Posted on 10/25/2007 10:43:19 AM PDT by NYer
LOL...take a look at my #3....I meant to ping you but forgot.
If not, then what "does" it mean???
::Whew!:: It's a good thing science confirmed the real presence, our you'd have had to reject that doctrine just as you've rejected the literal truth of the Creation story! Why not have science verify each and every article of faith before you've decided to accept it?
I don't suppose anyone made any snide remarks about "transubstantiation science" and said it wasn't "real science" at all, did they?
I read it but found precious little comfort in it. You basically said the literal truth of the text must be accepted absolutely but then defined that term out of existence. And the old argument that the literal truth of the chapter is merely "one exegesis of the text" is a bit absurd. Are you afraid to say the Red Sea parted because this is merely "one exegesis" of the text? Or that the axe floated? Or that Bil`am's donkey spoke? For some reason it is only the creation is six days whose literal sense is to be distrusted as merely "an exegesis" while everything else gets a free pass (especially "this is my body; this is my blood").
Perhaps, then, you can get someone to explain it to you on your level.
There is no authority over & above Scripture (Scripture taken as a whole, not just snippets here or there to support a position about something). Teachings outside of Scripture may be fruitful, but if they contradict Scripture they must be rejected.
Your point is...?
What does the part of the title added in brackets mean if it doesn't mean what it says?
Whoops, sorry. I'm sure your familiar with getting disparate thoughts juxtaposed when tweaking your posts. I messed up. :o)
I meant to say it was not passive aggressive, and such an assertion was a "straw man."
I think it's easy enough to figure out the bracketed comment conveyed the idea rejecting Sola Scriptura during her investigation of Christianity lead to Catholicism. I just don't see how that's antagonistic in ANY sense.
If the title had said something along the line of, "Disillusionment with Sola Scriptura led", it would have been supported by the article. Sola Scriptura didn't lead her anywhere. Her inability to connect with it did.
You don't see anything wrong with being so picky?
Depends on the way it was added.
Such as...?
You're quite free to do it & when you do, like every other kind of insult you dish out to others, it may generate a certain amount of backlash.
That still does not tell why the line should not be crossed, or who established it...only that crossing has consequences. So while you did answer me, you did not answer my question.
What insult are you referring to?
The first argument for "sola scriptura" within chr*stianity was not made by Protestants. It is in the "new testament" itself, where Jewish Holy Tradition is referred to as "doctrines and commandments of men." To this very day Catholic/Orthodox chr*stians reject Jewish Holy Tradition as man-made and imply that the ancient Jews were supposed to go by the written text of the "old testament" alone. Supposedly Jewish Oral Tradition leads one away from chr*stological interpretation of the OT while the simple text itself causes it to "jump out" at the reader (not true, by the way).
In rejecting chr*stian oral tradition Protestants are merely using logic. If the oral traditions about tying tefillin to one's arm and head, affixing a mezuzah to one's doorpost, reciting Shema`, observing Biblically-mandated holidays, writing a Torah Scroll, etc., are "the doctrines and commandments of men," then how much the more so the Catholic/Orthodox oral traditions about rosaries or holidays found nowhere in the Bible to be similarly rejected???
I keep observing that Catholics/Orthodox are essentially making Jewish arguments to Protestants--arguments that taken with logical consistency must legitimize the scorned Jewish Oral Tradition, while simultaneously making Protestant arguments in their anti-Jewish apologetics (argments that taken to their logical conclusion would delegitimize their own oral traditions). Yet no one seems to notice this!
This is all very frustrating.
Please elaborate.
I'm sorry. I wasn't aware this was a substantive controversy. Could you explain to me, please?
I think it wiser and more charitable to ask the author of the conclusion to retrace the steps used to arrive at said conclusion.
Are you refusing?
How do you know what books belong in the Bible?
What teachings of the Roman Catholic Church are not in the Bible?
All dogma is in the Bible. You have to know how to read the Bible.
The New Testament is Concealed in the Old and the Old is revealed in the New. It is called Typology. The Bible was not meant to be read cover to cover. It was designed to be read in the Mass.
Sorry, I have bad eyes, and have trouble reading your small print. So find someone else to play with.
As far as real presence, my "confession" teaches four elements; body, blood, wine & bread, so no, we wouldn't do any kind of scientific testing to prove anything, because body & blood (real presence) are a matter of faith.
What is your Scriptural basis to claim such supremecy, particularly when men of God are shown doing the superceding in Scripture?
Furthermore, how are you drawing this "as a whole" distinction?
Teachings outside of Scripture may be fruitful, but if they contradict Scripture they must be rejected.
What about "interpretation" of Scripture?
Of course only the most radical of non-Roman Christians worldwide believe in individual interpretation as being the highest authority (though most who believe that are in the USA and are evangelicals), the various magisterial (Lutheran, Anglican, Calvinist) Reformers didn't accept SOLO scriptura, as if every Christian should hole up in his room and try to figure out the bible in isolation...
Rather the vast bulk of non-Roman Christians have taught SOLA scriptura, using creeds hammered out by the greatest scholars of scripture in the original languages of the day... Sola scriptura does not teach there are no authorities for the Christian but scripture, rather that scripture, since it is the purest communication we have from the original Apostles, correctly understood is the FINAL authority; that all other authorities, and church bodies, creeds and confessions, and tradition are subject to. This is what the full Catholic Church taught for the first 500 years at least, and mostly in the first 1000 years. Instead of annointing the current-curia-defined tradition as a co-equal authority (in the same way the Pharisees did for Jewish tradition at the time of Christ) the magisterial Protestants have said that while yes, traditions are authoritative to a degree, they are also subject to the final authority fo God's inspired word itself, discovered and preserved in a corporate manner.
If Protestant Christianity were all about "individual interpretation" (ie. "solo" scriptura) there would be no Augsburg confession, Formula of Concord, First & Second Helvitic Confessions, Heidelburg Catechism, Belgic Confession, Scotch Confession, 39 Articles, Canons of the Synod of Dort, or Westminster Confession & Catechism. Although written at different times and countries, by different groups, all these confessions are remarkably similar in what they agree about...and that is probably 97%+ in content.
All this shows that the original "sola scriptura" where church bodies use the best of reverent scholarship to work out doctrines from scripture, is NOT the same as contemporary American ideas of "solO scriptura" where our freedom of religion allows an every-man-for-himself kind of attitude toward the bible.
From the article, it appears to me that the only catechism/creed the writer ever studied was the Roman Catholic one written in 1997.
Bingo !
Which is precisely what the Catholic church believes. No article of Catholic dogma contradicts Scripture. Some few dogmas are in areas on which Scripture is silent, but none are contradictory.
I think the non sequitur is in concluding "logical consistency must legitimize the scorned Jewish Oral Tradition."
Maintaining "letters" are not valid for use in arithmatic does not invalidate them from algebra. And even that analogy is faulted in that Christ criticized "traditions of men" for contradicting the Law whereas He gave his Church authority to "ammend" in "binding and loosing."
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