I find your 2 statements to be an admission that DOGMA is the "Traditions of Men" that were condemned by Jesus concerning the Pharisees
Well, that's a flawed individual interpretation (sola interpretura).
If you read up you'll find works like the Didache or the Shepherd of Hermas which predate much of what was written in the NT. These are not the traditions of men, but the traditions of God -- remember that Christ spent 40 days teaching his apostles and the vast bulk of them did not write books (Paul came later) but taught verbally.
If you read Irenaeus who was a witness to apostolic teaching, he writes
Having founded and built the Church, the blessed apostles entrusted teh episcopal office to Linus, who is mentioned by Paul in the Epistles to Timothy; Linus was succeeded by Anecletus; after him, in the third place from the apostles, the bishopric fell to Clement, who had seen the blessed apostles and conversed with them, and still had their preaching tinging in his ears and their authentic tradition before his eyes. And he was not the only one; there were still manypeple alive who had been taught by the apostles... in the same order and the same succession the authentic tradition received from the apostles and passed down by the Church and the preaching of the truth have been handed on to us
--> we are the people of Christ, of the traditions of Christ as spread by His apostles
The early Church appealed to the tradition and apostolic succession as her basis for truth and her weapon against the heretics like the Gnostics and Marcionites. This was the universal teaching of The Church. Even if you do not accept apostolic tradtion, it is a fact that Irenaeus and the early Church used successioni and tradition as their authoirty. They firmly believed that the apostolic teaching woudl be sustained through the apostolic succession in the Churches
Did the New Testament give birht to the Church or did The Church (Orthodox, Oriental, Assyrian, Catholic) give birth tothe New Testament? (the NT were produced by The Church (the community of believers) yet the Church was subject to them, like Mary gave birth to Jesus, the Living Word yet was subject to Him).
The NT is the child of The Church -- the primary author IS the Holy Spirit -- God is the author. The writers were a part of the Church and the Church had the authority to recognise the inspired books and the authority to close the canon. Without the authority of The Church, how does a Protestant know which books belong in the New Testament? Reformed theologian R.C> Sproul says in
Essential truths of the Christian faith that the Protestant position can at best claim "a fallible collection of infallibile books"
If Christ wanted us to have an infallible colleciton of writings, he needed to do one of two things:
1. Give us an authoritative list of writings, dictated by an apostle that would form the canon to provide certainty, so there would be no confusion OR
2. Establish an infallible community, a Church that could give us a list of infallible writings so we could be certain.
The did not do the first, and the Protestant denies the second.
The NT is the collected and inspired writings of the apostles and their immediate followers. It is not however, the sum total of all their teachigns and traditions -- for example Paul's First letter to the Corinthians is actually the
second letter. 1 Cor 5:9 informs us that Paul had sent an epistle earlier. Also Jude 17-18 where Jude writes "But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: they said to you, 'In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.'" These are not recorded in the writings of the NT but were part of the tradition passed on by the apostles that Jude assumed all believers know. Jude assumed his readers had an intimate knowledge of the words contained in the unwritten tradition. And what of the teachings of Philip, Bartholomew, Andrew, Thomas etc.?
Jesus promised us an authoritative Church (Matthew 16:18-19, 18:15:20). The fullness of Christ's teachings through His apotles -- written and unwritten was not contained in the Bible alone but was deposited in The Church. As John Hardon S.J. wrotein his book "pocket Catholic Dictionary":
Traidiotn first means all of divine revelation , from the dawn of human history to the end of hte apostolic age, as passed on from one generation of believers to the next, and as preserved under divine guidance by The Church established by Christ. Sacred Tradition also means, within this transmitted revelation, that part of God's revealed word which is not contained in Sacred Scripture".
he also writes in his commentary on the Catechism
Catholicism believes that the whole content of God's revealed word is not limited to the biblical page BUT it also sees that the Bible and tradition are intimately related, in fact are interdependent.. the two may not be separated... Moreover, both have been left with The Church and IN The Church as a sacred deposit"
Jesus's word was spoken orally to the twelve just as in the Old Covenant oral tradition was established side-by-side with the Torah -- Matthew 23:1-2 "Then said Jesus to the crowd and to his disciples: 'the scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach but do not practice'"
Jesus recognised the Jewish tradition as biding upon the people of Israel.
Jesus promised that when the Holy SPirit came, he would teach them all things and bring to their REMEMBRANCE "all that I said to you" (Jn 14:26)
You may quote 2 Tim 3:16-17 and you will find that St. Paul uses the same language in Eph 4:11-14 informing his readers that the equipping and perfecting of saints is accomplished through the leaders of the Church.
Acts 1:2-3
Until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit tothe apostles whom he had chosen. To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God"
The Early Church depended upon the apostolic Tradition. If you read Eusebius
The History of the CHurch from Christ to Constantine which he wrote in 325, he repeatedly talks about "apostolic succession", "apostolic tradition", "practice of the Church"
If you read even more ancient writings from the 1st and 2nd centuries you will see the same echoed -- the apostolic Church was the orthodox-catholic Church.
