them to a place they don’t want to go.
Even the Anglican Church has succumbed to this trend and is in grave danger of disintegrating. They use the “three-legged stool” of Scripture, tradition and human reason, with the expectation that well-meaning people of good will can come to the agree on the Truth. Good intentions are not enough because human nature is deficient.
The oral tradition is crucial to maintaining a proper understanding of the written word. Today, if you were writing a posthumous biography of someone, you wouldn’t depend only on their writings. You would search out friends, relatives and colleagues of the person and interview them at length. Then you would piece together the true biography from both the written legacy and the testimonies of his contemporaries. This is exactly what happened in the early church.
However, even the bible and oral tradition are not sufficient to determine Truth. Otherwise, who would even have the authority to determine what books belong in the bible canon (set of authoritative texts). This is exactly the situation that occurred at the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
Martin Luther, the acknowledged founder, tossed out the seven Old Testament books considered canonical since the 4th century Councils. He also rejected the New Testament books of Hebrews, Jude, Revelation and James. “But this personal judgment of Luther was not generally accepted among his followers.” So, who gets to determine what texts are in the bible? Luther? His followers? You or me?
This is why it is necessary to have the authority to teach. The guidance of the Holy Spirit is also required.
The Magisterium
The magisterium is the teaching authority of the Catholic Church. No other Christian church makes this claim about its teaching authority.
“It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.” Dei Verbum 10
If this claim is true, then there is no need to continue the search for the one true church; Catholicism is the one. So, what is the basis for this claim?
The most important are these bible verses which establish Peter as the first pope:
“And I [Jesus] tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you [Peter] 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.” (Mt 16:18-19)
These verses are very crucial in the debate about the papacy between Protestants and Catholics. Protestants would be hard put to justify their faith as true if Peter was the first pope and Jesus’ church was, therefore, the Catholic Church. But, if an unbiased person could be found, he would necessarily confirm that Jesus was talking about Peter (note the singular case word “you” is used 5 times) as the leader of the church he was founding.
Here, in brief, are some other arguments for Peter being the church’s first pope:
• Jesus changes his name from Simon to Peter, as his Father changed Abram’s name to Abraham, when he established the Jewish covenant with him.
• Peter, the first pope, is named 195 times in the New Testament – more than all the other Apostles combined.
• Peter was one of only three apostles to be present at Jesus’ Transfiguration. (Mt 17:1-2)
• Jesus entrusted Peter: to lead the apostles to resist the temptation of Satan (Lk 22:31-32); to oversee the election of a new apostle (Acts 1:13-26); to preach the first post-resurrection sermon (Acts 2:14); to perform the first apostolic miracle (Acts 3:6-7); to excommunicate the first heretic (Acts 8:18-21); to be the first to baptize Gentiles (Acts 10:44-48); to preside over the first apostolic council and proclaim the first apostolic dogma (Acts 15:6-21);
Finally, the magisterial authority of the Catholic Church is not just the pope, but the bishops in communion with him, all subservient to the Deposit of Faith (Tradition & Scripture) handed down from the apostles. That is why she claims authority in her unchanged teaching of faith and morals. The basis for her authority rests, in part, on the statements of Jesus and his apostles:
• [Jesus said,] “If another member of the church sins against you, [and refuses to repent], tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” (Mt 18:15-18)
• “Obey your [church] leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls and will give an account.” (Heb 13:17)
• “if I [Paul] am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.” (1 Tim 3:15)
Doctrinal Continuity
Another important hallmark of the one true church is the consistency of its doctrine. Individuals who are serious about salvation, are interested in understanding the original teachings of Christ and his disciples. One such person was John Henry Cardinal Newman, a 19th-century convert from Anglicanism to Catholicism.
“To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.” St. John Henry Cardinal Newman
While still an Anglican, but becoming disenchanted by the prevailing attitude of many in his time, that Christianity “is to each man what each man thinks it to be, and nothing else.” So, he set out to better understand how the church and its doctrines developed over time. He went backward in time, century by century, eventually to the time of Christ. He discovered that “there is a real continuity of beliefs, that the Catholic Church has existed from day one of Church history, and that it is, in fact, the Church established by Christ.”
His research relied on historical analysis of the New Testament, and the Church Fathers, learned men who wrote about the early church from the first to the seventh century. He found that the teachings of the Catholic Church have remained essentially unchanged for the better part of two millennia.
These are some of the Catholic doctrines that Newman and others* have documented, in addition to those described previously:
• The canon of scripture & other early Church documents
• Mortal sin
• The sins of contraception (or birth control) & abortion
• Infant baptism
• The Real (Eucharistic) Presence
• Bishop, priest & deacon
• Mary, full of grace
mother of God
ever virgin
• Purgatory
• Salvation outside the Church
* Jimmy Akin, The Fathers Know Best – Your Essential Guide to the Teachings of the Early Church
Doctrinal Development
John Henry Cardinal Newman’s work An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, also defended the idea that doctrine can develop over time without contradicting its earlier meaning. More recently, jurist John Noonan evaluated five Catholic moral teachings that, he claimed, have fundamentally changed – slavery, usury, religious freedom, divorce and contraception. I’ll briefly explain why Noonan was mistaken in each case.
