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 are of course WRONG...
Pontifex Maximus(Pope) means WHAT?..
LOL. INDEED.
—Mommy, he touched my seat!
—Mommy, he’s breathing my air!
—Mommy, he looked at me funny!
—Mommy, his shoe is next to my shoe!
—Mommy, he’s making monkey faces at me!
—Mommy, he won’t play dolls with me!
—Mommy, he’s acting stupid!
—Mommy, his shirt touched my blouse!
—Mommy, can we trade him in for a dog?
Got room for me?
We really appreciate the confirmation of your asserting that we are wrong.
That helps assure us tremendously that we are Biblically right on target.
You may not be able to read and understand the above equals an elevation to deity which equals worship, but I do.
Sola Scriptura does indeed appear in Scripture. II Timothy 3:16 - "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness." That verse clearly teaches that Scripture gives us all that we need to know. Not Popes, and not traditions.
Again Rev. 22:18 - "I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book;" That verse clearly teaches we are not to add to 'prophecy'. That would equally apply to God's revealed Word = Scripture. Nothing any man teaches should ever contradict God's Word so it is indeed sola scriptura as the basis for truth.
Furthermore in Acts 17:11 the berean christians compared what a man came along and taught with SCRIPTURE, not a pope or an appeal to tradition, in order to determine if what was being said was true or not: "Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." Now if the Bereans examined what the Apostle Paul taught against the Scriptures that they had, how much more so are we to examine, oh I dunno, what a Pope says compared with Scripture? Hint: that's Sola Scriptura.
As far as sola Fide start with Romans then move on to Galatians. Romans 3:28 - For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. Excuse me but I believe that verse clearly teaches 'faith alone' or sola fide. More: Romans 4:5; Ephesians 2:8 & 9; Titus 3:5; Galatians 2:16-21 (Galatians 2:16 - know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified).
So many things you know you simply don’t know.
Proven wrong about the continuing sainthood of St. Christopher, you move on to another error.
Thank you, Jim. The Bible shows us how to live. It’s a wonderful teaching tool, a manual of sorts. And yes, it does show us what is necessary for salvation, the real thing! Mxxx
Only because they threw out Cauvin before he could seize power.
lol, yup, we’ll chew hay and meditate
Because in spite of endless protestations . . .
the magicsterical waddle of mushed about rubber theology and dogma
—still waddles like rubber theology
—still lays eggs like rubber theology
—still quacks like rubber theology
—still flies like rubber theology
—still swims like rubber theology
—still fertilizes flowers like rubber theology
—still floats like rubber theology
—still loses feathers like rubber theology
—still flockes together like rubber theology
—still bobs in the water like rubber theology
. . . so . . . being ‘improperly taught’ Prottys . . . we just naturally construe it to be rubber theology!
Fancy that!
Mary's role in the Church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it.
You would agree Christ is God? Therefore would you not agree that any 'union' that is 'inseparable' would be = to deity?????
I rest my case.
I’ve stated before, leave the determination of the Jewish canon to the Jews themselves.
If the Chief Rabbi of Israel - certainly, you must be willing to grant that his knowledge of Jewish law and tradition is superior to any in the Christian world - feels no need to include these books in the Hebrew Bible, why should you?
It does not.
Yes, it is very scriptural. It’s your non-grammatical misreading, that began three centuries after the fact, that is not scriptural.
The facts of the true church today prove this. Compare the dead, pagan, blasphemous Roman church with the living, breathing, healing, and imparting churches, such as the Toronto Airport Church. No contest!
Yes, Paul tells us we need not be circumcised to be saved, and he was right.
And "profitable" does not mean "sufficient."
Carry on demonstrating your reading skills.
What outrageous blasphemy!
It’s a wonder authentic Christians’ blood doesn’t boil on reading that.
Impossible! I was told yesterday that reason and common sense are unnecessary if we have Truth.
I desire to be sanctified and someday completely rid of my sin.
To say that I desire to be united with God is akin to a Mormon's view of exaltation into godhood. That's blasphemy. I will never be 'a god' nor would I want to be. Nor will I ever be equal to Christ. He is my LORD, I am the servant. Quite a difference.
That is not sola scriptura. It makes a statement about all Scripture, it does not say that Scripture is all we need.
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