Posted on 05/14/2010 11:03:45 AM PDT by NYer
Holy Scripture, despite all appearances, will not always be easy to interpret. We can be lulled into thinking our “common sense” and “by the letter” interpretation of a text is what God intends us to get out of it. However, if this is the case, there would be little to no debates about its meaning; there would be little confusion as to its purpose and how it applies to us today. St. Peter would not have needed to tell us that no prophecy of Scripture is to be interpreted privately, because all interpretations of Scripture would end up the same. We need to understand and heed the warning of St. Mark the Ascetic: “Do not let your heart become conceited about your interpretations of Scripture, lest your intellect fall afoul for the spirit of blasphemy.” [1] Why would he be warning us of this? Because Scripture, in its most external, simplistic level, could easily lead people to a perverted understanding of God and the Christian faith.
For an interpretation of Scripture to be acceptable (which does not mean it is necessarily correct), it must at least conform to the basic dogmatic teachings of the Church. If God is love, this must be manifest from one’s understanding of Scripture. If one’s interpretation of a text would lead to God doing or commanding something which runs against the law of love, the law by which God himself acts, then one has indeed committed blasphemy. If one really believes God commands some intrinsic evil, such as genocide, one has abandoned the God who is love, and has at least committed unintentional blasphemy by something evil about him. One cannot get out of this by saying, “whatever God wills, is now good,” or that “the very nature of right and wrong has changed through time,” because both would contradict not only the fundamental character of love, but also the fact God has provided us a positive means by which we can understand something of him via analogy; we know what love is, we know what the good is, and therefore we know something about God when we see he is love or that he is good. While we must understand our concepts are limited in relation to God, it is not because God is less than our concepts, but more and their foundation. Thus, Pope Benedict wisely says:
In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which, in its later developments, led to the claim that we can only know God’s voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God’s freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazm and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God’s transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions. As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy, in which – as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stated – unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language. God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love, as Saint Paul says, “transcends” knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is Logos. Consequently, Christian worship is, again to quote Paul – “λογικη λατρεία”, worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).[2]
Christianity affirms both the transcendence and immanence of God. The second allows us to say something positive and true about God, while the first reminds us that positive assertions are limited, that they are at best analogous pointers to something beyond the statements themselves. Our teachings truly say something about God. They must be used as the guideline by which we read Scripture. Moreover, as the Church makes abundantly clear, Scripture is itself an ecclesial document, to be interpreted in and by the Church. It must be interpreted in such a way that dogmatic teachings about God (such as his unchanging goodness) are in accord with our understanding of Scriptural text. If reason suggests a disconnect between an interpretation and dogma, we must follow dogma and dismiss the interpretation. Richard Gaillardetz explains this well:
The apostolic witness would be preserved both in the canonical Scriptures and in the ongoing paradosis or handing on of the apostolic faith in the Christian community. The unity of Scripture and tradition is grounded then in the one word whose presence in human history comes to its unsurpassable actualization in Jesus Christ. Scripture and tradition must be viewed as interrelated witnesses to that word. Furthermore, neither Scripture nor tradition can be separated from the Church. The unity of Scripture, tradition and the living communion of the Church itself is fundamental.[3]
Revelation, therefore, is centered upon Jesus Christ – and through Christ, the whole of the Holy Trinity:
The principal purpose to which the plan of the old covenant was directed was to prepare for the coming of Christ, the redeemer of all and of the messianic kingdom, to announce this coming by prophecy (see Luke 24:44; John 5:39; 1 Peter 1:10), and to indicate its meaning through various types (see 1 Cor. 10:12). Now the books of the Old Testament, in accordance with the state of mankind before the time of salvation established by Christ, reveal to all men the knowledge of God and of man and the ways in which God, just and merciful, deals with men. These books, though they also contain some things which are incomplete and temporary, nevertheless show us true divine pedagogy.[4]
If the vision of God that one gets out of Scripture is not one which reveals his justice and mercy, the reader of the text has missed something about the text itself. Perhaps the mistake lies in their interpretive scheme, where they assume the text follows the contours of modern historical writings. This is not the case; indeed Christians since the beginning of Church history have understood a very different scheme for the Biblical text: one which presents a kind of history but uses that history to present a deeper, more fundamental understanding of the world. Texts which are seen as impossible, if interpreted as history, nonetheless must be accepted, not because they are historical, but because they reveal something theological. St. Neilos the Ascetic, for example, takes 2 Samuel 4:5-8[5] as being historically absurd. This, he thinks, should be obvious. But if this is the case, does it make the text meaningless? By no means:
