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."
Please don't tell me what I believe. An altar is not a "mere table".
My definition of altar is the entire podium whereon the table stands and all that surrounds it. If you look at the small pic - you can clearly see it - although its not as large as it is in person.
The altar is in front, on the right. I'm wondering if the reason you are confused is that you don't have an altar in your church?
You bear false witness against me with stunning facility.
I don't know about you but I SEE Mary at the center, couple of angels, saints, ANOTHER MARY on the left and finally you see CHRIST there outside on the right. Yeah sure thing, you don't worship Mary, riiighhhtt......
So, you are saying that the church pictured in 1380 teaches idolatry? This is getting more interesting by the minute.
What's an alter for Titanites? Sacrifices right? Why does anyone need an altar when Christ made the complete and FINAL sacrifice 2,000 years ago?????? Maybe that's where YOUR confusion comes in. Unless you don't think He was telling the truth when it claimed, "It is FINISHED"?
Is the reason you oouldn’t recognize the altar because you don’t have one in your church?
Sorry. Wrong. The "keys of the kingdom of heaven" are indicative of Peter's authority. Totally biblical (and historical).
"First you have to accept the salvation that comes from the blood shed at the cross, and stop watching the pagan ‘priest’ try to hang our Lord back on the cross every day to repeat the payment."
The first half of the sentence is exactly what the RCC teaches. The second half is total fantasy invented anti-Catholic nutcases.
"Then the spiritual gifts will open the kingdom to you. You’ll never see it as long as you adhere to pagan traditions; they block the Holy Spirit from working."
The Church teaches NO "pagan traditions", and never has. Stop reading Jack Chick and Jimmy Swaggart anti-catholic BS, and actually learn what the RCC REALLY teaches.
You have been confused about what it was that was finished.
Thank you.
So what's your view of someone who lays flowers down before and prays to a statue???? Or for that matter genuflects to a statue??? Perhaps you need a clearer def. of idolatry and for that matter a clearer def. of worship.
But you are right the desire to deflect away from clear blasphemous teachings within the RCC is definitely interesting to see.
When "it" claimed? Jesus is an "it" to you?
Read Post 1407. We don't have one because we don't continually sacrifice Christ over and over. The altar was eliminated at the crucifixion when the veil within the Temple was torn in two and man was allowed direct access to God.
All your thought are belong to them.
Ooops, typo. No, definitely not at ‘it’ LORD of LORDS, and KING OF KINGS. Sorry.
You responded:
So what's your view of someone who lays flowers down before and prays to a statue???? Or for that matter genuflects to a statue??? Perhaps you need a clearer def. of idolatry and for that matter a clearer def. of worship.
I will take that as an affirmative response that you DO believe the church pictured in 1380 is guilty of idolatry.
But you are right the desire to deflect away from clear blasphemous teachings within the RCC is definitely interesting to see.
I'm very interested WHAT EXACTLY do you think the church picture in 1380 has to do with the Catholic Church? Please be precise.
Statuary everywhere. Flowers laid before statuary. Statues, statues, statues........
Are you saying that He is dead?
What was "finished"?
Catholics don't pray to statues and are prohibited from doing so by Church teaching.
Luk 1:48 For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
(e-Sword: KJV)
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