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To: metmom
What is really amazing to me is our RC friends continue to cite "tradition" as being equal to Scripture. Yet, the RCC did not include any of the writings they appeal to for their "tradition" at Trent when they dogmatically formalized their canon.

A review of the early lists of the NT canon excludes the overwhelming vast majority of the writings they appeal to.

It is clear the early ekklesia did not consider these Scripture or equal to Scripture....yet Roman Catholicism does.

They further their error by continuing to appeal to some of the apocryphal writings that were specifically excluded by Council. These include writings from which Rome extracts a lot of of its Mariology.

This is why I always ask, but do not receive, a definitive list of those canons/edicts they consider binding.

132 posted on 07/23/2019 6:35:50 PM PDT by ealgeone
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To: ealgeone
What is really amazing to me is our RC friends continue to cite "tradition" as being equal to Scripture. Yet, the RCC did not include any of the writings they appeal to for their "tradition" at Trent when they dogmatically formalized their canon.

Of course not. Tradition is not a compilation of individual works, each of which are considered equal to Scripture. That would just be a second canon. Tradition is not any individual work or author, but the common and universal teachings and practices of the Church

When referring to a particular work of the Church Fathers, it is not to say that that particular work is infallible or equal to Scripture. Rather, it is used as evidence of what the Church as a whole taught and believed. To give an example: when reference is made to St. Justin Martyr's First Apology concerning the early church belief in change of the bread and wine into the actual Body and Blood of Jesus, it is not claimed that this work is in itself inspired or equal to Scripture. Rather, it is just to show what the early church taught. And since the Bible itself shows that the Church teaches with the authority of the Holy Spirit, likewise the common and universal teachings of the Church also posses this authority.

It really amazes me that Protestants spend so much time condemning Catholic use of Tradition when they do not recognize their own dependence upon it. In the first place we have the question of the canon. When Protestants claim an acceptance of a definitive canon based on "what early Christians believed," they are using Tradition. The Bible does not produce its own canon. This must be provided outside of the Bible itself. Thus "sola Scriptura" is self-defeating. Additionally, while Protestant claim sola Scriptura in their interpretation of the Bible, in reality they are dependent on one or another of the various Protestant schools of interpretation: Luther, Calvin, etc. Protestants are just as bound by Tradition (Reformation Tradition rather than Apostolic Tradition) as are the Catholics. They just do not recognize or admit it.

152 posted on 07/24/2019 10:11:56 AM PDT by Petrosius
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