It is clear that this story in Scripture should not be taken literally. For how could a king have a woman as door-keeper, when he ought properly to be guarded by a troop of soldiers, and to have round him a large body of attendants? Or how could he be so poor as to use her to winnow the wheat? But improbable details are often included in a story because of the deeper truths they signify. Thus the intellect in each of us resides within like a king, while the reason acts as door-keeper of the senses. When the reason occupies itself with bodily things – and to winnow wheat is something bodily – he enemy without difficulty slips past unnoticed and slays the intellect.[6]
This scheme was in accord with what Origen taught. Indeed, he believed that the writers were inspired to put in statements which were absurd so as to remind us not to take the text so simply, but to look for the deeper, spiritual nourishment we can get from them, even for those texts which also have a real historical basis:
But since, if the usefulness of the legislation, and the sequence and beauty of the history, were universally evident of itself, we should not believe that any other thing could be understood in the Scriptures save what was obvious, the word of God has arranged that certain stumbling-blocks, as it were, and offenses, and impossibilities, should be introduced into the midst of the law and the history, in order that we may not, through being drawn away in all directions by the merely attractive nature of the language, either altogether fall away from the (true) doctrines, as learning nothing worthy of God, or, by not departing from the letter, come to the knowledge of nothing more divine. And this also we must know, that the principal aim being to announce the spiritual connection in those things that are done, and that ought to be done, where the Word found that things done according to the history could be adapted to these mystical senses, He made use of them, concealing from the multitude the deeper meaning; but where, in the narrative of the development of super-sensual things, there did not follow the performance of those certain events, which was already indicated by the mystical meaning, the Scripture interwove in the history (the account of) some event that did not take place, sometimes what could not have happened; sometimes what could, but did not. And sometimes a few words are interpolated which are not true in their literal acceptation, and sometimes a larger number.[7]
Scripture, of course, was written by various people. While they were inspired by God to write what they wrote, and God inspired the Church to collect the texts it did, in the form it did, we must also understand that the people behind the texts are not mere puppets being forced by God to write as they did. Thus, when patristic authors, or the Church, asserts God as the author of the text, we must not take this as fundamentalists do, but rather recognize that God works with authors based upon their ability and through their cooperation with his intended purposes: “The fathers look upon the Bible above all as the Book of God, the single work of a single author. This does not mean, however, that they reduce the human authors to nothing more than passive instruments; they are quite capable, also, of according to a particular book its own specific purpose.”[8] Indeed, God can inspires people to reveal something about him without their knowing of it, or knowing the meaning behind their words, as St Edith Stein masterfully explains:
Must the inspired person who is the instrument of a divine revelation be aware of the fact? Must he know that he has been illuminated, must he himself have received a revelation? We may well imagine cases where none of this is true. It is not impossible that someone utter a revelation without realizing it, without having received a revelation from God, without even being aware that he is speaking in God’s name or feeling supported by God’s Spirit in what he says and how he says it. He may think he is only voicing his own insight and in the words of his choosing.
Thus Caiphas says in the Sanhedrin : ‘You know nothing and do not consider that it is better for you that one man die for the people and not the whole people parish.’ And John adds: ‘but his he said not of himself but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the people…’ Hence Caiphas spoke in God’s name and followed divine instructions without either knowing it or wishing to do so. John, however, knows that Caiphas was speaking God’s word and perhaps that he was himself enlightened by God as he wrote this. Does John know the prophetic meaning of Caiphas’ words through a revelation accorded him? Quite possibly. But it may also be that the fulfillment of those words in the death of Jesus and John’s view of the overall work of salvation made him realize their prophetic nature.[9]
Now this is not to say it is the norm, nor common, but, as we see, a person inspired by God does not have to understand the meaning of their words, nor that they are actually saying something that will be collected together as being inspired by God. The intention of God as the inspired author of Scripture does not have to be one with the intended meaning of the human author, and indeed, could be one which runs contrary to what such a human might have thought (as, for example, we find in the case of Jonah).
