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Catholic moral theology has always distinguished between objective or material sin, and formal sin. Basically, any erroneous teaching is a heresy; but to be a heretic you'd have to be someone who willingly embraces what they know to be contrary to revealed truth.

I guess then, the debate gets back to just what the standard of revealed truth is.

Me? I'm throwing my lot in with Scripture.

At least with Scripture, there is a long history and the documents are old and much of them has been verified with findings like the Dead Sea Scrolls, which attest to the accuracy with which they have been copied.

I know what the RCC teaches. I was raised Catholic, have Catholic relatives who are/were ordained priests, have been more than educated on the topic of *sacred tradition* by various FRoman Catholics, and simply do not find their arguments and apologetics convincing or substantially founded.

Once anyone crosses the line into speculations about things not mentioned in Scripture and starts treating them as facts, that just crosses a line I am not comfortable crossing.

Metmolm, (and you too, HarleyD) I just today stumbled upon a new word: new to me (Mrs. CyberKluz) but maybe not new to you: "StretchText". This ties in, I just realized, to our discussion about all the things, oral and written, which Our Lord has been passed down to us.

Y'all know what "hypertext" is, text displayed on the computer screen with references (hyperlinks) to other web pages you can just click and access. There's also something very similar, called StretchText, where text iself (at that same website, as written by the original author), is revealed progressively at multiple levels of detail with every click. It's analogous to a zoom-in or zoom-out.

I think I've got those terms straight. Computer masters, correct me if I'm wrong.

So what would it be like if somebody sent me, Mrs. CyberKlutz, a text with a bunch of StretchText embedded in it, and my response was, "I've got enough to deal with, with just the plain simple page here. I've got my hands full just trying to rightly interpret and apply that. I'm not messing with any StretchText or hypertext, no-sir-ee!"

I would be very unwise, because I'd be ignoring stuff put into the webpage by the original author, quite precisely to guide me in interpreting and applying the original text.

This is how you can see Tradition and Magisterium. Not in opposition to Scripture, not in competition, not as added speculation or ornamentation, but as the original composer's authorized key to interpretation.

To back up and clarify a little, it's not a contest of "Scripture vs Tradition," because Scripture already is Tradition. It's written Tradition. Tradition is what is handed over ("tra-ductus") to us from our Lord and the Apostles, whether written or orally. LIke this:

Tradition
Written | Oral

There's actually a huge area of overlap there, because all of written Tradition (Scripture) was originally Oral Tradition (Preaching and Teaching) --- as you know, St. Paul was telling people to receive the Gospel before any of the Gospels were written.

Anyhow, how can we be solid and sure in picking up an early A.D. source (say, some teaching of Bishop Ignatius of Antioch) and say it constitutes real, genuine "Oral Tradition" from Our Lord Himself? The very same way we know the Gospels are real and genuine:

by their connection to the Apostles (here I'm speaking of the "Twelve" plus Paul),
by their genuineness as based on the usual literary detective work (How old is this manuscript? How/from whom did we come to possess it? Is it authentic as to its vocabulary, grammar, style, even physical composition --- the way it was made? Is it quoted or attested to by other early Christian authors? --- etc.), and
by the document's widespread reception and acceptance by the early Church.

A good read: Ignatius of Antioch

That doesn't make it Scripture-with-a-capital-S. That makes it "Oral Tradition," inasmuch as Ignatius heard the oral preaching --- the "tradition" -- directly from his teacher St. John, and later, naturally, wrote things down.

So there's the very small number of writings from the men called "Apostolic Fathers"(Link) --- men who were direct, hands-on, first-generation disciples of the Apostles.

So it's a kind of StretchLink --- since what they got orally from the Apostles is just as authoritative as what they got in writing from the Apostles.

Significantly, in his Pastoral Epistles, every time St. Paul urges his new Christians to "hear" or "follow" or "obey" or "cling to" the Gospel which had been preached to them, he is urging them to hear, follow, obey, cling to, Oral Tradition --- since all of his general epistles were preached, dictated, then written, then read aloud and received as authentic by the Christian community, before a single Gospel existed in written form.

Now, I don't expect you to immediately cop to this and say "Oh, I get it! Now I believe in Sacred Tradition too!" I just want you to see how Catholic see it --- whether you agree or not --- that these, too, are StretchLinks deriving their certain authority from the original Authors, i.e. from the Apostles of Jesus Christ, and from the Holy Spirit.

P.S. That's the first time I ever used that "StretchText" and "hypertext" analogy. Does it work? (Not meaning, are you totally convinced, but is it totally understandable conceptually?)

Ears perked.

*Tradition* is too inherently unreliable, IMO, no matter what claims of infallibility someone makes about themselves or their organization. I do not trust word of mouth nor men who depend on it. There's simply no way of verifying that it has been passed on faithfully. At least with Scripture, there is a long history and the documents are old and much of them has been verified with findings like the Dead Sea Scrolls, which attest to the accuracy with which they have been copied. Once anyone crosses the line into speculations about things not mentioned in Scripture and starts treating them as facts, that just crosses a line I am not comfortable crossing.

I agree with your statements. Take this subject which we have been discussing as well as a few other threads, which always seem to venture into the same topics when Catholicism is placed against Protestantism. It doesn't matter that certain dogmas, which the Catholic Church have only recently been declared (within the last hundred years), were arguably NOT doctrines that the early church held to (i.e., Immaculate Conception; Assumption). It really doesn't matter that these may have been ideas some people liked to believe and talk about, the truth is that they were NOT doctrines declared as necessary for the faithful to obey and believe and they were NOT doctrines that Scripture teaches.

The issue is that the Catholic Church has proclaimed that THEY are empowered to make doctrine out of whatever they choose and mandate belief in them to all Christians. This exact same issue is what caused the schism between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholicism. The Orthodox contend that the Catholic Church did not stick to the ancient doctrines - what was always and everywhere believed. It's no wonder that this was the cause of a further split during the Reformation between Roman Catholicism and what is now called Protestantism.

So, who is the one that is "right" and who is "wrong" and who has the authority to decide? Shouldn't it be logical that Scripture, as the ONLY divinely-inspired revelation we have been given by God and which He has preserved all these centuries BE that authority? The Apostles and disciples, under inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit wrote as he carried them along and we have the SAME revealed and transcendent truth as those first Christians had. It isn't logical that God would have omitted anything that was necessary for our salvation and rule of faith.

So, I am throwing my lot also in with Scripture and trust that the Holy Spirit, through God's word, will lead us into all truth. It is HIS holy promise to His own.