Posted on 01/31/2010 2:03:15 PM PST by NYer
What do you say about the seven ecumenical councils? (The Orthodox & the Catholics both claim these as part of Holy Tradition.) Do you accept them?
“Precisely, through Apostolic Tradition, unless you believe that Scripture was handed to man in stone tablet form directly from the burning bush. Sola Scriptura is an invention of, by, and for men who sought to deny Apostolic Tradition for personal gain.”
Nice attempt to both mischaracterize and then set up a straw man. Then you top it off by presuming to judge motives of people you don’t even know, something reprehensible in the eyes of all. And even if you did have some acquaintance with those of long ago whose motives you presume to judge, you have strayed into a province God reserves to Himself alone. Is this apologetics in your mind?
Demonstrably, you have confirmed what I said in post #139. Thanks.
Accurately reporting verifiable history is not distortion, however the falsification of the content of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is.
Demonstrably, you have confirmed what I said in post #182. Thanks.
“2 Peter 1:19-21 teaches sola scriptura? It’s amazing to me how two people can read the same verse and reach different conclusions.”
Why are you amazed? What do you think Peter, Paul, and John were warning about in terms of false prophecy and the strong delusion that they could already see was coming into the church?
“Beyond that, what do you (or anyone else) think more accurately defines the central notion of sola scriptura? Private interpretation, or a rule of law that settles all dispute?”
Notion? Notion? Wow! The Holy Scriptures don’t deal in notion. They express the will of God, period, His law and His gospel. You keep opting for law when the central NOTION (I would call it teaching or doctrine) of the Scriptures is salvation by grace through faith for the sake of the life and death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man. A friendly admonition, if you keep demanding law from God, eventually that is what you will get.
“I mean really, you really don’t believe that inherrent to the very nature of sola scriptura is one’s own private interpretation? You really don’t believe if you “read the Bible for yourself”, there is never any danger of twisting it “to your own destruction”, via an “unlearned” approach?”
Of course, I believe there is danger of twisting the the Scriptures “to your own destruction.” More than you know I believe this. By the way that is a nice segue back to the very same 2 Peter, this time to 3:14-18. Read what it says in full, and then tell me whose is the “unlearned” approach. Peter is saying that he agrees with what Paul wrote, every word of it, and all to whom he (Peter) is speaking should do the same. Scripture interprets Scripture, Scripture agrees with Scripture. Peter agrees with Paul. Sounds rather apostolic and non-”private” in the Petrine sense to me.
You have just made my point for me, for which I also thank you.
You have no credible basis for telling Catholics what and how to believe and threaten the withholding of salvation for legalistic infractions. Such claims of spiritual superiority and self acclaimed favor in God's eyes is the true meaning of taking the Lords name in vain.
Whoa there, pard. I've got news for ya. There is only ONE true God and he said his name is Jehovah (JHVH, YHvH or Yahweh). It is the same God in the Old Testament as in the New. The attributes given are all true, although I would not call him "vindictive". Deal with it.
Odd that you condemn UriA'el-2012 for deigning to tell Catholics "what and how to believe and threaten the withholding of salvation" when that is exactly what the Roman Catholic Church does and has done to any other non-Catholic Christian faith for centuries. Do we have a pot/kettle situation here?
“Demonstrably, you have confirmed what I said in post #182.”
Fortunately, I was not drinking anything when I read this, otherwise I would have covered my keyboard with it.
“We all know the principle of invincible ignorance. However, some are mired in insufferable ignorance. I’ve learned to recognize the type. Rather than ask what Catholics actually believe they begin with a false premise and then attack it and the refutation from a knee-jerk recital of preprogrammed anti-Catholic propaganda they have been taught since the cradle.”
I see. What is the title of this thread? Let me help you: “Where Is That Taught in the Bible?” Who started this thread and asked this question? Go back and look. I did. Who is spewing “knee-jerk” and “preprogrammed ... propaganda”? And, ah, when were you taught such? Or when was NYer?
I think I am staying pretty much on topic in a thread I did not start. This thread is obviously an effort to provoke. I will admit to being provoked.
Finally, ad hominem argumentation is so unhelpful and unneighborly. One might even say it is the stalking ground of an unstable personality bolstered by invincible ignorance.
Peace in Christ, the Savior of sinners.
I love your posts!! Bless you for getting at the heart of the matter and standing firm for the Gospel.
Why so passive aggressive? Indirectly accusing me of things not said or done is a more clinical sign of instability.
“Why so passive aggressive? Indirectly accusing me of things not said or done is a more clinical sign of instability.”