Thus, it is important to discuss inspiration, but as the Pontifical Biblical Commission warns us, we must not follow the simplistic interpretation found within fundamentalism:
Fundamentalism is right to insist on the divine inspiration of the Bible, the inerrancy of the word of God and other biblical truths included in its five fundamental points. But its way of presenting these truths is rooted in an ideology which is not biblical, whatever the proponents of this approach might say. For it demands an unshakable adherence to rigid doctrinal points of view and imposes, as the only source of teaching for Christian life and salvation, a reading of the Bible which rejects all questioning and any kind of critical research.[10]
And, it is especially when people take the Bible as history where this becomes the problem. “Fundamentalism also places undue stress upon the inerrancy of certain details in the biblical texts, especially in what concerns historical events or supposedly scientific truth.”[11] It creates a false, blasphemous view of God through its simplistic understanding of the text, and demand adherence to that simplistic view, with the explanation that if one denies this scheme, one must reject Scripture itself. There is no basis by which one can understand the deeper, spiritual value of revelation. And it is for this reason it ends up creating an evil-looking God, and promotes the acceptance of intrinsic evils such as racism or genocide as being good if and when God commanded them. “Fundamentalism likewise tends to adopt very narrow points of view. It accepts the literal reality of an ancient, out-of-date cosmology simply because it is found expressed in the Bible; this blocks any dialogue with a broader way of seeing the relationship between culture and faith. Its relying upon a non-critical reading of certain texts of the Bible serves to reinforce political ideas and social attitudes that are marked by prejudices—racism, for example—quite contrary to the Christian Gospel.”[12] While simple, it is this simplicity which leads to a letter that kills, because it requires a denial of reason when engaging the faith, and leading to “intellectual suicide”:
The fundamentalist approach is dangerous, for it is attractive to people who look to the Bible for ready answers to the problems of life. It can deceive these people, offering them interpretations that are pious but illusory, instead of telling them that the Bible does not necessarily contain an immediate answer to each and every problem. Without saying as much in so many words, fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide. It injects into life a false certitude, for it unwittingly confuses the divine substance of the biblical message with what are in fact its human limitations.[13]
No wonder St Mark the Ascetic warned us to be careful when we interpreted Scripture. He understood how people would confuse the human side of Scripture with its divine meaning, and how that would end up creating a false, humanly constructed, image of God. A God presented in the image of fallen humanity can only be a monster, the monster which we see proclaimed by fundamentalists the world over.
Footnotes
[1] Mark the Monk, “On the Spiritual Law” in Counsels on the Spiritual Life. Trans. Tim Vivian and Augustine Casiday (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009), 93.
[2] Pope Benedict, Regensburg Lecture, Sept 12, 2006.
[3] Richard R. Gaillardetz, Teaching with Authority: A Theology of the Magisterium of the Church (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1997), 84.
[4] Dei Verbum 15 (Vatican Translation).
[5]“ Now the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, set out, and about the heat of the day they came to the house of Ishbosheth, as he was taking his noonday rest. And behold, the doorkeeper of the house had been cleaning wheat, but she grew drowsy and slept; so Rechab and Baanah his brother slipped in. When they came into the house, as he lay on his bed in his bedchamber, they smote him, and slew him, and beheaded him. They took his head, and went by the way of the Arabah all night, and brought the head of Ishbosheth to David at Hebron. And they said to the king, ‘Here is the head of Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life; the LORD has avenged my lord the king this day on Saul and on his offspring’” (2 Sam 4:5-8 RSV).
[6] St Neilos the Ascetic, “Ascetic Discourse” in The Philokalia. Volume I. Trans. And ed. By G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1983), 210.
[7] Origen, “On First Principles” in ANF(4), 364.
[8] Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (March 18, 1994), III-B.2
[9] St Edith Stein, “Ways to know God” in Knowledge and Faith. Trans. Walter Redmond (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 2000), 103.
[10] Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, I-F.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
It means, clearly, that Protestants can criticize all they want. The Church existed long before them. It continues to teach the same doctrine it always has. And it will continue to exist and teach the truth about the Good News long after the thousands of Protestant denominations have died out.
