Posted on 01/24/2007 8:41:04 AM PST by Joseph DeMaistre
Not to mention the fact that the RCC went to great lengths to purge the world of Bibles outside its control. Going so far as to make it a crime to own one, even executing those caught with even portions of Scripture.
How do these answer that question at all? For one, four generations is 80 years. That's not the context of Psalm 106. The conflict between the darkness and the Light is an on going affair. The Acts reference actualy argues against your point. I don't see how Peter applies to 1500 years after Christ anymore than it applies 1400 years before Christ. And Galatians, at least the way you present it, makes a liar out of God because Christ obviously did not come in the fullness of time because that was 1500 years after Christ.
After all, Christ said at the Last Supper that He had conquered the world, not that anyone would have to wait 1500 years.
And you still didn't answer why God would devise such a theology that would be impossible to implement for 1500 years.
Again, there is no antagonism between the Scriptures and Tradition. The oral tradition of the Apostles is what went into writing the Scripture in the first place. Scripture IS tradition that was written down. And later written tradition *always* kept the Scriptures in mind.
Lemme give you an example which you may better relate to. Wednesday night Bible Study. Definitely no such animal in the Scripture. Is it a "tradition of men". Of course! But does it nullify the Scriptures? Absolutely not!
Now you may think that our Tradition is different. But I look through the writings of the post-Apostolic Fathers...I look at Polycarp and Ignatius and Irenaeus and the Didache and I can see it all the way back to the time when the Apostles walked the earth. Nobody objected then...why all the objection now?
That's just it. That whole line a reasoning does not fit with an easy yoke and light burden.
You're going to have to explain to me what that is or provide a reference. I'm not familiar with it.
To be fair, declining numbers at Church is not just a "Catholic" problem. Protestant and Catholic churches alike have declining numbers. The problem is called commitment. Its the same reason grandparents are raising grandchildren in record numbers,half of marriages end in divorce, etc. People just don't believe in commitment anymore.I know Catholics and Protestants who skip church/Mass to go shopping, watch a ballgame, etc.
Very well stated!
You are absolutely right, unauthorized mistranslations were banned. People were executed for possessing the John Wycliffe's heretical translation.
However, it is a Protestant LIE that anyone was ever punished for possessing the authorized Latin Vulgate.
If you read my post again, I said that the canon was defined at Trent. It was declared by Pope Damasus but not definitive until Trent. Secondly, what Jerome, John of Damascus, Walafrid, etc. thought is all good and well, but they never enjoyed infallibility. Neither did Aquinas, who questioned the belief of the Immaculate Conception. Once Luther removed the problematic Apocryphal books, it became necessary to render final, binding definition of the canon. The declaration of the Magisterium is infallible - the opinions of even the greatest doctors are prone to error.
Luther's motive in removing the Apocryphal books was to render impotent the belief in Purgatory. The debate among Church doctors regarding the Apocrypha was of scholarly import, not a mission to refute dogma.
You made a better response than I attempted. I did a rough calculation and came up with four generations being maybe a century and gave up on trying to figure out the rest.
In the words of The Lovin' Spoonful:
"Do you believe in Majik?" ;o)
Four hundred years later! It's like Spielberg's insipid "A.I." -- "Two thousand years later..."
And the audience bursts out laughing.
Just the Oral Law was not written until the Christian Era...i.e. what we call today the Talmud. The Old Testament Scriptures of course had been written all along.
You do raise an interesting point though. Peter wrote no Gospel. James wrote no Gospel. Andrew wrote no Gospel. It seems they felt not much of a pressing need to write down what they had learned from the Master, if they entrusted it to very minor Apostles like Matthew and mere disciples like Mark and Luke.
So... if I understand correctly, it's okay to kill those who translate Scripture without RCC authorization. Also, the definition of heresy used to be "disagreement with the RCC". Killing heretics (aka those who aren't drones) was an institutional practice of the RCC for hundreds of years.
This is the "holy" and "infallible" Church of Christ??? Whatever happened to God's invitation to "reason together" given by the prophet Isaiah?
Me thinks many have been deceived into losing their eternal souls by an institution of men bent on their own aggrandizement and power.
Even 400 years later is still a millenium closer to the event than the 1500s my friend! And it's 1600 years closer than you and I today.
So if chronology trumps the argument in your opinion...well.... :)
(2 Timothy 4:4 KJV) And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
Whatever happened to God's invitation to "reason together" given by the prophet Isaiah?
You've got be joking! LOL Ever heard of the word hypocrisy?
There is no such institution as the "RCC." There is One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I presume that you would prefer not to refer to it as such. But, if you expect a response from me, you can refer to it as the Catholic Church or Catholics or Catholicism. I, in turn, will refer to your denomination anyway you wish.
I am not so obtuse as to be unwilling to acknowledge that there was horrible and unnecessary bloodshed that was carried out for centuries "in the Name of Christ." And I believe that ALL SIDES bear guilt and responsibility for this. I think it is probably safe to say that the 100,000 people killed by followers of Martin Luther during the German Peasant's Revolt in the 1520s outnumbers the number of heretics the Church executed -- but in the end, BOTH WERE WRONG and totally devoid of Christ's Love.
Are you inferring that God is a hypocrite?
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