Posted on 10/31/2010 11:59:22 AM PDT by RnMomof7
In Christ Alone lyrics
Songwriters: Getty, Julian Keith; Townend, Stuart Richard;
In Christ alone my hope is found He is my light, my strength, my song This Cornerstone, this solid ground Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace When fears are stilled, when strivings cease My Comforter, my All in All Here in the love of Christ I stand
In Christ alone, who took on flesh Fullness of God in helpless Babe This gift of love and righteousness Scorned by the ones He came to save
?Til on that cross as Jesus died The wrath of God was satisfied For every sin on Him was laid Here in the death of Christ I live, I live
There in the ground His body lay Light of the world by darkness slain Then bursting forth in glorious Day Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory Sin?s curse has lost its grip on me For I am His and He is mine Bought with the precious blood of Christ
The scriptures are secondary to teachings of Christ that were passed on via his Apostles. Christ picked 12 Apostles. They and their successors made up the early Church. The Apostles traveled and spread what was taught to them. Those Apostles passed their learning onto the next generation of Apostles. Those are the first Bishops of the Church. Those Bishops passed on the teachings of Christ to another generation of Bishops. Eventually all the Bishops got together and compared notes to make sure they were on the same page. Once they all came to a consensus, the Church was Orthodox and Catholic.
In the meantime they were all lugging around writings that to varying degrees reflected what these Bishops believed. It only makes sense they'd also try to come up with a unified collection of these writings that would reflect what their unified faith was.
The faith can be found in those writings, but not all of it. That would be impossible. Christ wandered and taught for 3 years. The collection of writings that is today considered to be "The Bible" could not possibly contain all Christ taught in those 3 years. That's why Apostolic Succession is so much more vital to the Church than the collection of writings they gathered together they considered inspired by the God they believed in. Once you remove the Bible from the teachings of the Apostles and their successors, you're left with very complex book full of contradictions and distortions made by men.
That big committee of Bishops chose those scriptures. If we trust the Holy Spirit was with them when they chose the books, we can trust these same men knew how to decipher what was vital in those writings and what wasn't.
How can we possibly trust these guys to pick the correct scriptures, and then just ignore their interpretations of theses same scriptures when it comes to their interpretation? Make up your mind. Either the Holy Spirit was never with these guys, or if he was with them, he certainly didn't abandon them. If the Holy Spirit did abandon the Bishops of the Orthodox Catholic Church, when did that happen?
No problem with any of that at all. Totally agree, but our disagreement has not been about this ideal. It is simply the idea of God "hating". If you think for one minute that Jesus countermanded God in his statements, you are not correct. Jesus did not overrule God's laws he personalized them. The "eye for an eye" command dealt with civil law. It said basically that if someone wrongly poked your eye out, his eye got poked out (not BY you, but by the authorities in charge of carrying out legal judgments). There was not a lot of eye-poking-outing because of that. BTW...I think it would be a good idea to put some negative consequences back into our judicial system today. Criminals get away with far to much and literally laugh at how little they are deterred from crime.
Jesus was speaking about the "personal" aspect of vengeance. He said if someone smote (slapped) you on the cheek - an insulting act that was a challenge - you should turn the other cheek to him. He was trying to communicate that we should deal with each other in love and forgiveness. However, Jesus was not saying that civil law should be abolished. He in no way ever said that the legal system of society should cease to work. I would LOVE for all of society to live according to the ways Christ commanded - it would literally change the world - but we know that there are still people out there who will rebel and go against God's commands for holiness.
Getting back to the original issue which was whether or not God hated anything, we know that he most certainly says he does and it is important to acknowledge that he detests, abhors, despises, and hates sin. He doesn't just "love it less" than good, he HATES it. The major reason, of course, is that sin separates us from God, it causes misery, sickness, unhappiness, death and ultimately separation from him for all eternity. That was my point.
In our affirmation of the authority of Scripture as involving its total truth, we are consciously standing with Christ and His apostles, indeed with the whole Bible and with the main stream of Church history from the first days until very recently. We are concerned at the casual, inadvertent, and seemingly thoughtless way in which a belief of such far-reaching importance has been given up by so many in our day.
