Posted on 08/16/2006 7:47:20 PM PDT by Teófilo
Folks, I want to add some further, yet brief reflections that I think are connected to those I did about the Holy Trinity last week (here and here). I belief there are a few connections between the process which resulted in the Trinitarian settlement in the 5th century AD, the settlement of the Canon of Scripture, and the Protestant idea of sola scriptura. First, let's define a few key terms:
Once again, I don't delude myself into thinking that the few words of this essay will solve 500 years of Protestant controversy or over 1,000 years of anti-Trinitarian objections. All I can do is to witness to the soundness of Catholic teaching and to hope that someone, somewhere, would be moved by grace to accept this teaching and be thus empowered to attain eternal life.
- Sola scriptura is a Latin phrase meaning "Scripture Alone" and refers to the foundational Protestant tenets that the Bible, and the Bible alone is to be the sole rule of faith, belief, and discipline for the Church and that the traditional Catholic hermeneutical dialogue that existed between the reading of the Bible, the celebration of the Liturgy, and the living Magisterium of the Apostle's Successors in communion with the Successor of Peter, had to be deemphasized or rejected altogether.
- Tradition is the entire "set" of God's revelation or "self-disclosure," some of which was written down in Scripture, some of which was preserved in the liturgical and sacramental action of the early Church, and some of which was preserved in the hermeneutical method preserved by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church down to the present age.
- Hermeneutics is the name given to the science and art of textual interpretation, in other words, the study of all those elements found in any piece of literature that makes it intelligible to the reader. These elements include language, the messenger, the audience, literary devices, culture, worldview, etc.
- The Canon of Scripture refers to the authoritative list of books constituting the Christian Bible's Old and New Testament. The study of the Canon is the study of the Bible, but also the study of how the Bible came to be in its present form.
- The Holy Trinity is the foundational belief, still held by Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and most Protestant Christians, stating that Three Persons, co-equal in dignity, share one single divine life or nature within the single, One God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Protestant apologists go to great lengths to defend Sola Scriptura, which is, after all, central to their conception of Christianity. Posts such as this one found in the Free Republic Religion board (Can traditions contradict God's completed Word? - Is the Doctrine of Sola Scriptura Really Biblical?) offer a case in point.
In fact, what struck me about this post is the circular reasoning of its author. The author assumes the validity of sola scriptura and then proceeds to "prove" it through Scripture, while seeking to "debunk" Traditionrather, the author's own understanding of what Tradition is, which is another fallacy, a straw man argument. Implied the author own argumentation is the assumption that Scripture is a text book containing propositional arguments which can be lifted out of its literary context, stringed to other such "propositions" to build, or support, the Protestant conclusions in matters of faith and discipline.
The author falls in what I refer to as the problem of the interpreter. For Protestants, or at least to traditional Protestants who hold to the magisterial consensus of the classical Reformers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, Melanchthon, etc.), the individual believer is to approach the Bible alone, alone. If the interpreter is docile to the promptings of the Holy Spiritthey reasonthe believer will attain a working knowledge of the Truth that will lead him or her to Salvation, quite apart from the teachings of the Roman Churchin this they all agreed. This is what is referred to in Protestantism as free examen.
In this scheme, the interpreter, prompted by the Holy Spirit and rightly guided by the Protestant foundational axioms, becomes an "honest broker" of salvific information to other believers and to the unbelieving masses, with no other agenda than self-perfection and the salvation of other fellow souls. In this purported state of grace and election, the Protestant believer becomes a true interpreter and prophet of God's Word. That's what Protestant apologists argue in principle. The reality has been quite another.
History shows that Protestantism has been unable to produce an interpreter free from bias, prejudice, and completely aloof from the historical process that could serve as a transparent prism for the Holy Spirit's communications. Most defenses I've seen of the classical Protestant tenets fail to examine the scope, focus, and limitations of the interpreter as he or she approaches alone Scripture Alone.