Ummmm, so I’m the passive aggressive type, the accuser of things not said or done? Let me make this very simple. True or false.
1. Did you or did you not write post #182?
2. Did you or did you not apply the contents of post #182, written originally to one “vladimir998,” for whatever reason you chose to do so, to me in post #184?
Time to correct our test.
1. True.
2. True.
Who started it?
You want to stay on topic, then stay on topic. You want stay with reasoned, neighborly debate, then do so. If not, don’t feign surprise and offense when someone talks to you the way you talk to them.
I see others have kept you busy, so I’ll just make a few general comments.
Yes, — there is an agenda. We Catholics would like everyone to be Catholic and come to salvation with us. Sola Scriptura is a counterscriptural nonsense on your way. Hence, the agenda.
Our attitude toward the Lutherans is a bit schizophrenic. On one hand, of all Protestant communities of faith the Lutherans and the Anglicans are dogmatically the closest. I can see a day when some continuing in the tradition Lutheran communities come back to the Church in the fashion similar to the Anglicans. The joing declaration on Justification, for example, is grounds for such hope. I do not think that any other Protestant group, all of which you rightly call radicals, would ever reconcile as a group, although individual conversions are happening all the time and surely conversions will accelerate as Protestantism continues to splinter and disintegrate.
But on the other hand, you guys started all this. The cardinal errors were all Luther’s: sola scriptura and sola fide. Neither is scriptural, and together these two errors lead to radical individualism of latter-day Protestantism just as surely as water flows downslope. Further, there is that issue of basic knowledgeability: the expectation that a Catholic holds for a Lutheran is much higher. So if a Catholic acts in an especially punishing way toward the Lutherans, that is the reason. You are Protestantism’s Original Sin.
You painted a symmetrical picture with the Confessional Lutheran community of faith aloft in the center with their, admittedly more sophisticated than the radical kind, notion of Sola Scriptura remaining in purity, whereas the Catholics mix the Scripture with the “human judgment ... through time” and the Radical Protestans, — with “human judgment ... contemporaneous”. The symmetry is fake.
Firstly, the Lutheran version of Sola Scriptura is not at all immune from human judgment. Luther had to ignore and even falsify scripture to make his notions fit. That is hardly “scripture interpreting scripture”. To pick the point that this article argues, nothing in the scripture verifies “sola scriptura” any better than it verifies, for example, the Purgatory, or even sale of indulgences, — the very sticking points for Luther.
Secondly, there is no symmetry. Given a choice between contemporaneous human judgment and historical human judgement who in his right mind would pick against the historical judgment? The scripture after all is a historical document! No wonder the Jews and the Muslims, and the Hindu, and the conservative legal scholars of the US Constitution, — every one with a common sense except apparently the Protestant lunatics — all look for historical context when they try to understand the books dear to them. The rapid radicalizaton of Lutheranism, some occurring even in Luther’s lifetime, is evidence of the folly of this arrogant, self-serving absurdity, which is the rejection of the patristic roots of any valid interpretation of scripture.
And even on your own terms, — by Scripture alone — your doctrines fail their own tests.
Contraception is not a "least detail". It is a serious sin against the First Commandment. Yes, while the mercy of Christ is greater than the obstinacy of any sinner, anyone practicing contraception is putting his salvation in grave danger.
It is not a disciplinary matter for the Catholics alone. It is a matter of the Natural Law, that condemns everyone violating it.
Well, hello again, annalex. I seem to recall encountering you on another, but similar thread. You are a bit more circumspect that some of the others that have been, as you say, keeping me busy.
Most of what you say in your general comments I, of course, do not agree with. I do acknowledge, however, a corresponding schizophrenia toward the Roman church. I commend the fact that you still hold to the Apostles, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds, as do we. I don’t appreciate the fascination with Pelagius you could never quite let go of. And, yes, Lutherans too tend to be a bit hard on their Roman cousins, since you are Christendom’s original sin, for which we have quite a lot of Scriptural support, none of it in need of being ripped from its context to support an agenda. 2 Thessalonians 2 would be a good place to start.
No, we didn’t start it. You did, long before the Reformation. At the Reformation you just doubled down instead of owning up.
A symmetrical picture ... I don’t know about that. Leaving that mathematical term aside, there is an analogous relationship to the way Rome views the Bible and the way the radical reformers do. You can dismiss this in your own mind, if you like. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Both enlist the judgment of man to tell God what He means.
You keep saying Luther falsified the Scriptures. To do so you point to one word in one example. Surely you can do better than that. Besides which, the word “alone” can be dropped from the translation, but the meaning remains the same, “by faith, without the works of the law.”