We are conscious too that great and grave confusion results from ceasing to maintain the total truth of the Bible whose authority one professes to acknowledge. The result of taking this step is that the Bible which God gave loses its authority, and what has authority instead is a Bible reduced in content according to the demands of one's critical reasonings and in principle reducible still further once one has started. This means that at bottom independent reason now has authority, as opposed to Scriptural teaching. If this is not seen and if for the time being basic evangelical doctrines are still held, persons denying the full truth of Scripture may claim an evangelical identity while methodologically they have moved away from the evangelical principle of knowledge to an unstable subjectivism, and will find it hard not to move further.
I don’t know who those guys are, but you can bet I’m not going to trust them over early Fathers of the Church. If they’re not a Bishop of the Church, their opinion of scripture means zero to me. They had nothing to do with the compilation of the Bible. They can state their beliefs in pink unicorns on Jupiter for all I care.
ST. IRENAEUS OF LYONS (130-202)
We have known the method of our salvation by no other means than those by whom the gospel came to us; which gospel they truly preached; but afterward, by the will of God, they delivered to us in the Scriptures, to be for the future the foundation and pillar of our faith. (Adv. H. 3:1)
Read more diligently that gospel which is given to us by the apostles; and read more diligently the prophets, and you will find every action and the whole doctrine of our Lord preached in them. (Adv. H. 4:66
ORIGEN (185?-252)
In which (the two Testaments) every word that appertains to God may be required and discussed; and all knowledge may be understood out of them. But if anything remain which the Holy Scripture does not determine, no other third Scripture ought to be received for authorizing any knowledge or doctrine; but that which remains we must commit to the fire, that is, we will reserve it for God. For in this present world God would not have us to know all things. (Orig. in Lev., hom. 5, 9:6)
ST. CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE (200?-258)
Whence comes this tradition? Does it descend from the Lord’s authority, or from the commands and epistles of the apostles? For those things are to be done which are there written. ... If it be commanded in the gospels or the epistles and Acts of the Apostles, then let this holy tradition be observed. (Ep. 74 ad Pompeium)
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HIPPOLYTUS ( -230?)
There is one God, whom we do not otherwise acknowledge, brethren, but out of the Holy Scriptures. For as he that would possess the wisdom of this world cannot otherwise obtain it than to read the doctrines of the philosophers; so whosoever of us will exercise piety toward God cannot learn this elsewhere but out of the Holy Scriptures Whatsoever, therefore, the Holy Scriptures do preach, that let us know, and whatsoever they teach, that let us understand. (Hip. tom. 3, Bibliotheque Patrium, ed.
Colonna)
ST. ATHANASIUS OF ALEXANDRIA* (300?-375)
The Holy Scriptures, given by inspiration of God, are of themselves sufficient toward the discovery of truth. (Orat. adv. Gent., ad cap.)
The Catholic Christians will neither speak nor endure to hear any thing in religion that is a stranger to Scripture; it being an evil heart of immodesty to speak those things which are not written. (Exhort. ad Monachas)
ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM (315?-386)
Not even the least of the divine and holy mysteries of the faith ought to be handed down without the divine Scriptures. Do not simply give faith to me speaking these things to you except you have the proof of what I say from the divine Scriptures. For the security and preservation of our faith are not supported by ingenuity of speech, but by the proofs of the divine Scriptures. (Cat. 4)
annalex wrote:
“Your interest in the scripture is phoney too.”
A comment that is as classy as your argument is convincing.
I have hit upon what it is like to dialogue with you, annalex:
Any attempt at such should be called Annalex in Wonderland:
The supporting cast of characters would include, but not be limited to, the following:
1. The White Rabbit who leads Annalex into Wonderland is “Holy Tradition.”
2. The Cheshire Cat who smiles and disappears is the “Sacred Priesthood.”
3. The Caterpillar with hookah and mushrooms is the “Magisterium.”
4. The Jabberwock, the frightful creature, is the “Holy Inquisition.”
5. The Queen of Hearts is, of course, the fictitious “Queen of Heaven,” who has replaced the Scriptural Mary.
6. The King of Hearts, bumbling, ineffectual, and contradictory is the papacy.
You are right, technically speaking, but the preponderance of indirect evidence that does exist suggests that there is high likelihood that he did exist. Much more than, say, Achilles.