The ability and authority of the individual Protestant interpreter to bind his conscience and that of others to his interpretation of Scripture remains largely unexamined by Protestant apologists. It seems that in their rush to define themselves against the historical Church, the Reformersand their apologistsexacerbated the problem of interpretation by unwittingly multiplying authorities, believing their stance would facilitate the work of the Holy Spirit to explain and the individual interpreter's ability to receive from the Spirit binding interpretations of Scripture in matters of faith, morals, and discipline. Protestantism, in its revolt, compounded the problem without solving it. The immediate consequence could be seen in Protestantism' rich tendency to fracture and divide into sects that compete with each other for the souls of men.
In the end, the appeal that a Protestant interpreter of Scripture makes is not to Scripture alone, but to his ability to interpret Scripture rightly based upon questionable suppositions, strawmen, and circular reasoning.
The Canon of Scripture
Another matter contradicting the Protestant notion of Sola Scriptura is the origin of the Canon of the Bible. How do we know that the Bible is, well, the Bible? How do we know that the books we see in the Bible belong to it? How do we know that all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17, NASB)?
The Canon of Scripture is not in the Bible. We don't know from the Bible which books belong to it and which do not. That information comes from outside the Bible, hence, the Bible cannot be the sole rule of faith, morals, and discipline for the Church. There is a preceding, discerning, and selective authority of the canon of Scripture: the Holy Spirit acting through a visible, historical, very human instrumentthe Church.
We know which books are inspired because of the Church. Lovingly, carefully, exactingly, the Church examined, listed, debated, and listed again the list of books through which God spoke to men. Hence, the Church's discernment and teaching powerher magisteriumform a more proximate rule of faith, so to speak, than Scripture.
So there is more than one rule of faith, one depending on the other to be certain, but both impossible to separate without ruining the other. The relationship between the Church and Scripture is symbiotic; though is true that Scripture judges the Church it is also true that the Church rightly interprets Scripture. Scripture can't stand separate from the Church.
How often are we confronted by Protestant apologists who are keen to separate us from the Catholic Church with the claim that Scripture judges the Church? Because they do not consider, as we have seen, the role of the interpreter, what they really mean in practice is that they, the interpreters, judge the Church.
Has Public Revelation Ended?
Similarly, Holy Scripture never unequivocally states that public Revelation from God, binding on the consciences of all His children, has ever ended. How do we know that Revelation, that is, God's self-disclosure in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, came to an end with the death of the last Apostle? We know because the Church tells us, because our ancestors in the faith believe it and the successors to the Apostles so declared it.
Based on Sola Scriptura, Protestants cannot close the canon! Oh, they can accept convention or the words of the Reformers to that effect, but the Reformers were sticking to the classical Catholic canon with little explanation as to the exact end of public revelation.
The fact that Sola Scriptura allows for open-ended revelation has not been ignored by myriads of sects, from Montanism way back in Tertullian's time to the ecstatic sects of the Middle Ages to Seventh-day Adventism and Mormonismthis last one even has three more books of "sacred scriptures" besides the Bible! But the contradiction has been passed in silence by Protestant apologists.
A Protestant, if he or she is consistent, can't criticize others who add their revelations to the Bible simply because the Bible is silent on the subject. The answer to this dilemma comes from outside the Bible, from the all-encompassing Tradition maintained, treasured, and explained in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
Stay tuned for the conclusion!
Those who have know the Catholic Church as the true Church yet knowingly refuse to persevere in her will not be saved.
Now, you may ask, "But what if they believe in Jesus and yet knowingly refuse to persevere in the Catholic Church?"
Answer: By rejecting the Catholic Church after knowing her as the true Church shows that you don't believe in Jesus, in what He said, in what He did, and in what He willed.
Belief in Jesus and in the Catholic Church as His Church go togetherm hand in hand. If you knowingly, purposefully, and freely reject one, you reject the other.
In Christ,
P.
The Church is not "lowly." The Church is the Body of Christ, the Body of God's Son.
Measure your words against the Scriptures you say you uphold, please.
-Theo
You sign, in Christ, but you actually mean, in the Church. I am sorry for you. I believe in Jesus, am counting on him to save me, am washed clean by his blood. You have the church. You have condemned me to hell because I don't believe in your church. You are wrong.
Belive in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
Don't bother to respond, I am doomed to hell.
Never mind. I am doomed to hell because I will never follow your church. Don't bother to respond.