I am so happy to be Catholic and have timeless, unchanging, and historically accurate teaching and tradition to hold on to in these troubling times.
Mad Dawg wrote:
“... let me say the Catholic Church never re-sacrifices Christ. It is impossible, ALMOST exactly as you say, and unnecessary, again almost exactly as you say.”
I’m glad that is your understand and belief. However your church teaches differently:
New Advent, Catholic Encyclopedia:
“The simple fact that numerous heretics, such as Wyclif and Luther, repudiated the Mass as “idolatry”, while retaining the Sacrament of the true Body and Blood of Christ, proves that the Sacrament of the Eucharist is something essentially different from the Sacrifice of the Mass. In truth, the Eucharist performs at once two functions: that of a sacrament and that of a sacrifice. Though the inseparableness of the two is most clearly seen in the fact that the consecrating sacrificial powers of the priest coincide, and consequently that the sacrament is produced only in and through the Mass, the real difference between them is shown in that the sacrament is intended privately for the sanctification of the soul, whereas the sacrifice serves primarily to glorify God by adoration, thanksgiving, prayer, and expiation. The recipient of the one is God, who receives the sacrifice of His only-begotten Son; of the other, man, who receives the sacrament for his own good. Furthermore, the unbloody Sacrifice of the Eucharistic Christ is in its nature a transient action, while the Sacrament of the Altar continues as something permanent after the sacrifice, and can even be preserved in monstrance and ciborium. Finally, this difference also deserves mention: communion under one form only is the reception of the whole sacrament, whereas, without the use of the two forms of bread and wine (the symbolic separation of the Body and Blood), the mystical slaying of the victim, and therefore the Sacrifice of the Mass, does not take place.”
I am so happy to be Catholic and have timeless, unchanging, and historically accurate teaching and tradition to hold on to in these troubling times.
Again, as Catholics are using this thread to promote nineteenth century liberal German criticism as the "unchanged Catholic position of two thousand years," this makes absolutely no sense. Your church obviously has a very high opinion of liberal Protestantism or it wouldn't still its ideas and promote them as its own.
Of course the Protestant denominations will die out, as will Catholicism, Orthodoxy, islam, and all other religions that claim the Torah is not from Heaven or has been superseded. For some reason I just can never get understand the brass with which the Catholic church attacks its veracity.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
Ah, so the author of the original article at the head of this thread is a self-hating Southerner from a Southern Baptist family. Well, at least that explains everything.
Catholicism will not die out. There were many great Catholic theologians before Martin Luther and there will be many more in the future. The Torah is from God, but Christ came to shine new light on the meaning of the Torah. He came to clarify the Old Law and give us a New Law.
He is the fulfillment of the old Scripture. The Holy Spirit came at the Pentecost and enlightened the Jewish followers of Christ. Then they understood the true meaning of the Law and what it was God really wanted from his People.
Christ had many harsh words for those who followed the Torah without understanding what God really wanted from them.
I routinely complete online survey’s from 2-3 polling orgs . . . the one I’m working on now, included these questions (as well as questions about the oil well leak and OThuga):
Do you approve or disapprove of the overall job that Pope Benedict XVI is doing?
Strongly approve
Somewhat approve
Somewhat disapprove
Strongly disapprove
Not sure
Do you approve or disapprove of the overall job that the American Catholic bishops are doing?
Strongly approve
Somewhat approve
Somewhat disapprove
Strongly disapprove
Not sure
Excellent Good Fair Poor Not sure
Overall, how would you rate Pope Benedict XVI’s current efforts to address the sexual abuse situation within the Catholic Church?
Overall, how would you rate the previous efforts Pope Benedict XVI made to address the sexual abuse situation within the Catholic Church while he was Cardinal Ratzinger and not yet Pope?
Overall, how would you rate the American Bishops’ efforts to address the sexual abuse situation within the Catholic Church?
Some have called for Pope Benedict XVI to resign as a result of the sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Others believe he should not resign. Do you believe Pope Benedict XVI should resign, or do you believe he should continue as Pope?
