Protestants and Sola Scriptura

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."

Thank you for your, what shall I say, delightful questions. I am not a GOOD Eucharistic theologian but I am an enthusiastic one. So I love to be asked to think and to talk about it.

In response to the question about what the average dude or dudette in the pew understands, I answer with the words of C. S. Lewis:

He said, "Take and eat," not, "Take and understand."

... which is good because when I venture out as I did last night, I hardly know what all the ramifications and implications of what I'm attempting are, and I could well be fired on from my own side and from others.

I would VENTURE to say that all the "man in the pew" needs to "think" to avoid error is "Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity are here in my mouth." And that is so huge a mystery, if true (as I believe it to be) that all the verbiage in the world is a futile effort to fend off the moment when I shrug and shut up.

As to whether the worshipper thinks it's being repeated, I'd guess probably some do. This is a university parish so there are a lot of smarty-pants around. Last year '(06 -'07) in RCIA (brainwashing the converts class) in a small group a Baptist guy raised the question of repetition and specifically referred to Hebrews. But he SEEMED content with my saying, "It's not a repetition it is the very event itself." If I see him (we go to different services, usually, I'll ask him where his thinking is now.

Civil? Yes! It's terrifying. Peace may break out.!

Back to '"mere" memorial'. That's an old phrase but possibly "simple" would be better then "mere" since "mere" has a put-down vibe.

An out of print book by a Swede (I think) Yngve Brilioth, and I'd guess he's a Lutheran, Eucharistic Faith and Practice — Evangelical and Catholic published in England in 1930 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge is very nice. It suggests that "we all" think of the Eucharist in the following five categories:

Thanksgiving
Memorial
Sacrifice
Communion
Mystery

I think that's a helpful array of aspects or points of view from which we can start our thinking. But IMHO they all look at the one thing and consequently they leak into each other.

Experientially, "Existentially" one's participation varies from day to day. Some days I hear the rustle of angels' wings (which distresses me because I don't think angels really have wings or feathers, but I'm willing to be surprised on this point), other days I'm scarcely "there" at all.

So for ME, personally, I take comfort in the koinonia aspect: When I am weak, the WHOLE Body of Christ (those with me in the room and those throughout space and time) is strong and bears me more deeply into His grace, while I coast, bruised, dazed, and battered. And that's another way of saying that Christ is, IMHO, present objectively and not depending on my state of mind. Is that responsive?

AS to the Priest, blah blah ...: It is interesting that our precepts require that Cat'licks attend Mass on Sunday and Holidays, NOT that they receive. At least since Aquinas there has been thought to be some good thing happening in the mere consecration and participation (that is, eating and drinking) by the priest. Of course it's better if the individual also communicates. This, I think pertains not just to the special mojo of a priest, as a kind of necessary catalyst to "Confecting" the sacrament, but also to the priest as "parson", that is to say as representative of all the Church.

Please forgive my verbosity. I don't know how to say it cheaper.

I mean authority on earth, not the Ultimate Authority. [thunder clap off stage.]

In this and many states, a county or city sheriff has authority over courtroom security, jails, stuff like that. He also can deputize (or UNdeputize) at his "pleasure".

Some think that means he may do so at his whim. He CAN do so at his whim, and be unanswerable to, say, a grievance hearing or the like. But He MAY not, under God. And a good sheriff does not se frotte ses main and say, "Kewel! I am now the bossaroonie!" any more than a GOOD pope says, "The papacy at last is ours, let us at least enjoy it," though bad sheriffs and bad popes have done both. When I had "charge" of churches, I didn't think, "7 ball corner pocket, we're playing MY way." I thought (and prayed), "Lord be merciful to me a sinner and help me serve this people small in number but great in your redemption in accordance with your will and their good."

That's what authority means to me "on the ground."

Uh, "priest" is the English for "presbyter" 1) elder, of age,
a) the elder of two people
b) advanced in life, an elder, a senior
1) forefathers
2) a term of rank or office
a) among the Jews
1) members of the great council or Sanhedrin (because in early times the rulers of the people, judges, etc., were selected from elderly men)
2) of those who in separate cities managed public affairs and administered justice
b) among the Christians, those who presided over the assemblies (or churches) The NT uses the term bishop, elders, and presbyters interchangeably
c) the twenty four members of the heavenly Sanhedrin or court seated on thrones around the throne of God
BLB Lexicon: presbyteros

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.