It's impossible to pin you guys down to say what you are counting on to get to heaven...I guess that statement is as close as you're going to get...
I used to teach Baptists baptist theology. Then I actually read what the bible says and stopped listening to the Baptist theology. Perhaps you will aslo.
Since you are the teacher and I'm the student, how about you tell me...
Good post. Actually if we apply the same rules to counting Catholic denominations that is used in counting Protestant denominations (you know, where there are 28,000 or 30,000, or sometimes 40,000 Protestant denominations depending on which Catholic posts the number) we get twenty-one Protestant denominations and sixteen Roman Catholic denominations.
Too bad. When someone tells me that my belief in Jesus is worthless, I have a lot less respect for them and their beliefs.
Let's go with these: (1) Catholic Pentecostals (Roman Catholics involved in the organized Catholic Charismatic Renewal); (2) Evangelical Catholics (Roman Catholics who also regard themselves as Evangelicals); (3) moderate Roman Catholics (represented by almost all Roman Catholic scholars); (4) Conservative Roman Catholics (represented by Scott Hahn and most Roman Catholic apologists); (5) Traditionalist Roman Catholics (represented by apologist Gerry Matatics); (6) Sedevacantist Roman Catholics (those who believe the chair of Peter is currently vacant).
Been to plenty of 'dead' Protestant churches...Most of which you need to bring an alarm clock so you know when it's time to go home...And of course at the Catholic church, you need to bring a pair of knee pads and a back support...
The first thing we need to realize is the the Corinthian church was like the F-troop of the church...Not because they were stupid, but because they were new, and because of that, they had trouble getting things together...
OK...So what are tongues in the bible sense???
Act 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Now notice, these tongues could be uttered...
Act 2:6 Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.
Act 2:8 And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
So it's crystal clear, initially, tongues were a foreign language...
If it is a known language, than why would Paul speaking to a congregation; that may have many different people able to speak different language, say he would not be understood except by God?
Because God understand all languages...It's in the context...Besides, Paul say Do not speak in tongues because it does not edify the church...
So why were the Corinthians speaking in 'tongues'???
1Co 14:22 Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe.
A sign for who
1Co 1:22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
Tongues are a sign...The signs are for the Jews...They require it...
This is one of the Pentecostal 'proof' texts that tongues are valid for use today...
Rom 8:26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
You Pentecostals want us to believe that 'can not be uttered' actually means 'can not be understood by the human mind...But the fact is: can not be uttered means can not be 'spoken', and heard by someone else...
But let's take a closer look here...
1Co 14:14 For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.
You get that??? It's not the Holy Spirit that speaks in tongues...It's not a spiritual thing...It's an education thing...That's why Paul 'spoke in tongues more than you all'...It's your spirit doing the work...
And for these (and other) reasons, I avoid speaking in any language except English...
But consider this: Many Pentecostals speak in their 'unknown' tongues and they do it unscripturally...They do it without an interpreter...That's against the rules...But when you do this, since you don't know what you are saying, how do you know you aren't cursing at God???
Speaking in tongues is not the ONLY reason I refuse to attend a Pentecostal church...
I accept Pentecostals as brothers and sisters in Christ...
There are Pentecostal Pastors that will tell you that if you do not speak in tongues, you are not filled with the Holy Spirit...That's not only unbiblical, it preposterous...
> Ah, 16th century Kool Aid.
Jah. It's still fresh and tasty.
> The existence of thousands of Protestant sects prove my point.
Plenty o' Romanist sects around too.
> It will remain so as long as you can't produce the chapter and verse where we can find a list of the closed biblical canon.
Joe Smith would like this. Can you show any "new" Scripture that adds doctrinal content to the canon, yet does not contradict something important in the canon?
> You would have each man be a pope; nye, a prophet like Mohammed or Joseph Smith?
Nope - real Reformation Christians have public, written Confessions.
You like the reeking doctrines of Trent?
In the Catholic Church there's debate Among the Protestant sects what you find is dissent. Not merely dissent against the Catholic Church. That's for granted. But dissent against each other.
Thanks to "sola Scriptura" and "free examen" the fatal flaw of Protestantism is structural.
Cheers,
-Theo
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