2 Tim 3:15 "If I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in teh household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth."
Paul referred to the Church (the community of believers holding to apostolic teachings and tradition), not the Bible as the pillar and foundation of The Truth
We read in Jude 3 "contend earnestly for the faith which was once and for all delivered to the saints" -- and you read from the 2nd century Irenaeus confirming that (Irenaeus was the disciple of Polycarp who was the disciple of the Apostle John)
This preaching and this faith the Church, although scattered over the whole world, diligently observes, as if it occupied but one house, and believes as if it had but one mind, and preaches and teaches as if it had but one mouth. And although there are many dialects in the world, the meaning of the tradition is one and the same." from Against heresies
"When therefore, we have such proofs, it is not necessary to seek among other the truth which is easily obtained from The Church. For the apostles, like a rich man in a bank, depostied with her (The Church) most copiously everythign which pertains to the truth; and everyone whosoever wishes draws from her the drink of life"
And you carp agains the 1st and 2nd century Church apostolic teachings? Do you honestly believe that you or someone in the 1500s knew better than someone who was just a generation from the apostles? Or someone who heard the apostles?
The Church was viewed as the bank into which Christ and the apostles deposited the fullness of the faith.
Why did the holy Spirit wait for almost four centuries before finally collecting and forming the apostolic writings into a collection called the New Testament? Why didn't the apostles colelct all the inspired writings and authoritatively announce that this was now the "sole rule of faith for your individual interpretations"? They did not because the truth was not to be deposited into a book, as the protestant doctrine of
sola Scriptura teaches, but the truth, the fullness of the faith, was deposited in The Church -- to the saints once and for all
St. Epiphanius (315-403) wrote "It is needful to make use of Tradition; for not everything can be gotten from Sacred Scripture. The holy Apostles handed down some things in the Scriptures, other things in Tradition" (
Panarion)
St. John Chrysostom (347-407) "So then, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye were taught, whether by word, or by epistleof ours"
St. Augustine (354-430) "I believe this practice comes from apostolic tradition, just as so many other practices not found in their writings nor in the councils of their successorts, but which , because they are kept by the whole Church everywhere, are believed to have been commended and handed down by the Apostles themselves"
Clement of Alexandria ( a successor to the Apostles) said of Mark's gospel "When at Rome, Peter, had openly preached the word and by the Spirit had proclaimed the gospel, the large audience urged Mark, who had followed him for a long time and remembered what had been said, to write it all down. This he did, making his gospel available to all who wanted it. When Peter heard about this, he made no objection and gave no special encouragement" (from Eusebius'
history of the church
The New Testament documents especially by Paul were sent to correct a problem, remind the readers of the oral tradition, or to supplement the preachign of the gospel.
And I'll quote Eusebius once more who wrote "Thus they proclaimed the knowledge of the kingdom of heaven through the whole world, giving very little thought to the business of writing books"
The term "canon" was being used for the oral tradition and confessions of faith long before it was used to describe the list of accepted books. In fact, this canon, or tradition was an important criterion for determining which books would eventually become part of the New Testament -- if you deny Tradition, then you deny that criterion and you are left with no leg to stand on for determining the inspiration or canonicity of the Bible in your hands
The first century Christian would have been without the New Testament, but he woudl not have been without the apostolic tradition, preserved by the Church and passed on to the next generation: even without the final collection and ready availability of the NT as we know it, the early Church existed and thrived by means of the apostolic Tradition preserved within the Church
Fundamentalists says that the Bible alone, nothing but hte Bible is the standard and rule of Christianity. And yet we see that from numerous sources that this is a revisionist view of hte first centuries. Early Christianity had no compiled New Testament until 393 and Could never have made that statement.
Sola scriptura had never been taught by the apostles, the fathers or The Church. It is never taught in scripture either!
The Reformation principle of each man with a Bible and his own interpretation led MARTIN LUTHER to write
There are almost as many sects and beliefs as there are heads; this one will not admit Baptism; that one rejectsthe Sacrament of the altar; another places another world between the present one and the day of judgement; some teach that Jesus Christ is not God. There is not an individual, however clownish he may be, who does not claim to be inspired by the Holy Ghost, and who does not put forth as prophecies his ravings and dreams
And again I quote Ireneus from
Against Heresies who wrote in
180 AD, 200 years before the NT was collected formally and it's canon determinedas I have already observed, tha Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points of doctrine just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. For althought the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet hte import of the tradition are one and the same. For the churches in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those int eh EAst, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions (Israel) of the world"
The Holy SPirit authored and collected the bible but he used men , the Church to write it and to collect it and to close canon.
The Dogma is the tradition of God as through His Apostles, these are not the traditions of men like sola fide, sola scriptura, rapture, etc.
Even your assertion against Mary is incorrect when you consider the term the angel used for mary -- full of grace. The greek word signifies FILLED with grace, overflowing with the grace of God. God created this woman and filled her with grace so that God Himself could be born inside Her. As we know with the Ark, only the purified, holy priests could even touch it -- what more for someone holding God? Mary, the God bearer, Theotokos.