• The sin of usury, in ancient times, meant charging any interest on a loan. Today, the sin of usury means “the illegal action or practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest.” In both cases, the moral principle is the same – to avoid exploitation. The difference is explained by the changes in the financial system. The modern definition permits fair compensation for expenses, the risks of loss and opportunity costs. Today, a loan shark is a usurer; most bankers are not.
• Slavery is a system that treats a class of people as property. “Jesus … said not a word against slavery as a social institution.” Nevertheless, he spoke incessantly about loving one another and caring for the less fortunate. His followers, many of whom were slaves themselves, successfully worked to carry out his teaching at the local level. Eventually, Rome fell and the system of slavery evolved into serfdom, ameliorating the degradation of the slave system.
Slavery re-emerged in the late Middle Ages. From the beginning of the African slave trade in the 15th century until its demise in the 19th century, no less than eight condemnations of the slave trade and/or slavery were issued by popes. Despite these pronouncements, slavery continued.
According to one writer, part of the reason was: “All of these teachings, nonetheless, went unknown to the Catholic faithful of the U.S., perhaps through willful ignorance, or were explained away by many of the American bishops and clergy. Thus, we can look to the practice of dissent from the teachings of the Papal Magisterium as a key reason why slavery was not directly opposed by the Church in the United States.”
• For most of the last 1500 years, the state protected the Church’s right to religious freedom. Within the last 200 years, secular forces have tried to attack the Church, and popes condemned this aggression. The Catechism states: “The right to religious liberty is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error, but rather a natural right of the human person to civil liberty, i.e., immunity, within just limits, from external constraint in religious matters by political authorities.” (CCC 2108)
Church teaching has developed as the society’s attitude vis-à-vis the Church has moved from favor to hostility.
• Church acceptance of the Pauline Privilege (1 Cor 7:10-16) allowing divorce for non-sacramental marriages under rare circumstances, has expanded, according to Noonan. Christ’s words in Mt 19:2-9 say that the marriage bond is indissoluble. Therefore, Noonan argues, Paul changed Church doctrine. The correct response is that “both statements enjoy ‘equal’ authority as texts of Sacred Scripture. … Paul’s pronouncement of an ‘exception’ to the indissolubility of marriage was not, then, the Church’s creation of an exception …, but was the biblical completion of the understanding of Christ’s meaning.”
• Noonan, a member of the papal commission that recommended to Pope Paul VI that he change Church teaching on contraception, wrote a landmark book on contraception in 1965. In it, he documented the history of Church opposition to contraception based on the 1st century Didache and writings of the early Church Fathers. He concluded: “[T]he teachers of the Church have taught without hesitation or variation that certain acts preventing procreation are gravely sinful. No Catholic theologian has ever taught, ‘Contraception is a good act.’ The teaching on contraception is clear and apparently fixed forever.”
Paradoxically, it was his personal opinion that the acceptance of some changes in Church teaching on contraception would not constitute a break with 2000 years of consistent opposition to it. So, despite the opinion of Noonan and most of the commission to change the teaching, the pope retained it.
In summary, the present Catholic teachings on moral doctrines have adhered to their historical foundations in the early Church, developing her doctrines without contradicting them.
The Catholic Church – True and False
I asserted that the church Christ founded “will become evident by its adherence to Truth.” The arguments above point to that church, the Catholic Church. Its official teachings are handed down through twenty-one Ecumenical Councils, at least two ex cathedra pronouncements of popes, and, most importantly, the constant teaching of the Church from the Apostolic age. These are summarized in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which can be trusted to reliably teach how to attain heaven. This is the one true Catholic Church.
However, the large majority of 21st century Catholics in the West have a poor understanding of the teachings of the one true church. In the first half of the 20th century, European and American Catholics had a strong faith in the doctrines of the church. Superimposed on this was a cultural Catholicism that peaked in mid-century. Since then, most leaders of the Catholic Church have aligned themselves with secular forces that have eviscerated Catholicism in the West.
The false Catholic Church that has emerged is the product of many decades of teaching a liberal social Gospel and excluding the traditional moral teachings. The main tenets of this false church are twofold. First, one’s conscience determines the truth (cafeteria Catholicism). Second, everyone goes to heaven (universalism). These teachings are sometimes explicit, but more often implicit. The truths taught in the Catechism are rarely denied, but ignored.
Thankfully, this false Catholic Church is dying, because the cultural Catholics who kept it alive for half a century are aging and dying off, while young Catholics intuitively sense that this watered-down teaching is irrelevant to their lives. What will emerge out of the ashes is unknown.
Theologian H. Richard Niebuhr criticized his fellow protestants in 1937 about their belief in the liberal social gospel now popular with Catholics in the West:
“A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the [services] of a Christ without a Cross.”