Posted on 05/03/2008 4:38:34 PM PDT by NYer
Scripture, our Evangelical friends tell us, is the inerrant Word of God. Quite right, the Catholic replies; but how do you know this to be true?
It's not an easy question for Protestants, because, having jettisoned Tradition and the Church, they have no objective authority for the claims they make for Scripture. There is no list of canonical books anywhere in the Bible, nor does any book (with the exception of St. John's Apocalypse) claim to be inspired. So, how does a "Bible Christian" know the Bible is the Word of God?
If he wants to avoid a train of thought that will lead him into the Catholic Church, he has just one way of responding: With circular arguments pointing to himself (or Luther or the Jimmy Swaggart Ministries or some other party not mentioned in the Bible) as an infallible authority telling him that it is so. Such arguments would have perplexed a first or second century Christian, most of whom never saw a Bible.
Christ founded a teaching Church. So far as we know, he himself never wrote a word (except on sand). Nor did he commission the Apostles to write anything. In due course, some Apostles (and non-Apostles) composed the twenty-seven books which comprise the New Testament. Most of these documents are ad hoc; they are addressed to specific problems that arose in the early Church, and none claim to present the whole of Christian revelation. It's doubtful that St. Paul even suspected that his short letter to Philemon begging pardon for a renegade slave would some day be read as Holy Scripture.
Who, then, decided that it was Scripture? The Catholic Church. And it took several centuries to do so. It was not until the Council of Carthage (397) and a subsequent decree by Pope Innocent I that Christendom had a fixed New Testament canon. Prior to that date, scores of spurious gospels and "apostolic" writings were floating around the Mediterranean basin: the Gospel of Thomas, the "Shepherd" of Hermas, St. Paul's Letter to the Laodiceans, and so forth. Moreover, some texts later judged to be inspired, such as the Letter to the Hebrews, were controverted. It was the Magisterium, guided by the Holy Spirit, which separated the wheat from the chaff.
But, according to Protestants, the Catholic Church was corrupt and idolatrous by the fourth century and so had lost whatever authority it originally had. On what basis, then, do they accept the canon of the New Testament? Luther and Calvin were both fuzzy on the subject. Luther dropped seven books from the Old Testament, the so-called Apocrypha in the Protestant Bible; his pretext for doing so was that orthodox Jews had done it at the synod of Jamnia around 100 A. D.; but that synod was explicitly anti-Christian, and so its decisions about Scripture make an odd benchmark for Christians.
Luther's real motive was to get rid of Second Maccabees, which teaches the doctrine of Purgatory. He also wanted to drop the Letter of James, which he called "an epistle of straw," because it flatly contradicts the idea of salvation by "faith alone" apart from good works. He was restrained by more cautious Reformers. Instead, he mistranslated numerous New Testament passages, most notoriously Romans 3:28, to buttress his polemical position.
The Protestant teaching that the Bible is the sole spiritual authority--sola scriptura --is nowhere to be found in the Bible. St. Paul wrote to Timothy that Scripture is "useful" (which is an understatemtn), but neither he nor anyone else in the early Church taught sola scriptura. And, in fact, nobody believed it until the Reformation. Newman called the idea that God would let fifteen hundred years pass before revealing that the bible was the sole teaching authority for Christians an "intolerable paradox."
Newman also wrote: "It is antecedently unreasonable to Bsuppose that a book so complex, so unsystematic, in parts so obscure, the outcome of so many minds, times, and places, should be given us from above without the safeguard of some authority; as if it could possibly, from the nature of the case, interpret itself...." And, indeed, once they had set aside the teaching authority of the Church, the Reformers began to argue about key Scriptural passages. Luther and Zwingli, for example, disagreed vehemently about what Christ meant by the words, "This is my Body."
St. Augustine, usually Luther's guide and mentor, ought to have the last word about sola scriptura: "But for the authority of the Church, I would not believe the Gospel."
u·nit·ed (yū-nī'tĭd)
adj.
1. Combined into a single entity.
Now, what part of single entity can't you grasp?
You like Petronski need a dictionary and look up the word united and what it means.
You need to realize that it is a matter of common courtesy to ping someone when you are going to refer to them by name.
That's a lie - YES IT DOES.
Amazing that you think Matthew 16:19 is non-biblical and mythical.
Mat 16:19 And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.
I don't have a problem with that.
Children don't have the capacity for personal sin.
You do not get to determine what you believe, nor do you get to choose which definition of united we are using.
You do not get to determine what we believe...
It does not.
And that's how I feel about you. Are we at an impasse?
Sin flows from within desiring, lusting, envy, rebellion. Its basically a focus upon selfish desires that flow from WITHIN. As we give in to these desires the outward actions follow.
Yes. As we give in. That is, as we choose what we know is wrong.
Of course our desires fuel our sins. But they are not the responsible party. Our will is. That's what Adam and Eve is all about. They chose to disobey. There's not even any mention about how good the forbidden fruit was, it's identity is basically irrelevant. What was important was the choice to disobey.
The outward actions are not in and of themselves 'sin', they are the manifestation of the inner condition of our hearts.
That's right, the outward actions are not the sin. It is our choice to give in to the inner desires in a selfish way. A capacity that children lack.
Act 20:28 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
1Pe 5:2 Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
Hey, there's a lot of popes there...
If it was intellectual, Christ wouldn’t have chosen uneducated fisherman, but learned Pharisees.
I have no time for playing coy. The families I spoke about are MY families and friends.
Oh plueeze. The exegetical gyrations you are putting yourself through are now absurd. Are you seriously now trying to claim that all saints are now co-Saviors????? LOL! I guess we save ourselves now eh? Hint: "This day you shall be with Me in Paradise" does not mean we become gods. It means what it says, that we will be with Christ, no more and no less. Its YOUR catechism that teaches united means oneness with Christ, "Queen of ALL" and Co-Savior, and INTERCESSOR.
You need to realize that it is a matter of common courtesy to ping someone when you are going to refer to them by name.
Why should I ping him when I had ALREADY written the very same thing TO HIM?
If united here means "combined with" it makes no sense. Is it alleged was she a goddess until Christ's death? Of course not; your suggestion produces a nonsensical result.
However, since united here means "harmonious mutual action, cooperation" it makes perfect sense. In reading CCC 964, it becomes abundantly clear that "combined with" is not what is meant by the text.
But you used your retelling to ascribe bad behavior to catholic families generally. That is the essence of bigotry.
Do you think a human without sin is the same as God?
Do you realize that humanity and divinity are two entirely different "species"?
It means you will be with me...It does NOT mean, you will be me...
No, that's you doing that.
I'm not claiming that there is a "co-savior."
Why should I ping him when I had ALREADY written the very same thing TO HIM?
You used his name.
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