Pope Benedict XVI should resign
Pope Benedict XVI should continue as Pope
Don’t know/not sure
In one or two words, what is one thing the Catholic Church should do to address sexual abuse within the Church?
Everything but the Torah and the Noachide laws will die.
There were many great Catholic theologians before Martin Luther and there will be many more in the future.
I didn't say one word about Martin Luther. I mentioned nineteenth century liberal Lutheran theologians. They, not Martin Luther, are who invented the historical criticism your church endorses (the point of the article at the head of this thread is to support "higher criticism" of the Bible and deny the reality of the events it describes).
The Torah is from God,
Not according to the Pontifical Biblical Commission. According to them it is a time conditioned, imperfect document containing much mythology. Didn't you read the article referenced earlier? This is presented as THE Catholic position, and you did not condemn it, so I assume you endorse it. That means that in order to be a "good Catholic" you have to deny that the Torah is (at least in its entirety) from G-d.
but Christ came to shine new light on the meaning of the Torah. He came to clarify the Old Law and give us a New Law.
He is the fulfillment of the old Scripture. The Holy Spirit came at the Pentecost and enlightened the Jewish followers of Christ. Then they understood the true meaning of the Law and what it was God really wanted from his People.
You know, Catholics are awfully bad to condemn the "simple mindedness" of Fundamentalist Protestants, but they sound just like them when comes to J*sus and the "new testament" (though, to be fair, the article at the head of this thread endorsed higher criticism of it as well). For two thousand years chr*stians have made this claim as if it were axiomatic and self-evident without ever offering a scintilla of objective truth.
Christ had many harsh words for those who followed the Torah without understanding what God really wanted from them.
Why, was he a higher critic too? I guess that's why he died from suffocation (heneq).
Your quote points out the sacrificial nature of the Mass. It does not say anything (that I saw) about re-sacrifice.
You want us to respond to these questions? Maybe that should be a new thread?
You are welcome to start a new thread with them.
I FREEPMAILED you my responses as best as I recalled them.
I think I was reasonably charitable.
Mad Dawg:
“It is THE sacrifice. It is identical with the Sacrifice of Calvary.”
THE sacrifice, that would be the one of which Jesus said, “It is finished.” It would be the one of which Hebrews says, “... not that He should offer Himself often, as the High Priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another - He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was OFFERED ONCE to bear the sins of many.” (Hebrews 9:25-27)
How can what you do Sunday after Sunday be the same sacrifice? Where is that taught in the Scriptures? Especially since it goes directly against what is taught in what I quoted above and in many other places?
Let me ask you this: Why does the magisterium of the Catholic church insist that the mass is a sacrifice and that this is the “essential” difference between the practice it continues and the practice of the Reformation? What is the sacrifice accomplishing?
What I do have an objection to is the initial provacative title of the Original Post, worded - I pretty positively believe, to take unfair stabs against any non-Catholic faith so that the Catholic Church can then be uplifted as the ONLY TRUE WAY.
Being this was posted on an Open Religion Forum, counter arguements should be and are expected. The true "intellectual suicides" that happen, I believe, aren't from the ones answering against the initial slapdowns but instead from those who set up the post in the first place hoping to incite contention against the two sides. Their point of doing this is primarily then to be able to launch into the anti-Catholic bigot labels and claim persecution for their beliefs, when it is little more that a few people getting togther to discuss issues - not a gang war. This is hardly persecution - it would be laughed about in the first century. These folks had their lives on the line.
I've got news for those who believe that the church Christ established and would be guiding into all truth is their very own Catholic Church. The news is that Christ's church is a spiritual body of believers - it was never to be a building, an organization, a hierarchy, a government. This true one and holy church is made up of all believers in Christ, we are made partakers of his body, we are all parts of him. We are the body, each believer, we are the "church" - the called-out assembly.
Where I see a lot of intellectual dishonesty is in so-called churches or religions that claim exclusivity, that place limits on God as to how and where he can enlighten the gospel and have it take hold and inspire like belivers to seek each other out for edification, sharing of faith and spriritual growth. No specific building is needed - people can meet in ones' home or at a park. I'll take a genuine Christian meeting with those of like mind any time. Songs will be sung to praise our Lord, testimonies shared, joys and griefs rejoiced and uplifited. This, to me, is more closely like what the first Christians did and God's work was accomplished and souls were saved and the church was built. One of my favoritie times was on a sailing trip in the gulf of Mexico. It's at these places, with these souls, where Jesus said he would always be with us and lead into truth through the Holy Spirit. I thnk we are in dire need to get back to there. That simplicity. I miss it!
