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."
And we thought Rev. Wright was silly for reveling in the injustices from 150 years ago.
No one ever got burned for possessing a true Bible.
Original sin and personal sin are two different things. Sin does not have to exist first before one can be "free from Orignal Sin."
Does one have to be first infected and then cured before one is "free of disease"?
Roamer_1, you claim to understand the difference between Original Sin and personal sin, and yet you hurrah this post. It makes me wonder.
So even though you were wrong, you insist you were still right.... how utterly typical.
But I'll make you happy!
Ananias "laid hands" on Paul to restore his sight (which is the other major use of the "laying on of hands" in the Church).
“Then after three years I went to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days” (you forgot vs 19, “But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother”)."
So?? It is obvious from the main context that he specifically went to Jerusalem TO SEE PETER, and that any interaction he had with James was incidental.
"Three times, Paul has had hands laid” on him; Ananias, prophets and teachers at Antioch; and James, Cephas, and John. The first two were not Apostles yet they were recognition of the Holy Spirit's calling on Paul's life and Paul ministered after that recognition. The “right hand of fellowship” was no different than the two previous recognitions."
Cute trick with the re-arrangement of the time-line. The "laying on of hands" by the Apostles happened before that of the "prophets and teachers at Antioch", and was the one that conferred ordination, as they were the ones with the authority to do so.
"As far as Peter founding any churches there is no evidence he did. He disappears after his hypocrisy is exposed to the Jerusalem church in Acts 15 and when Paul mentions that all have forsaken him in his last letter to Timothy, just before his death, if Peter was in Rome at the time, his abandoning Paul in his time of need, is symptomatic of what he did in Jesus’ time of need."
Uh, did you forget Antioch, which Peter DEFINITELY founded?? And the understanding of the Church is that Peter was killed BEFORE Paul. Being dead hardly constitutes "abandonment".
And, as I predicted, you totally blew off the historical evidence (archaeological) showing conclusively that Peter was in Rome, taught in Rome, and died in Rome.
One of my favorite places the Scriptures tell proclaims Sola Scriptura is:
Proverbs 30:5 Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.
6 Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.
Peter was the first STEWARD of the Church. Given his special authority as Apostle, one "can" argue that that elevates him above mere "pope-hood". But he certainly DID ordain the second Steward. Whether that individual was the first Pope or the second is open to interpretation.
You are appealing to the autority of your Greek translator. And when another points out a "missing" alternative Greek definition, you have no way of knowing which definition is valid.
So when you can't know what Scripture is supposed to mean, you fall back to your own pre-conceptions.
That's a powerful argument for the text itself not being sufficient.
You get all of this from that one passage? Are you sure you're not bringing your own external argument to these words?
My analogy is not false. Because the subject is "Scripture" and not "gasoline" you want to add a whole bunch of other things that the text never says.
If that verse “proclaims Sola Scriptura” then what of God’s word that is not in the Scriptures?
“Does one have to be first infected and then cured before one is “free of disease”?”
No, but there first has to be a disease. There was no sin or original sin in the garden when Eve was created. All she had was untested innocence and the potential to sin since she was created.
I don't disagree; however, the phrase used WAS NOT simply "blessed," it was "blessed AMONG WOMEN" and that means among ALL women.
Moreover, when Elizabeth greets her, she says, "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." (Luke 1:42) Elizabeth makes NO DISTINCTION between the blessing bestowed upon Mary and the blessing bestowed upon the Lord. Because we know that Mary IS NOT Divine, that blessing MUST refer to a sinless state.
This is in fulfillment of God's promise to Satan in Genesis 3:15 (I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel). Who is the "woman" in this verse, certainly it isn't Eve, it is Mary. Mary crushes the head of Satan with her Seed. Mary is a participant, not an inconsequential bystander. Additionally, the emnities are the SAME between Mary and Satan and his seed as those of Jesus Christ. We know that the emnities between Satan and the Lord are complete and eternal, therefore the emnities between Mary and Satan are the same.
You say "there was no original sin" in Eden, but that is because God made it that way.
Eden is not the natural state of man. It is a blessed, graced state God chose for us. That is what lacking original sin means. It is a blessing.
That's one of those gems that can lead to a fresh re-reading of the New Testament. It might lead one to remember that hellenics interpreting what is basically a hebraic text need to be very careful not to overextend the interpretation.
He has revealed as much of Himself in the Scriptures as He has chosen to do. Much of His will and so forth are beyond our capability, it would be fruitless to ponder (last few chapters of Job come to mind).
If any man speak as a prophet of God, let his words be examined to see if they line up with the Scriptures. Because every man is liar and only God is True.
Nonsense. By that standard Peter could have never proclaimed the Scriptural validity of replacing Judas in the book of Acts.
As fond of Protestants are of quoting Acts 17:11 for authority, they know absolutely nothing of the context of that "testing" so they can not say if their citation is appropriate.
One of the common failings of men is to look upon the apostles of Christ as normative for Christians. That is not the case. They (some, not all) were guided and carried along by the Spirit of God to say and write the Words of God. You and I are not those few, whose office (as Scripture writers and absolute Truth tellers) has ceased.
This is insane. You want Paul’s words to be tested by Scripture, but they you want Scripture’s words to be validated by Peter. Either way, you rob the Church of the authority bestowed on it by Christ Himself.
Moreover, by what authority do you claim anything beside the office of Apostle (by virtue of them all passing away) has ceased?
That statement just speaks volumes. And what 'true Bible' would that be, the Latin Vulgate??????
This from a man who rejects Romans 3:23 and appeals to the teaching of men.
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