Though I appreciate your respectful answers, I cannot help but think that your explanations for exalting the Catholic Church above the Holy Scripture - the word of God - is not only quite wrong but alarmingly ignorant of history. Maybe the only history about the Bible you know is the Roman Catholic version of it, but I expected better of one who claims to be a student of history. To say that the Catholic Church and tradition preceded Scripture by 300 years is false. Though you refer to a "canon", meaning a collection of the books that make up the Bible, you must know that ALL the New Testament books were written not later than 95 A.D. (John's Revelation). Most of the epistles written by Paul were completed and copies were disseminated and taught throughout the Christian world within the first few decades after the resurrection.
If by "tradition" you are speaking of the teachings of the truths taught by Jesus Christ while he was on earth those three years of his ministry, then I certainly agree that the Apostles and disciples taught these same truths to the new believers and those SAME teachings were written down by the leading of the Holy Spirit so that they are even preserved for us today, two thousand years later.
An "official" canon was NOT needed simply because the writings were given to the church and personally verified by the Apostles. What we have in the New Testament today is the SAME as what those first and second century believers had. Naturally, those validated books agreed with the Christian church teachings because they came with the authority of the Apostles, themselves. If any doctrine was taught that went against the Scripture, it would be known. You are "perplexed" when Protestants say Scripture contradicts the Roman Catholic Church because only the church's authority gave it credibility? It is more like where the Catholic Church has veered away from the truths of Scripture that we criticize. The Roman Catholic Church HAS contradicted Scripture in many major doctrines of the faith - even the Orthodox Church contends so - and it has progressively changed what was formerly taught as truth. Its explanation for these changes is "development" or "evolving" understanding of certain doctrines but I read them as perverting the clarity of the gospel among others.
You seriously believe, "Without the Church the Bible would be no more credible and no more widely accepted than the Encyclopedia of Lost and Rejected Scriptures."? How is it then that your own catechism states that Scripture is divinely-inspired and a gift from Almighty God? How is it that Scripture - which is truth EVEN if NOBODY believed it - can hold such a subordinate place in this kind of philosophy? I get it that this MUST be how Scripture has to be seen to rationalize the clear contradictions that exist between what the Bible says and some of the current RCC's dogma, but I am flabbergasted to see it unashamedly stated on an open forum such as this is. I sincerely hope those who read these words understand that the Word of God is NOT in subjection to the Catholic Church - it is NOT dependent upon the Catholic Church's say so that the Bible can be believed and counted upon to relay the truths of God to a lost and dying world. The Gospel is the POWER of God to salvation to everyone that believes and you don't need a church's okay to believe.
As I've said before,I started reading the Bible as an atheist,starting at the end and working backwards (which was typical,as an atheist I had most things bass ackwards).I found it mortifying to say the least!
My sleep departed from me and the joints of my loins were loosed so that my knees smote the one against the other,so to speak.
I knew nothing of God,the Holy Spirit or the church.Jesus was to me a religious nut who dreamed He was the Son of a supposed God and His name was good for cursing with.
Those Words I read in 'The Revelation of Jesus Christ' haunted me,scared me and just plain nagged and gnawed at me.I could not,for whatever reason,just let them slide away into a fading memory.
For myself,in my beginning with God, at the start of my new life, the Bible spoke for itself.It still does.
We are given at seat at the Kings table,totally on someone elses account and I saw my place as sitting down,shutting my big fat trap and listening to what the King and His court might discuss!
Mighty things,things that I knew not!
The fact that in our hands we hold the very words,the message from the Creator,the cosmic observer,to those created in His image,should make us tremble at the thought that we actually have an extraterrestrial artifact in our possesion.
I can't grasp that so much of christianity seems to try to lessen it somehow,make it subservient to some other supposed authority.That it somehow 'lacks'.
The Words on those pages turned my world upside down.That was 25 years ago.They still do.Maybe to some that might look like I worship the Bible.I do not,any more than I might admire a person through reading their autobiography.The Bible points to it's author and in our great spiritual battle it is the only offensive weapon we have.In that regard our Maker deems it sufficient for He gave us no other.
God bless.
There are several points of history that must be considered. You are free to draw your own conclusion, but not free to claim that conclusion is completely valid if the data you considered was incomplete or inaccurate.
- Jesus ministry lasted about three years during which time He taught not only the Apostles and a cadre of Disciples, but preached and performed miracles in front of many thousands of witnesses, both friendly and hostile.
- Following His resurrection Jesus instructed His Apostles and Disciples to preach the Gospel to every nation and people which they diligently did at great personal risk.
- At the Pentecost the Apostles and Disciples were given the gift of tongues, not some incoherent babbling, but the actual ability to fluently speak languages they did not know such that they were able to preach the Gospel to all corners of the earth.
- Nowhere is Scripture does it record Jesus or any of His followers writing anything down, carrying any writing materials, or provide any instructions to actually produce any written documentation after the fact.
- Nowhere in Scripture is there a reference to a Bible, a table of contents of a Bible, or a set Canon criteria or process.
- There are numerous specific references to a Church with a mission, a hierarchy and structure, and an authorization.
- The Church functioned for over 300 years without a Bible, relying on Tradition. In fact, so prevalent were fraudulent and compromised versions of the Gospels and the Letters that the actual production of the Bible was met with a great deal of skepticism and it was only the authority of the Church that made them credible and acceptable to Christendom.
- The works selected for the Bible were based only upon their being judged inerrant when compared to the Tradition of the Church.
- The Canon was set by the Church, repeatedly reaffirmed by the Church and remained unchanged and unchallenged for over 1200 years.
- Now you can form an opinion as to whether the Church deviated over time from its initial teachings, but you cannot credibly claim that the Bible came about ex nihilo and that the Catholic Church never had a role or an association with its production.
- Since we all agree that Scripture is indeed God Breathed and infallible it is evidence that the Church was an instrument of the Holy Spirit.
Peace be with you.