The news is that Christ’s church is a spiritual body of believers - it was never to be a building, an organization, a hierarchy, a government.
= = =
ABSOLUTELY INDEED TO THE MAX!
Gosh, I hope you didn’t think I was being anti-Catholic for pointing out rightly that the author is condemning ideology as a hermeneutic criterion, while the Roman Catholic church does the same thing. Just thought it weakened the author’s argument. Even Mad Dawg agreed, differing only in that the ideology of the Catholic Church is the product of lots more minds at work.
NOWHERE does Jesus Christ say that He is God, do you accept Mormon interpretation that says He is simply the Son of God or do you believe basic Christian dogma?
Mar 12:29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
John 10:30 I and my Father are one.
John 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
John 17:11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
The Jews are the Chosen People and are beloved by God. I assume they will not die out either. But Catholicism, the new Covenant begun and sanctified by Christ, will not die out either. Christ promised He would be with us to the end, guiding us and teaching us. He instituted this Church to reach out to all men.
It doesn’t matter which theologians outside the one, holy, and apostolic Church you want to consider. They have no bearing on the Truth followed by the Catholic Church.
I thought I had read in one of your posts that you were reared as a Christian. Yet you wrote: “Why, was he a higher critic too? I guess that’s why he died from suffocation (heneq)” and that surprised me. If I am recalling correctly, then I don’t think I need to explain to you why Christ had to die.
Christ lived out the fulfillment of the Passover, foreshadowed to the Jews. God instituted the Passover to help the Jews recognize the truth when Christ appeared as the Messiah. The spotless Lamb was sacrificed to save. Indeed, the Bread of Life was hidden away in a piece of linen, in the tomb, just as the bread is broken and hidden away during the Passover meal. Christ’s blood was used to mark his followers and protect them for all eternity.
I’ve read some very interesting books about the Jewish festivals and how each one foreshadows Christ and the course mankind will take. Let me know if you would like the titles.
Yes. The NT came from the Church; not the other way around.
THE VATICAN EDIFICE
LOL.
NOPE.
THE NEW TESTAMENT CAME FROM HOLY SPIRIT.
WHO WAS WELL ABLE TO SHEPHERD IT INTO HIS PREFERRED FORM
REGARDLESS of the Vatican or no Vatican-edifice-300+ years-come-late-ly.
God could have easily raised up rocks to further, protect, publish, etc. His written Word. He actually chose to use a myriad of individuals and groups in thousands of individual and group efforts resulting in the texts we use at present.
GOD ALWAYS GIVES THE INCREASE. NOT MAN. NEVER MAN.
WHEN GOD IS PROPERLY GIVEN ALL THE GLORY, THERE IS NONE LEFT TO ASCRIBE TO MAN.
When that future time arrives for God to bless man with drops of HIS GLORY—that WILL BE HIS BUSINESS.
Before then, touching HIS GLORY IS VERY VERY !VERY! DANGEROUS BUSINESS.
Pretending to be HIS EXCLUSIVE AGENT(S) IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS BUSINESS.
HOLY SPIRIT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE AUTHOR OF GOD’S WORD; THE AGENT OF GOD’S WORD; THE POWER BEHIND GOD’S WORD; THE GOD-BREATH IN GOD’S WORD; THE ACTIVE FORCE WHO IS GOD’S WORD.
There is NO ROOM for any man nor any man’s organization or group glorying in any of that.
Yes.
Roman Catholocism et al/etc and all the other -isms will MOST DEFINITELY DIE OUT, be killed off.
CHRIST ALONE; CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED, CHRIST REIGNING KING ETERNAL
AND HIS LIVING BODY UNIVERSAL SHALL ENDURE FOREVER. Elements of all authentically Christian groups will be part of HIS LIVING BODY.
NO ORGANIZATIONALLY EXCLUSIONIST GROUPS WILL REMAIN. No glorying in organizational distinctives will remain.
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