Whether he actually said what he is rumored to have said is a different story. But the important distinction is that doubt in Washington's sayings is not something you have to fear will send you to hell. No one expects dogmatic and absolute belief of historical accounts the way Bible-worshipers insist that what's in the Bible is true and inerrant.
You would have to be omniscient to know that nothing supernatural has been discovered, which is self-refuting
No, because if it were discovered it would be known. The only thing that is self-refuting is a claim that a book, which is full or errors is without any.
That's obvious to anyone except the Protestants. That's why the Church is the Church of the Gospels, of Christ, not of Paul and not of the Old Testament.
The Prots are only interested in Christ because he is the one who can "wash" them clean. They even insist the Gospels are written for the Jews and not Gentiles. To them the New Testament begins with the book of Acts!
The Incarnation changed everything. Among other things, now mankind had a "mind" with which to better understand God.
Yeah, but see Paul says it differently: he says the believers have the mind of Christ! (talk about Gnostic...Christ never said anything like that!)
and so that person has fulfilled his or her created purpose, to be not only the image of God, but also His likeness.
Well, the shaked and the baked (you know, the "we are jusitfied-santctified" crowd) are already "dead to sin," according to Apostle Paul, so what's left but to wait for the limo ride to heaven?
What are you talking about? Jesus is saying "do not resist an evil person" (Mat 5:39) when the Law clearly commands otherwise. If you read Deu. 21:14 (KJV) you will notice that the "you" is actually the "though" (singular you), the injured party, who is commanded to take action.
Jesus also says "you've heard it said [my emphasis], love your neighbor and hate your enemy." (Mat 5:43). The "hate your enemy" part is not in the Law, but apparently a popular saying. So, he is not really reversing the law, in this case, but rather a popular attitude.
However, "love your enemies" and "pray for those who persecute you" is totally reversing to the Law which commands that one only love his neighbor (in this case the "one near," i.e. a member of the same clan or tribe, a Jew).
Nowhere in the OT does one call to love one's enemies or to bless those who persecute you. God curses Israel's enemeis (Deut 30:7) and blessing of enemeis is considered an abomination (Num 23:11). So, clearly, Jesus teaches something new in that respect.
That hardly encompasses "nearly all," boatbums. Besides, they never say the scriptures are inerrant, only that truth can be found in them—if read diligently.
As for Irenaeus, he was among the early apologists who favored oral tradition. Thus, for example, in Against Heresies, II, 22 he states that Christ was at least 50 years old when he was crucified! How can you use this man as a certificate of authenticity of the inerrancy of the Bible? Geez.
Origen was a great theologian, but he ended up in error and left the Church because in his beliefs he was Gnostic. He never actually says that Sciptrue is inerrant unless one reads into what he says, which is pretty telling.
Origen also complained that copyists wrote pretty much as they pleased and corrupted everything, so much so that he wrote the following:
Of course, Origen believed, as most Chirtsians do, that what was delievered by God was inerrant, but that corurption set in due to human error. That is clear from his amdission that the copyists changed them "as they pleased." Hence all sciprture has to be comapred against the Holy Tradition delievered to the apsotles in order to discern what is true and what is corurpt in menaing and words.
And even the last of your examples, St. Cyril is taken out of context. He is obvosuly addressing someone other than the Bishops. The Bible tells us that Jesus revealed the secrets of the kingdom of heaven his disciples, i.e. before the New Testament was written.
Thus the Church knew the faith before the Bible was completed. And that faith served as a guide to determining which books and which versions were orthodox as far as the Church was concerned.
You also have to understand that even if a Church Father says something that doesn't agree with the Church doctrine it is just his opinion, and he doesn't speak for the Church as a hwole.
The inerrancy teaching is only about two centuries old, going back to the 1800's, a product of never-ending Protestant innovations.
You see, since the 17th centiry onward, Bible scholars (John Mill, Richard Bbentley, John A. Bengel, John J. Wettstein, Karl Lachmann, L. von Tischendrof, Brooke F. Westcortt and Fenton J, Hort) have struggled to create "concordance" based on extant variants of biblical manuscripts and errors contained thereion (which went into tens of thousands).
