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."
I know some Catholics who lead me to wonder what they think they're doding in church. I know some whose notion of Christianity seems to be if you're good, do good stuff, and don't have too much fun maybe God will not mash you like a bug. I know some whose "religiosity" strikes me as n inadequate cover for serious personal issues. And I know a CHUNK of 'em who keep on looking for new ways to give what they have and themselves to God. (They're the easiest ones to ID. They're the ones who smile and laugh a lot.)
I rejoice, though, that the first three groups are well represented at worship because I think if people hang around the fire long enough, maybe sooner or later they might catch fire themselves. It ain't over 'til it's over, and the day before his Damascus road experience, I would probably have had very uncharitable thoughts about Saul/Paul.
“It is a mark of true faith to continue to choose to follow the commandments of Christ even when your soul feels dry.”
Agreed. God gave you emotions though. Use them all to the Glory of God. Did not David celebrate BEFORE THE LORD with wild nude dancing at the bringing of the Ark into Jerusalem?
Don’t think that the grand blessings of the Lord shouldn’t be greeted with an emotional AND intellectual praise. God gave you both...use both for His Glory.
3 denominations already.
***All point to emptiness of the rcc faith via lack of holiness and almost without exception no one living for the Lord.***
What was your criteria for “living for the Lord?” Where did you get it? How old were you when you made these observations? How do you know that you were old enough and wise enough to recognize “living for the Lord” if you saw it? Could it be that you might have made some mistakes and misjudged people? Were you a light to the people you came into contact with? Could someone have seen you and thought that you were “living for the Lord?”
“He’d have nothing to do with setting up a bunch of bureaucratic political intellectual elitists to head yet another RELIGIOUS BUREAUCRACY to lord it over the serfs.”
Completely agree.
Your two denominations are the work of the evil one. Only through squid can one be pure.
Just as the squid casts out its inky blackness, so too will we cast out our inky black sins.
See: my first two theses already.
You can have the ink. With my blue oyster cult I get the pearls of wisdom.
Then it will be war!
If we’re to have communion, someone will have to figure out how to make wine out of something on this island.
I’ll head up that committee.
That's ok for you; since you have the ink you can sin boldly.
Perfect. :-)
I learned on this thread that we’re all a bunch of drunks anyway, so we’ll probably have lots with us.
Few people realize that Pope Dawgus the One and Onliest gave a perpetual indult to families with small children (where small is "up to 25 years old"): Merely getting everybody clean and out the door at the same time and in time to get to Church before the Mass is over is a sign of heroic virtue.
Also, at least at my house, once we get home from Mass and prepare for Brunch, except for an often lengthy grace, Brunch is all about merriment. How should we NOT be merry? Jesus is risen from the dead and has appeared to Simon!
Usually, before he quit his column, this involved a solemn reading from the Gospel according to Dave Barry.
When the meal is over and we are drinking our coffee or tea, then maybe we will go over the sermon or share thoughts we had on the 3 Scripture readings and the psalm. But, to tell the truth, maybe not. The lure of the couch just long enough for me to stretch out on it may be too strong.
More daffynitions from the rubber dictionary?
I’d say no, but you’ll post them anyway.
Thanks for your kind words . . . imho, The Lord nailed it.
I may have been listening better than usual.
That was one of your slicker slide-in’s.
Given how wrong it is . . . I wouldn’t want to be on the reaping end of that sowing.
Sex-crazed drunks.
"I paint what I see, child."
Thanks thanks.
Sock it to em.
Gotta get my stuff together for the AZ trip.
Blessings,
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