Posted on 08/20/2009 9:14:42 AM PDT by Mr Rogers
***The Holy Scripture as dictated to the inspired authors ***
Alex, the Holy Spirit did not dictate the New Testament books. Luke expressly says so. The Epistles emphatically are letters written by bishops to their flocks. Even Revelation says in Revelation 1:
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I was caught up in spirit on the Lord’s day 9 and heard behind me a voice as loud as a trumpet,
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which said, “Write on a scroll 10 what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”
Even John was instructed to write what he saw. Not what God dictated to him.
***This is how development of doctrine is possible within the Catholic Church.***
The Church is protected by the Holy Spirit; yet individuals within the Church such as Origen and Nestorius may wander into heresy and not return. Augustine wandered and returned but never quite shook his heresies from his writings.
Leo XIII's opinion is that He did, but of course the encyclical does not elaborate. Luke merely says that he is the human author. The point about "dictation" is somewhat semantical; the essential teaching is that the scripture is inerrant as written.
Yes, individuals err, even Catholic ones. The Church as a whole does not.
Correct,dear brother! So does the Catechism say Scripture was written by inspiration of the Holy Spirit
111 But since Sacred Scripture is inspired, there is another and no less important principle of correct interpretation, without which Scripture would remain a dead letter. “Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written.”
Mark Bsnr,
I think you're stepping outside on your own by saying the NT books were not guided by the Holy Spirit. The Church does NOT teach this!
How do you know that?
It reflects the Holy (or Sacred, same word) Tradition but does not encompass all of it, because it does not contain the subsequent guidance of the Holy Ghost
How so? The Councils are believed inspired (by the Holy Spirit) and infallible, just like the Bible.
It is a living, self-correcting organism which as a whole protected from error by the Holy Ghost
Where does it say that?
Alex, you are pulling rabbits out of a hat. I am sorry, where does it say the New Testament was dictated by the Holy Ghost? Real Luke 1. And where does it say that "God-spirited" is inerrant?
In the Bible the term "spirited" or "breathed" means quickened, or moved, the way we are inspired to write when we experience something we wish to describe for others. It doesn't mean God "wrote" it.
The tradition where an author is 'possessed' (Mark would say 'hijacked') by the Spirit was started by someone who was not even a Christian, but an Alexandrian Jew rather, by the name of Philo.
His influence on the early Christian community has been so great that Eusebius, the first Church historian, refers to him as St. Philo (and he wasn't being sarcastic!).
What Pope Leo XIII said sounds every bit as Protestant as something Luther or Calvin or Zwingli would have said.
The councils are indeed divinely inspired, as is the Scripture and the rest of the magisterial teaching. I know all that thanks to the same.
***the Holy Spirit did not dictate the New Testament books
Leo XIII’s opinion is that He did, but of course the encyclical does not elaborate. Luke merely says that he is the human author. The point about “dictation” is somewhat semantical; the essential teaching is that the scripture is inerrant as written.
Yes, individuals err, even Catholic ones. The Church as a whole does not. ***
We need to understand the difference between inspired and dictated. We have the claims that Muhammed had God dictate to him. Moses had God dictate to him. Joseph Smith claims that he had God dictate to him.
Yet the NT Scripture never claims that. Ever. In fact, the examples that I have given refute that. Luke says that he (Luke) decided to gather all the information that he could. John in Revelation says that he was told to write down what he saw. The Epistles are the bishops’ writings to their flocks.
Now we come to inspiration. We as Catholics believe that we see God through our limited human eyes and do our best under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to put the infinite God into our limited understanding and words. The Church does not err; individuals do.
Belief, gentlemen. Belief. The Faith of the Apostles. The Deposit of Faith handed down to us. Those whom claim knowledge where there is faith are the theological descendants of the Gnostics (who enjoyed a Renaissance 500 years ago, and again 250 years ago, and again 100 years ago).
***I think you’re stepping outside on your own by saying the NT books were not guided by the Holy Spirit. The Church does NOT teach this!***
Where did I say this? Really, stf. Please read what I have posted. I am not a pagan opposed to the Church; but I do read Scripture and post the same; as well, I post Catechism when the occasion warrants it. Show me where the Church says that the NT was dictated.
