Greetings to you both.
D-Fendr, I note that you never responded to my inquiry about so-called private judgment. Did I miss it, or have you just decided to pass up the opportunity to explain how you came to faith in Rome without privately assessing their truth claims?
With respect to Sola Scriptura, I am puzzled that you would use a consequentialist line of reasoning to determine its validity. If the Bible teaches it, then it is true whether we mortals handle it well or not. Whereas consequentialism, as a philosophy, is fundamentally relativistic, judging divine truth by how it plays out in the human theater. It is really right to say that if the consequences are undesirable, it must not be true? Isn’t that just a variation on the ends justifying the means?
Yet Jesus told us his message would bring division, even within families, and that we should expect all manner of false teachers and false prophets. And his word is true.
But that’s not the worst of it. When you assume, without evidence, that Sola Scriptura is responsible for all those divisions, you are making a post hoc fallacy. A post hoc fallacy confuses cause with effect based on time order. There was a breach with Rome based on a wide range of issues, indulgences, a heavily politicized ministry, a lack of piety, as well as a multitude of doctrinal questions. The break was long coming and well deserved. The attempt to use Sola Scriptura to arbitrate the fight was just a legitmate emulation of Athanasius and other fathers, who also appealed to Scripture as the supreme arbiter of the great controversies, as was the case at Nicaea.
But the problem of denominationalism has no demonstrable relationship to Sola Scriptura. Rather, denominations form when the Bible is rejected as the supreme rule of Christian faith, in favor of some contrary external revelation or tradition. In demonstration of this, among the non-Catholic denominations, I think you would find the most diverse group by far is the charismatics of one variety or another, which, by definition, allow for direct extrabiblical revelation, clearly a full rejection of Sola Scriptura.
As for your example of the Eucharist, the fissures were showing up far earlier that the Reformation. If you survey many of the Fathers, you will find reference to the bread and wine as symbols, figures, representation, and other such expressions. One early writer goes further, but even he ends up with something more like consustantiation than anything else. But go to the 9th Centruty, the Benedictine monk Radbertus, and you find the first unmistakable hint of what would later be called transubstantiation. The 4th Lateran Council of 1215 would recognize it by name, and Aquinas would invoke Aristotle’s categories to devise a way to explain it. Trent adopted the Aquinian formulation, and the rest, as they say, is history.
And a very sad history is was after that time. Now one could be anathematized by Rome for not believing a pagan Greek philosopher’s framework for understanding how bread could appear to be bread but really be something entirely different, and therefore the subject of direct, physical worship. Who might be so anathematized? Tertullian, Augustine, Justin Martyr, to name only a few, who discussed the Eucharist variously as a figure, a symbol, a representation, but never as an Aristotelian phantom having one substance before consecration and a different one after, with absolutely no evidence of such change except the priest’s say-so.
Much sorrow and persecution of good and faithful Christians was undertaken over this innovation in doctrine, without one scintilla of evidence from Scripture that it was either true or obligatory on the Christian conscience. A firm adherence to Sola Scriptura would have prevented so much foolishness and senseless loss, it is hard to see how even a consequentialist such as yourself can fail to notice the ill consequences of abandoning the supremacy of Scripture in favor of Greek philosophy or any other subsidiary streams of knowledge.
Peace,
SR
Here’s the quote about remaining a “spiritual baby” without
the Eucharist. Protestants know it as the “awakening”
in prophecy. Catholics hear it called the Great Warning or
Warning. It is the Second Pentecost but it will be worldwide. Do not be prideful and reject the faith. God wants everyone to believe, to become Roman Catholic. I shared more of the message to remind us, what is ahead. I put a few words the CAPS.
The excerpt, from the part of the messages entitled The
Mark of the Beast. I’ll post the link, it’s page 98.
11/6/07
...My faithful may be teaching in different areas of the world. After the WARNING, there will only be a short time given to mankind to repent. If no repentance is done, I will allow Satan and the anti-Christ to chastise a sinful generation. At this time, many faithful will be: called home, persecuted, martyred, and taken to my refuges. Only those who are not SPIRITUAL BABIES with my divine life residing in their souls will endure those days and enter my era of peace. My son, at baptism all my children receive sanctifying grace, but many do not progress beyond spiritual infancy. I will not lose any the Father has given to me. My SPIRITUAL BABIES will come home to be with me to prevent the loss of their souls. A soul who does NOT partake of my Eucharist remains a SPIRITUAL BABY. Just as a human baby must eat solid food to grow to adulthood, so spiritually you must receive my graces through the sacraments to mature to spiritual adulthood. The body must be fed to grow.Likewise, the soul must be fed to grow and mature. Satan knows this truth. This is why he has deceived many of my people with false interpretations of my scriptures.
Many teach the physical nation of Israel is the fulfillment of my scripture. Many teach the anti-Christ will resume the Jewish sacrifice in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem to constitute the abomination of desolation. This is a FALSE teaching, not from God, but from human understanding. My son, in the book of Daniel, the persecution by the Jews under Antiochus can be considered a partial fulfillment of the abomination of desolation. But the complete fulfillment has not yet taken place.
At my death, the veil in the temple was rent in two and the old sacrificial covenant was replaced by my new covenant. My sacrifice on the cross was the final sacrifice for my peoples’ sin. I am the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham. I am the seed of Abraham, the son of David, in whom all the nations of the earth are blessed. My nation of Israel is my church, not the modern Israel. My people are now all those who become part of my church through sanctifying grace. The complete fulfillment of the prophecy from Daniel of the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION will occur: when the continual sacrifice of the mass is abolished by the false prophet and the anti-Christ. Acceptance of the protestant doctrine of the mass by an antipope will be the fulfillment of the prophecy. The temple of God is my Holy Roman Catholic Church. My faithful remnant will be persecuted worldwide with the mass taking place underground. These conditions will be similar to the early persecutions by the Romans. The Roman persecutions were a foreshadowing of the persecution and time of the antichrist.
Remember all this will be allowed and take place according to the will of my Father in heaven. Scripture must and will be fulfilled.I am warning you again my son and any who will take heed to my warnings. He who has ears to hear let him hear. A final warning to those who read these words. DO NOT WAIT until the warning to prepare your soul. Prepare your soul now. You may meet your maker today. I do not promise you tomorrow.