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."
Luther disagreed with you on that. He tried to add the word "sola" to his translation. His fraud was immediately caught.
Why would the father of sola scriptura attempt to modify Scripture, unless he felt that on its own it did not support his wild claim?
I haven’t noticed anyone lying on the Protty side.
There's the accusation...Where's the evidence???
I didn't call St Chris a legend in your own mind, YOUR CHURCH did...
the folly of individual interpretation.
= ==
As in the RC magicsterical?
Who decides which century or which pontificator is more accurate than the rest?
And given no more Papal armies . . . I guess it must be the last one standing?
If Luther had a problem with Marian beliefs one would think that he surely could have managed a 96th Thesis.
And the word you choose to call "until" is actually "til" and it doesn't matter because neither word means that the future event occurred. Even the questionable quote you gave speaks of her virginity in a perpetual sense.
Protestants don't reject the view that Mary was the most blessed of women.
Then she MUST have been preserved from the stain of sin, otherwise Eve would be the most blessed woman. And it would hardly be right to say that the mother of Cain is in any way superior to the mother of our Lord.
It is your proposition, yet you have not proven it. This is not my concern.
I didn't call St Chris a legend in your own mind, YOUR CHURCH did...
They did not.
What are you talking about??? The Bereans weren't using reason and common sense to test Paul...They were using established TRUTH, the Scriptures...
I'm talking about your hairbrained claim that we do not need our God-given gifts of logic and common sense.
Saint Paul was martyred sometime in the mid-60s, it is generally agreed that the Gospel of Mark was probably written AFTER this. It is beyond dispute that ALL of the writings of Saint John were written long AFTER this.
You prove yet again how insightful Saint Peter was with his warning in 2 Peter 3:16.
How does one devise a test between one set of propositions and a collection of writings without using logic?
However, we Protestants realize ANY site which reveals the errors of Rome is considered a hate site, and therefore must be obliterated.
By the grace of God, the RCC cannot silence the truth, though they labor long and hard to do just that.
For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, fear Him." -- Luke 12:1-6"Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
Yes, I said that. Not a hate site.
But it is filled with hate.
However, we Protestants realize ANY site which reveals the errors of Rome is considered a hate site, and therefore must be obliterated.
That is as expansive a sense of paranoia as I've seen in some significant time. I didn't have it pulled. I didn't ask it be pulled. I certainly can't have anything pulled. I don't care if it's pulled. I categorically didn't say anything resembling obliteration.
Personally, I prefer this kind of outlandish material be given a thread so that the world can see the kind of hate fever swamps are at work in the world.
I was very pleased to see you admit that you think the pope is the antichrist. I'm glad you posted that; light is a powerful disinfectant.
First, I don't necessarily agree with your date for Mark. "Generally agreed" is a fallacious term used to end argument.
But the point remains that Paul saw the existing scripture as sufficient to make the man of God complete, perfect, apt to every good work, what God intended him to be. Peter specifically refers to Paul's writing, and others, as that scripture. That more apostolic writings came after Paul's statement in 2 Timothy does not change the conclusion. There was a sufficient gospel before his death, and he assumed his readers knew what he was talking about.
What do you think he is saying? Are you allowed to suggest an alternate interpretation, or does that violate 2 Peter 3:16?
As the Religion Moderator said in his very good advice to us, we should either put quotes around direct quotes or else we need to say we are "paraphrasing" another poster's comments.
I have never said "the pope is the antiChrist." There are many antiChrists, as Scripture tells us.
I did, however, many many times explain that I don't find anything incorrect in the Westminster Confession of Faith.
Please stop bearing false witness, making this personal and breaking the rules of the FR Religion Forum.
As an example of faulty logic, see #649.
Ditto with what you post being found only at Catholic sites.
If Luther had a problem with Marian beliefs one would think that he surely could have managed a 96th Thesis.
Might me because the doctrine of Mary's becoming sinless and a co-Savior really didn't begin to take hold until the last 100 years or so with a papal decree about the mid-1800's. Besides which Luther was not attacking every Doctrine of the church he was trying to reform the church and get rid of unbiblical teaching and error regarding salvation hence the term: "REFORMation".
And the word you choose to call "until" is actually "til" and it doesn't matter because neither word means that the future event occurred.
Poppycock. You obviously don't know New Testament Greek. And you still did not answer the obvious question. Did God expect Joseph to take a wife and REMAIN CELEBATE the rest of his married life?????? And if so, where is your scriptural support????? If your interpretation is correct that is what happened.......
Then she MUST have been preserved from the stain of sin, otherwise Eve
Why??? Sin is passed through the male, not the female. "Some Bible commentators, with whom I agree, hold the position that the sin nature is passed down through the father. Support for this position is found in the fact that sin entered the world through Adam, not Eve. Remember, Eve was the one who sinned first. However, sin did not enter the world through her. It entered through Adam. Rom. 5:12 says, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned." The concept behind this is called Federal Headship. This means that a person (a father) represents his descendants. We see this concept taught in Heb. 7:9-10, "And, so to speak, through Abraham even Levi, who received tithes, paid tithes, for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him." We see in Hebrews that Levi, a distant descendant of Abraham, is said to have paid tithes to Melchizedek when Abraham was the one offering the tithes, not Levi. What this means is that there is biblical support for the idea that the sin nature was passed down through the father. Since Jesus had not a literal, biological father, the sin nature was not passed down to Him. However, since He had a human mother, he was fully human but without original sin. Jesus has two natures: God and man. Col. 2:9 says, "For in Him dwells all the fullness of deity in bodily form." Jesus received His human nature from Mary, but He received His divine nature through God the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Jesus is both God and man. He was sinless, had no original sin, and was both fully God and fully man." (http://www.carm.org/questions/Jesus_original_sin.htm) And Mary was not required to be sinless according to Scripture, only unbiblical teaching OUTSIDE of Scripture says this.
Dr. Eck, out of curiosity, where/when did Alex Murphy...err...the Religion Moderator dispense the very good advice?
http://contenderministries.org/ is a hate site ONLY in that the people who manage that site hate EVIL, as does the Lord in Heaven and all the saints.
Disagreeing with RC doctrine is not hate speech, unless George Orwell has anointed king.
Wouldn't the difference between such "gnosis" and "hallucination" be EVIDENCE? ;o)
BTW I do not consider myself a protestant and I'm trying to respect the Catholic faith. I'm just looking for the nucleus of the gospel that is sufficient to make us complete. So far, I find that anything beyond simple statements of the Bible seems superfluous (1 Corinthians 15:1ff lays it out clearly).
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.