...all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church, solemnly defined in the Councils of Florence and of Trent, and finally confirmed and more expressly formulated by the Council of the Vatican. These are the words of the last: "The Books of the Old and New Testament, whole and entire, with all their parts, as enumerated in the decree of the same Council (Trent) and in the ancient Latin Vulgate, are to be received as sacred and canonical. And the Church holds them as sacred and canonical, not because, having been composed by human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority; nor only because they contain revelation without error; but because, having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author."(57)Leo XIII on the inerrancy of scripture (from Providentissimus Deus) [ecum.]
The thrust of his encyclical is that the scripture is inerrant. So long as we agree on that, the distinctions are semantical, and if we don't agree on that, some of us are not Catholic.
***The thrust of his encyclical is that the scripture is inerrant. So long as we agree on that, the distinctions are semantical, and if we don’t agree on that, some of us are not Catholic.***
As some of my friends have painfully shown me, Scripture in the various Bibles is not inerrant. The Church’s interpretation of them is. That is the difference. Otherwise every Tom, Dick and Calvin have equal authority and validity in their interpretation.
***If we look at what Leo XIII wrote in context, we see that “dictation” to him is another word for “inspiration”: ***
And I will accept that under the Church’s authority. Kosta is correct; to say that the NT was written by the Holy Spirit is Gnostic and as Reformation as they come.
***The tradition where an author is ‘possessed’ (Mark would say ‘hijacked’) by the Spirit was started by someone who was not even a Christian, but an Alexandrian Jew rather, by the name of Philo.
His influence on the early Christian community has been so great that Eusebius, the first Church historian, refers to him as St. Philo (and he wasn’t being sarcastic!).***
I believe that we need to leave possession to such entities as the Allah of Muhammed, the twin Gods of Joseph Smith, and the little blue men who burnt their captives in wicker baskets in primitive Britain (no, not current Scotland).
No, I think it's the other way around. He says:
That God can utter himself? Obviously, +Leo XIII considers the sacred writings God's own words. In other words, inspired means dictated in his own words! That is Protestant nonsense!
As Mark said correctly, the writers of the New Testament claim they wrote what they saw, remembered, gathered from eyewitnesses, etc. +John claims he was moved to write what he saw when he heard a voice to that effect, but the writing was still what he saw in his own words.
None of the authors of the NT say God told me "write this down word for word..." OT prophets quote God but that was the ancient style, they used to make up quotes as they believed someone would have said something.
Even the NT writers do that when they quote Jesus. We know none of the disciples was next to Pilate when Jesus was talking to him, or in the Sanhedrin meeting when Jesus was brought to them, or at the Cross, yet all of them give explicit quotes in red as if they were.
Let's not fall for superstition and keep faith as faith instead of some Gnostic quasi knowledge like the Protestants.
How do you know the Church interpretation is not the original intent of the inspired author? As Leo XIII teaches, the apparent error is in the reader, not in the writer.
The expression “God speaks through the prophets” is not familiar to you? It is in the creed.
Yes, in revealing to them the oracles of God, especially of things to come—prophesies; not dictating, word for word, what's in the Bible. In other words: God reveals the outcome, and the prophets report the news in their own words and style.
To the believers, the outcome is a foregone concusion, but the word-by-word account of the individual author are not God's own words or immune from human error.
Come on Alex, you are beginning to sound more like a Protestant then a Catholic, cherry-picking a word here and a word there and completely missing their meaning—or the message for that matter. Again, just because the prophets "quote" God doesn't mean they quote God!
It was the ancient style of writing to make up quotes according to what the author believed the person quoted would have said. I gave you examples from the NT where authors are quoting Jesus and we know that none of the disciples were present to witness exactly what was said.
In fact, different authors quoting the same event say different, even divergent things because of that. +Matthew would have been a witness, yet he uses the material written by +Mark who was not. And +Luke wasn't a witness either and he borrowed from +Mark, but unlike +Matthew, he ad libs a great deal. And +John, who would also have been a witness, writes something that doesn't even resembles anything written in the Synoptic Gospels.
It doesn't matter if the Sermon on the Mount according to +Matthew differs from the one accoridng to +Luke. If we look at them word-by-word, we must conclude that one is wrong. But if you look at the message of the Sermon, as reported by either author, the message is the same. In this case, the truth is not in the details!
You can't read the Bible literally, Alex, but that is precisely where the idea that every word in it is God's own leads you. Then the Bible becomes God, and you become a Protestant.
The ancient writers used what we now call "poetic license," which means you have to concentrate on the message and not the literal story.
