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 never realized the mass was such a mockery of the events surrounding our Lord’s final moments prior to the crucifixion and His ascension.
I’ve always found it easier to accept Him, through faith in Him, that when He said it was finished, He had completed it all, instead of repeatedly sacrificing Him every time we take communion.
I ignore most of your posts.
Mack was a student of Holotropic Breathwork, a meditative technique developed by Stanislav Grof.
“I never realized the mass was such a mockery of the events surrounding our Lord’s final moments prior to the crucifixion and His ascension.”
That’s a disgraceful remark.
We remember every single day the Lord’s sacrifice and you think that is mockery?
What a disgusting remark.
Do not address me again.
Then I will state it for you again. Do not imagine I will subject myself to your interrogation. I am not on your witness stand.
Umm, you may wish to consider what Scripture is. It is what we wrote as an accompanying manual for the teachings of the Church. The Church is what Jesus left for us, not writings. The NT wasn't put together for 300 years after Jesus was taken up to Heaven.
268 posted on 05/03/2008 3:38:02 PM PDT by MarkBsnr
Do you agree with MarkBSnr in this post?
I've always found it easier to accept Him, through faith in Him, that when He said it was finished, He had completed it all, instead of repeatedly sacrificing Him every time we take communion.
AMEN. These discussions can be very fruitful.
So, Dr. Eck, what is your take on this UFOTheology thing? Does it have the scriptural basis that others claim it does?
Some are, some aren’t.
A minority of every Christian subgroup is aware of realities in such fields enough to be remotely well prepared for what’s ahead.
That would be tolerable IF all such individvuals walked close enough
TO JESUS
to HEAR HIS VOICE a He noted.
When they are NEITHER INFORMED of what’s on the not-to-distant horizon
AND
don’t usually manage to walk closely enough to JESUS to hear HIS VOICE . . .
that sets up some possibilities/probabilities for more suffering-than-necessary, that are not attractive to ponder.
So, Dr. Eck, what is your take on this UFOTheology thing? Does it have the scriptural basis that others claim it does?
Cardinals are the “Princes of the Church” picked by the Pope usually Archbishops or from the Curia assisting the Pope in governing the Church. The organization and hierarchy of the college of cardinals consist of Bishops/Priest/Deacons for ceremonial purposes.
Seems nutty.
Interestingly,
Stanislav Grof was one of my
PhD program professors.
He was not real thrilled with the Christian focus of my term paper. Nevertheless, I met the qualifications or a high grade and he had enough integrity to give it to me.
I don’t even remember the topic now but something about death/rebirth, IIRC.
Grof is certainly out there newagey.
I agree . . . an invitation for satan and his goons . . . the ET’s being only one variety of the latter, imho—either directly his goons or in cahoots with them.
However, Mack’s qualifications were top flight.
And, his study of the phenomena was high level.
Most of the big league heavy weight researchers and experts in the field appear to be deluded or consciously on track with the globalists . . . some construe all ET’s as good. Some as all bad. Some say there’s both.
I was disappointed at the last Aztec conf in March to detect, imho, that Stanton Friedman sounds in favor of the global government etc. etc. etc. Yuck.
Thankfully, Timothy Good at least notes that at least a chunk of the ET’s do not do nice things.
BTW, IIRC, COMMUNION author Whitley Strieber considers himself and tries to live as a kosher RC.
BTW, you ARE AWARE, AREN’T YOU . . . that there REALLY IS
a global government largely in place and tightening the tyranny screws tighter virtually every week????
A student of mine remarked this last week that his mom had read a plausible report that they plan on implementing the chip implant in the USA within 1-3 years.
AMEN!
And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them... Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word" -- John 17:9-10,20"I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
For those with ears to hear.
Channeled throught ET though right? Quix seems to think so.
I am aware that there are some pretty nutty people in this world, many with advanced degrees.
NO, QUIX DOES NOT THINK ANY SUCH THING.
I can’t find what post your comment refers to but Quix does NOT
think that ANY
SCRIPTURE
was channeled through ANY ET.
To quote Petronski
EXODUS 20:16
Wasn’t able to get beyond the “not on this server error” on the above post so I’ll repeat what I asked Dr. E to post for me:
Wow, can’t find it in my sent items. interesting. Maybe Dr. E will post it, for me.
What a handly little slipping and sliding past the question.
I think fellow FREEPERS would be very interested in whether you see the socialists/communists/globalists broadening and intensifying the globalist world government, or not
??????????????????????????????????????????
If you are . . . unaware . . . . of that serious bunch of realities, perhaps . . . there’s a similar lack of awareness in religious matters.
At the minimum, I hope you realize that
SHRILLERY, OBUMMA AND MCCHURIAN
AS WELL AS VIRTUALLY ALL THE 16 OTHER ALSO-RANS
WERE ALL
GLOBALIST CONNECTED if not sold out to the globalist cause???
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