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."
You might want to consider the possibility that I’m not the one in error.
I am glad you stated this. Whenever a Catholic says Mary or a saint is "united" with Christ we are accused of deifying her or him.
Of course the head is united with the body!
oh. Ok.
I understand why you were confused.
I believe in an exegetical reading of the Bible.
The interpretations of scripture that you have posted leads me to believe that you do not.
Hey Quix. What’s wrong with Foxe?
I never intended to say you were wrong about philosophy.
Why don’t you now look up empirical science?
Never said force. Never said use them as an indicator.
what good is your Holy Eucharist? I mean, what does it accomplish for you?
I have been wondering what various posters would say if asked what was received/happened to them, not the elements, while taking and after taking the sacrament. In what way is it efficacious?
Calvin's doctrine on predestination has more to do with God's omniscience than it does the matter of free will. It is somewhat defensible in the fact that the names in the Lamb's Book of Life have been written since the foundations of the world.
But in the matter of salvation, it suggests that God knows the eventual outcome of our struggles, not that there is any manipulation thereof. Hence, the road to salvation is still the same as those who believe in free will.
[...] some believe you must be baptised to be saved while others believe baptism is only symbolic;
I know of no denomination that would suggest that baptism is not a necessary part of the process, though I also know of none (including the RCC) that do not suppose that exceptions do exist- It is the faith and the confession that are mandatory.
There are heated differences around infant baptism, that much is true.
[...] some believe you must only believe while others believe you must also live your faith; some say you can sin boldly, etc.
I know of none that advise one to sin boldly, nor do I know of any that would not recommend living one's faith. Virtually every one suggests that faith is the important component, and that the Blood covers all.
Not the intent? So, Martin Luther accidentally started his own church. Jean Cauvin accidentally started his?
Luther was predated by Wycliffe, and came before Calvin and the other 'geneva reformers'. Anyone suggesting they were somehow in collusion is incorrect, as the head of the reformation was at least 50 years (c. 1500-1550) in the making, and could be argued to have taken 150 years (c. 1500-1650), going all the way to the treaty at Westphalia.
Out of that, and much contention, came the three major denominations of the Protestants: the Lutherans, the Reformed/Calvinist/Presbyterian, and the Anabaptist/Baptists.
How can you suggest that the 'reason was to form other churches'?
False Doctrine
For Starters:
* Mary was sinless.
* Mary is a mediator between God and man.
* Praying to saints and Mary.
* Catholicism is the one true church.
* Salvation cannot be found outside Catholic church.
* Designated priesthood.
* Pope as head of the church (the vicar of Christ).
* Cup & bread literal blood & body of Christ, where
salvation facilitated.
* Infant baptism.
Exactly, we are told to believe that it is IMPOSSIBLE for the Pope to infallibly interpret Scripture, but EVERY Protestant has this ability.
Let's see:
The Catholic Church DOES NOT state that Salvation in unavailable to non-Catholics.
ALL Protestant denominations believe themselves to be part of the One True Church AND the Catholic Church considers ALL of these denominations to be in Communion with the Church to varying degrees.
With the exception of the Papacy, NONE of your other "false doctrines" is even peculiar to Catholicism and Huber who IS NOT Catholic (unless he recently converted) will probably attest to this.
One thing that has long been clear to me is how many self-identified "Bible Christians" (and this is almost an exclusively American group that is not found elsewhere) are so blinded by anti-Catholic bigotry that they are unaware that their beliefs are totally at odds with Protestantism and the Reformation.
Amazing that you say you find nothing in the WCF you disagree with, yet you object when I suggest you believe this: “Nor can the Pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalts himself, in the Church, against Christ and all that is called God.[14]” which is from the WCF.
If I believed that, I’d be ashamed of it too.
Good for you! Light pierces the darkness! But then you must also admit that every Christian is within the Body, and has the full faith and power of the Head, and then figure out why it is that you are talking to the right pinky-finger or the left knee instead of talking to the head... And why you need an earthly priesthood to get you where you already are...
uh-oh... *POOF* you're a Protestant!
Being Christ's the King's royal steward on earth isn't enough?? Because that is precisely what the granting of the keys to Peter symbolizes.
The body does have different parts that play different roles. The finger does not talk directly to the knee, they have to avail themselves of the services of the nervous system.
To beat an analogy to death. ;-)
LOL! Nice save!
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