Yes, but not for reasons spelled out by +Leo XIII. The error of the reader is precisely in believing that every word in the Bible was dictated by God, rather than believing that the message, as reported by author in his own words and style, is an imperfect rendition of God's perfect truth. In other words, don't believe the words, believe the message.
When the word was indeed chosen by the inspired author, and we understand the original intent of the choice of that word, that word is chosen without error. That is the only logical meaning of "God-breathed", or "inspired", as Pope Leo shows.
It is possible for several textually different narratives to exist and for them all to be inerrant in that sense. In fact, the multiplicity of views on the events and teachings during the ministry of Christ on earth is in itself a divinely dictated feature of the scriptures.
"Protestantism" is neither here or there on that score. Some prefer literalism in its true and Catholic sense, -- which does not exclude metaphorical language, hyperbole and allegory, when that is what the inspired author intended. If they do, good for them, that would be among the things the Protestants got right. Others are hyper-literalists, especially as concerns the Old Testament, and their interpretation is in error. Some are champions of every "dynamic" abomination that passes along as scripture translated. Very many would agree with you that it only the message that counts, not the wording, and disagree with me. Let us argue like adults please, and not by name-calling.
***How do you know the Church interpretation is not the original intent of the inspired author? As Leo XIII teaches, the apparent error is in the reader, not in the writer.***
Let us differentiate between intent and achievement. The OT is chock full of the Jews misunderstanding God, based upon the revelation of Jesus. The reason that Jesus invested so much time and effort upon creating the Church is that this is the entity upon Earth that is intended to be the teaching authority.
Remember that the current NT did not exist except as some of many that gradually went into circulation in the first three centuries. The Church formulated doctrine ahead of the NT compilation. And that is from the original documents that were copied and copied and copied somewhat inaccurately.
That does not even include the deliberate alteration of the NT that occurred over time, both in the pre Nicene era and in the post Nicene era. Look at the English translations that became a travesty of understanding of Scripture. Even the NAB has not escaped the liberal alteration, although it is the Church’s interpretation that saves it.
***The expression “God speaks through the prophets” is not familiar to you? It is in the creed.***
I am. And?
***The expression “God speaks through the prophets” is not familiar to you? It is in the creed
Yes, in revealing to them the oracles of God, especially of things to come—prophesies; not dictating, word for word, what’s in the Bible. In other words: God reveals the outcome, and the prophets report the news in their own words and style.
To the believers, the outcome is a foregone concusion, but the word-by-word account of the individual author are not God’s own words or immune from human error.***
Not a bad analogy. The prophets are reporters, as it were.
***In fact, different authors quoting the same event say different, even divergent things because of that. +Matthew would have been a witness, yet he uses the material written by +Mark who was not. And +Luke wasn’t a witness either and he borrowed from +Mark, but unlike +Matthew, he ad libs a great deal. And +John, who would also have been a witness, writes something that doesn’t even resembles anything written in the Synoptic Gospels.
It doesn’t matter if the Sermon on the Mount according to +Matthew differs from the one accoridng to +Luke. If we look at them word-by-word, we must conclude that one is wrong. But if you look at the message of the Sermon, as reported by either author, the message is the same. In this case, the truth is not in the details!
You can’t read the Bible literally, Alex, but that is precisely where the idea that every word in it is God’s own leads you. Then the Bible becomes God, and you become a Protestant.
The ancient writers used what we now call “poetic license,” which means you have to concentrate on the message and not the literal story.***
Which is why the teaching authority of the Church is so important.
I agree with your post in its entirety. You list numerous human errors of copying and interpretation. They do not speak to the original intent of the inspired author.
Regarding “God speaking through prophets” I was merely pointing out that to say, with Leo XIII, “God utters” is nothing close to “Protestant nonsense”.
***I agree with your post in its entirety. You list numerous human errors of copying and interpretation. They do not speak to the original intent of the inspired author.***
Very good. We must remember though, that we finite humans are attempting to describe infinite God with finite understanding and language. Boy, do we fall short.
***Regarding “God speaking through prophets” I was merely pointing out that to say, with Leo XIII, “God utters” is nothing close to “Protestant nonsense”.***
There is a long way between ‘God utters’ and ‘God dictates’. The difference is in kosta’s excellent classification of the inspired as reporters. They tell us what they know in their own words and understandings. The Day of Resurrection is a case in point. The Sermons is another. In both examples, the ‘eyewitness account’ would have landed the eyewitness in the hoosegow because the details are so different. But the message is the same. And that is what the Church has the authority and responsibility to handle.
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