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To: Jvette

Catholics don’t hesitate to use that argument against sola Scriptura.

Why is it not valid when a non-Catholic uses it but Catholics can use it with impunity and consider it a win?

Don’t be hypocritical by applying a double standard.


572 posted on 05/24/2014 6:25:02 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith....)
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To: metmom
Why is it not valid when a non-Catholic uses it but Catholics can use it with impunity and consider it a win?

Silly wabbit!

We Wrote the RULES!!!

Catholic_Wannabe_Dude(Hail Mary!)

573 posted on 05/24/2014 7:06:16 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: metmom; Jvette; Elsie
Don’t be hypocritical by applying a double standard.

Yes, this fallacy in logic is called "special pleading," using one set of standards for the things you don't care about, and a different set of standards for the things you do care about, with no rational basis for the difference in standards.

I hesitate to call it hypocrisy, though. It can be a very serious analytical error, to be sure, but unless it is done knowingly and deliberately, i.e., maliciously, as with the Pharisees, to me it remains simply an error.

But an error it remains. I read somewhere that there has been a recent concerted effort among leading Catholic apologists to use the "Sola Scriptura isn't identified in the Bible" strategy, and I think that's what we're seeing here. However, I agree with metmom that it amounts to a special pleading fallacy, because there are numerous doctrines that emerge from Scripture as taken from the totality of the evidence, yet such that no single passage states the doctrine in all it's contours.

Sola Scriptura is like that. First, remember that the name, like "Trinity" is artificial, a shorthand meant to embody a much larger set of ideas. Unlike "Trinity," there is an inherent ambiguity in the referent to the "Sola." It does not mean to exclude extra-biblical sources of information in thinking about faith and practice.

For example, we can look at the patristic writings, modern science, medical knowledge, legal concepts, philosophical constructs, confessions, creeds, history, archeology, linguistics, what have you, all as valuable sources of knowledge we can use to analyze matters of Christian faith and practice.

What we cannot do, under the meaning of this Sola, is give any human artifice of knowledge the same rank in importance as the revealed word of God. To us, this amount to idolatry. It is to put some human product in a place that only God can occupy. We would believe we were offending God Himself to put the words of any pope or council or Luther or Calvin or Bob Jones or Billy Graham or whoever on the same level of authority as Scripture.

And frankly, this isn't just a Catholic issue. I've been in Reformed fellowships that regarded their Heidelberg Confession as "virtually" equal to Scripture, the argument being it was based on Scripture, therefore carries the same authority. An argument I rejected then and still reject. Any secondary work of man is subject to scrutiny under the bright light of Scripture.

577 posted on 05/24/2014 9:10:15 AM PDT by Springfield Reformer (Winston Churchill: No Peace Till Victory!)
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To: metmom

Hypocritical in what way?

You dispute something because the specific phrase or word is not in the Bible. I pointed out that the word Trinity is not in the Bible and millions of Christians accept it as Truth.

The concept of the Trinity is present in Scripture without the actual word being used.

Sola Scriptura on the other hand is not.

Obviously there is disagreement in the interpretation or understanding of the concept of SS.

I might point out that the same is true for the concept of the Trinity. There are some who profess Christianity and reject that God is Three in One.

The corporal works of mercy are spelled out in Scripture though the specific phrase is not.


582 posted on 05/24/2014 10:14:49 AM PDT by Jvette
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