After a long and laborious work, they managed to conflate the existing copies into one most probable version, so much so that today we can say that the most Bible editions are about 99% in agreement with each other, artificially of course, which creates an impression of inerrancy, which feeds itself.
“If you think for one minute that Jesus countermanded God in his statements, you are not correct. Jesus did not overrule God’s laws he personalized them.”
Of course not. One doesn’t “countermand” one’s own rules.
“Getting back to the original issue which was whether or not God hated anything, we know that he most certainly says he does and it is important to acknowledge that he detests, abhors, despises, and hates sin. He doesn’t just “love it less” than good, he HATES it.”
35 years in the practice of law have taught me that all choices have consequences; bad choices, bad consequences, good ones, good consequences. We are to this day seeing the spiritual destruction unleashed by the ever expanding heresy arising out of the Protestant Reformation. As the years have gone by for me here on FR, I have become increasingly convinced that many, many Westerners who honestly (I believe) call themselves Christians, in fact worship (and revel in the worship of) a different “god” from the God we Orthodox and Latins worship. It is a terrifying, hate-filled Dagon, unrecognized by The Church of the First Millennium, whose blood lust could only be slaked by the slaughter of an innocent, a creature subject to Necessity and every emotion known to mankind. No wonder atheism is rampant in the West! I don’t see us agreeing on this ever, bb.
Very good, goml!
Not just unrecognized, but unrecognizeable as even a variation of Christianity. Kosta and I have spoken previously of Norse, Greek and Roman gods and the similarity of blood lust and all the human vices multiplied infinitely and incorporated into these gods' very personalities. I believe that the Reformation was a reversal for many on the road to Christ and a return to pagan bloodlust. A rejection of the Christ of the Gospels and an embracing of Odin, Jupiter, or Zeus. With a mixture of Mayan and Aztec practices, I'd think.
So in other words the men that developed the tradition decide if it is from men or God?
The emotion of hate would have to be in God(part of His essence) before sin entered the world or God would be changed- this leaves you with a god of love and hate in his essence which is dualistic,like zeus
If this were the case, what was there for God to hate before sin,bb? Himself?
If you think God only had the emotion of hate in Him after sin than man CONTROLS God's emotions and changes him from love to hate leaving man with the power to control God by his sin
God is pure love,bb.God having an emotion of hate and anger is metaphorical
"God is pure act with no potentiality because, absolutely speaking, actuality is prior to potentiality (something can change from potentiality to actuality only by a being in actuality, and God is the First Being)".- Saint Thomas Aquinas
Father, we pray the prayer of Jesus ... Thy Will be done, Thy Kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven, Amen.
Seems man does not learn.
Whether he actually said what he is rumored to have said is a different story. But the important distinction is that doubt in Washington's sayings is not something you have to fear will send you to hell...
Then we agree at least that all existence or factual questions are not established or disconfirmed in the same way in every case and that the type of evidence in existence or factual claims is determined by the field of discussion and by the metaphysical nature of the entity in the claim under question.
If George Washington had claimed in the presence of eyewitnesses who were capable of accurately transcribing what he said, that he was the Messiah, the Son of God, that he had had glory with the Father before the world began, that he was the light of the world, that he had the ability to give people eternal life, that no one comes to God except through him, and that (like Obama may think) he possessed all authority in heaven and on earth and therefore men should obey all His commands, or that he would judge the living and the dead, predicted that he would lay down his life for the Federalists, that he would raise himself bodily from the dead the third day, and that Philadelphia would be completely destroyed within a generation, then yes, such extraordinary claims would require sufficient evidence of their veracity, and without any confirming evidence and/or in the presence of contradictory evidence we would just chalk him up as a lunatic.
No, because if it were discovered it would be known.
No, just because you have not discovered it does not mean that it is not known. I'm still assuming that you do not have the attribute of omniscience that enables you to know all things.
There is no shortage of empirical evidences of the historical claims of the Bible. When you say that if such evidence were discovered it would be known, all you are doing is precluding the very possibility of any of the available historical evidence counting as proof - not because you have proved by empirical observation and logic your own pre-commitment to naturalism, but by the very nature of a presuppostion, you accept and reject all further factual claims in terms of that controlling and unproved assumption.
Cordially,
How do you know that?
No more room on the fence, weasel words and compromise, it's either one or the other.
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