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."
After all is said, and argued, and done, it doesn’t get better than that. Sincerely.
God bless you for your spirit of inquiry.
A fair minded protestant doesn’t have to agree with us, but as you can plainly see, it takes an intellectually dishonest one to claim our doctrines have no biblical merit.
I just wanted to make sure no one glossed over your comment without noticing it ;o)
When threads like this one get heated, some people, Catholic or protestant, retreat into the trenches of absolute statements. Then it becomes a to-the-death battle to maintain a position that is logically and rationally indefensible.
Or they attack the person or intellect of their partner in the discussion.
Not my cup of tea.
I agree. This is my problem with the RCC - adding to Scripture. They've done it.
Now - BEFORE you say 'you are bearing false witness'......prove it.
Show me ONE verse from either the Old or New Testament (not 'traditions' or papal decrees) where God specifically states that the Mother of the Messiah will be (OT) or was born (NT) without sin. Then you have to show me a verse from the NT that specifically states that Mary remained a virgin AFTER the birth of our Lord.
If you can't do that I'm sorry my friend you've added to Scripture, and by your own words you're on a very dangerous road.
BTW, The answer is "yes" if the 'piece' of the puzzle you are talking about is the box containing all the pieces. Which is what Paul says about scripture in 2 Corinthians 3:15-17. Which was the point of my argument.
This comment manifests a fundamental inability to follow a line of reasoning.
OK
Dang. Insert “, in context of the passage, my understanding of” between the words ‘is’ and the word ‘what’. Cheers.
Oh absolutely. Catholics make no bones about all our doctrines being derivable from Scripture. Though we most definitely draw the line at claims such doctrines contradict or invalidate Scripture.
When threads like this one get heated, some people, Catholic or protestant, retreat into the trenches of absolute statements. Then it becomes a to-the-death battle to maintain a position that is logically and rationally indefensible.
While I understand your position here, may I ask in a spirit of utmost charity and humility for illumination by way of an example of how we Catholics maintain positions that are logically or rationally indefensable?
I will not critique your examples. I'd just like to know what a fairminded Christian believes are our failings.
That is simply moving outside the terms of the analogy. The box is not a puzzle piece, and the last piece does complete the puzzle.
There is no reason to alter the terms other than attempting to avoid an unwanted conclusion.
When did any of us claim those things were in Scripture?
Exactly. Thanks for re-affirming that certain doctrines that you have are not in Scripture.
What is wrong with you? It's not like we've been denying many of our doctrines are only alluded to in Scripture.
And no analogy ever proved anything. And words mean things.
Thanks Nanetteclaret for reply. But what I’m getting at is how is this ‘help’ defined? After receiveing the host, what is the realized benefit?
That's exactly what the RCC teaches, Mary.
And as you so rightly declare...
You find salvation in Jesus. Not in good works, although when you come to know Christ and come to faith in him, you are commanded to do good works. You WILL do good works when you are born again because the Holy Spirit within will draw you to those works.
AMEN!
Good works are the evidence of our salvation, not the cause of it. The only cause of our salvation is Christ's righteousness imputed to the sinner by God's free, unmerited mercy alone.
When God looks at the man redeemed by Christ, He doesn't love him because of his own good works; God loves him because He sees His perfect Son within him, the gracious gift of God to His family.
That is incorrect.
The puzzle analogy proves a single element may complete an construct without being the entirety of the construct.
The analogy hold so long as the parallels are valid.
You would be better served by looking for an invalidating discrepancy between the analogs than spouting pseudo-sagacious "principles."
I can only speak for myself, but the benefit I receive is the grace to consistently overcome temptation. As a side note, my wife says I am a lot nicer, too.
That depends on the need of the communicant.
What is wrong with me? Look at the title of this thread, 'sola scriptura' and your refusal to accept this belief because there is no specific verse (even though the principle is indeed strongly alluded to in I Cor. 4:6; Col. 2:8; II Tim. 3:16-17). You go on a complete witch hunt bashing protestants and cry foul when someone else points out to you that some of your doctrines are not specifically found either. That's what's wrong with me!
When it comes to YOUR completely unscriptural doctrines that are in complete contradiction to specific verses (Rom. 3:28, ALL have sinned, you can't even find anything 'alluding' to the sinlessness of Mary ANYWHERE in the New Testament or Old) hey, that's OKAY!
Are you so blind you can't even see the remotest hypocrisy in this at all?
Would you then generalize it for me please?
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