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 have a significant record of laughing at the fervently-held, solemn beliefs of others, including several shots fired in an attempt to kill the idea that others could have a respectful dialogue about what hate. So it is no surprise to anyone that you laugh at a serious suggestion for cordial respect.
LOL, calling for momma? Sor “DR” E, but lies are just that — lies. And I have seen them. Your lack of teaching authority and your claims of victimhood are both reasons you make me yawn. Again and again. That you appear to embrace those who promote a belief in UFO’s helps as well.
God uses who he will to preserve his word.
AMEN!
THANKS.
At least the assertions in this post
BARELY squeak under the accuracy bar.
No.
I was not laughing at that, at all.
I tend to laugh most at
utter rank hypocrisy and double standards.
Truth is. You acknowledge that. Truth isn’t an insult. Accept that. More truth, you aren’t an apostle nor annointed by one. You have no authority to teach.
I’ll take GOD’S INSTRUCTIONS
on that score
OVER THAT OF THE ENTIRE RC EDIFICE
ANY DAY, WEEK, MONTH, YEAR, MILLENIUM . . .
INDEED . . . OVER THAT OF THE WHOLE WORLD’S . . .
Sheesh what unmeasured arrogance crops up on these threads.
“I’ll take GOD’S INSTRUCTIONS”
Coming from a UFOer that is quite the claim. Fact is you have NO AUTHORITY and nothing more than noise. Yawn.
"I’m not about to presume to read my exhorter’s mind.
"Much appreciated. However, I'm only allowed one gif per post."
It is to me a source of sorrow that you choose, instead of adult discussion in clear English, the style that makes you infamous.
There is severe hate in what you do here. It is a frightening level of hatred. It is not as you said a tweaking or an interchange back and forth. Nor is it amusing or playful. Your work here is, to Catholics, poison.
You’ll be happy to know that I have already done what I can to tell all those here who truly love me that I am separating myself from your (plural) poison (and that my sabbatical shall be at least a week, hopefully as much as a month).
The moment when you insinuated that Catholics waited until JimRob was ill to start something (as if!) was the dagger in my eye. I’m sure you are proud to have delivered it.
I expect to return in seven to twenty-one days. When I return, I pray all faiths will be respected in the manner of the “euro cafe” I described earlier tonight.
If you call someone a fool, you're guilty of sin. The issue isn't his belief (correct or not). The issue is what came out of your mouth/keyboard.
There are ways to gently correct, and if someone won't listen to you then you ignore them.
You're right: telling the truth isn't an insult. It's how you do it. Did you "speak the truth in love"?
I say no. I'm not that familiar with Quix and I could pick up that your comment wasn't intended to be positive. I even asked if that's how you intended and set the record straight if that wasn't the case. You had no reply.
So, I'm calling you out on it. If you are a Christian, act like one.
Praise God for your faithfulness to His Word.
You are welcome, invited,
begged
to exhort me accordingly any time you see fit
24/7
Blessings,
Welllllllll, Dear Ones, it would have been far nicer and certainly more Christian to have had things stated accurately, honestly . . . alas . . .
In any case . . . Sigh.
I don’t even understand what Authority I walk in very well.
I’m fairly certain no one on FR does unless it’s DarthVader or possibly one or two others.
But . . . nice bashing try.
However . . . other RC’s are much MORE in the Olympic level Basher’s class.
It is not wisdom nor authorized to answer that question as you would like.
The original reason I asked was because I posted two pictures and didn’t know if I broke some rule.
Is english foreign to you? Your claim that I called Quix a fool is false. I held his belief in UFO’s and eschatology up for scrutiny. Even he admjits that is true. Since he runs about claiming to be able to teach the Gospel such beliefs are relevant to those who might be tricked by him.
While I certainly should expect an apology from you for your false claims, I won’t hold my breath.
“I don’t even understand what Authority I walk in very well.”
Then stop trying to deceive people about what the Church teaches.
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