Looking at your last big paragraph, not the little totally false one at the end, you are still standing where you were on June 25, 1530. We have the Scriptures and you have the fathers (but by no means all of them!); and nothing has changed. Your arguments against the Augsburg Confession are no better now than those found in the pathetic Confutation, both of which are readily available on the net. I invite the truth seekers on this thread to just read and compare them. And, by the way, the Confutation was answered by the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, also readily available.
Peace in Christ.
” Whoa there, pard. I’ve got news for ya. There is only ONE true God and he said his name is Jehovah (JHVH, YHvH or Yahweh). It is the same God in the Old Testament as in the New. The attributes given are all true, although I would not call him “vindictive”. Deal with it.
Odd that you condemn UriA’el-2012 for deigning to tell Catholics “what and how to believe and threaten the withholding of salvation” when that is exactly what the Roman Catholic Church does and has done to any other non-Catholic Christian faith for centuries. Do we have a pot/kettle situation here?”
Excellent post, boatbums - and oh, so accurate!
Mommy, Mommy, make him stop? You began by injecting yourself into the dialog with a direct challenge of me over my personal belief system. My answers have been a restatement of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. That you reject the Catechism is between you and God. Leave me out of your personal Gesthemane.
Not “private interpretation” meaning “interpret Scripture any old way”, but rather interpretation led by the Holy Spirit and Scripture confirming Scripture. Scripture does not contradict itself. If it seems to do so it is man’s understanding rather than Scripture which is wrong. This point is why non-Catholics insist on the authority of Scripture rather than any “tradition” which runs counter to the Word of God.
Of course. Or on any point since the Pentecost onward. This is precisely, where the comparisons to self-propelled radical Protestants end.
If you have a scriptural argument for Faith Alone (the article is about the falsity of Scripture Alone, but no one seems to have a coherent argument on that score), please feel free to make it.
Also, if "allein" inserted in Rom 3:24 is honest translation, why was it subsequently dropped?
Disparaging, and in the case of the Deuterocanon, dropping altogether the scripture Luther did not like is not limited to the fraud of his version of Rom. 3:24. This is the pervasive methodology that is the ugly cousin of Luther's Sola Scriptura.
- The Deuterocanon was dropped
- the Letter of James was declared "of straw"
- the parables of the Gospel were declared hermeneutically wrong to teach from
Luther really worked hard to discredit the scripture that he disagreed with.
“We all know the principle of invincible ignorance. However, some are mired in insufferable ignorance. I’ve learned to recognize the type.”
Hmmmmmm...
OK. Far be it from me to challenge your “personal belief system.”
Alright. I see your methodology. Throw a pot full of spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks.
In response to my saying, “... you are still standing where you were on June 25, 1530, you said:
“Of course. Or on any point since the Pentecost onward. This is precisely, where the comparisons to self-propelled radical Protestants end.”
Well, that is the very point at issue isn’t it? And on the question of whether nothing changed in terms of Roman dogma between the first Christian Pentecost (it was a Jewish festival, you know) and June 25, 1530, history is not your friend. And no amount of burned heretics or political skullduggery could make it so.
Regarding Romans 3:24 (and I will do a little checking here), well, OK, it was dropped, but with no loss of meaning. Pretty good, huh? One insignificant mistake in a first try at translating the whole New Testament into German? What about Jerome’s “she” in Genesis 3:15, talk about doubling down on a mistake.
The deuterocanon, yes, well that they were not canonical was recognized by the church of the time, i.e., of the Old Testament. They were rejected before the time of Christ by the same people who accepted the canonical books. So, blame that on Israel. But we would be happy to take credit for it, if we could. The deuterocanonical books don’t measure up, and a careful reading of them will reveal that their authors didn’t think so either. Ever read 1 & 2 Maccabees all the way through in their own context? Try it, you’ll see what I mean.
The Epistle of James, well, gee it’s still in every Bible I’ve ever used, including Luther’s original translation. Oh, maybe you’re looking at his preface to James of 1522, not 1535. Luther was pretty good at owning up to his errors and not doubling down on them.
The parables of the Gospel declared hermeneutically wrong to teach from? I don’t think so. Someone fed you a line on that.
“Luther really worked hard to discredit the scripture he disagreed with.” So you say. But here again you are quite, quite incorrect.
Keep trying.
Peace.
It's TradicalRC. Think Traditional + Radical. Tragical sounds too Byronic. Maybe your Freudian slip is showing.
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