Happy Easter!
I had the pleasure of meeting Fr. Harrison once a little over a decade ago. He is a very learned, intelligent and kind gentleman.
That’s a real thing of beauty!
Thanks.
Hope you had a great Easter, in celebration of our Lord’s Resurrection. Thanks!
INTREP
How many Catholic FReepers who will rush to lay praises on him can say they agree with him on these things? How many will consider him a "closet Protestant" because of them?
There are few communities smaller and lonelier than that of inerrantist Catholics. And I should know, 'cause I used to be one.
Intersting article. He starts out asking the right questions, but ends up relying on Aristotelian Greek logic to arrive at a false conclusion about a decidedly Hebrew subject. If he would have just simply read the story of the NT apart from all the ridiculous human tradition that we’ve shellacked upon it, he would have found a much simpler and more pure destination.
The trouble is that the Holy Spirit Himself is an extra-Biblical authority as much as a Pope or Council. The third Person of the Trinity is clearly not identical with the truths He has expressed, through human authors, in the Bible. It follows that even if Calvin’s Proposition D is true, it contradicts Proposition B, for "if all revealed truth is to be found in the 66 books," then that leaves no room for the Holy Spirit to reveal directly and non-verbally one truth which cannot be found in any passage of those books, namely, the fact that each one of them is inspired.
Two problems with this diatribe...
The first is that your church ignores the very scripture that warns us to stay away from people who try to understand the scripture with an intellectual, philosophical view...
Col 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
The second is that the bible is a Spiritual book...It's a Holy Spirit book...It is out of reach for intellectual philosophers...
When people say the Holy Spirit leads them to understand the scripture, you just don't get it...Spiritual and logical just don't jive...
Luk 24:45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures,
Rom 8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
Ugh. He sets off to worship a particular human “church” organization rather than God, parses words and is fast and loose with propositions, and calls himself a logician.
Not understanding (possibly deliberately) basic principles of the Protestant Reformation does not make it false. Of course, starting from the assumption of a perfect human “church” organization existing in the first place is just asking for trouble.
He should have studied the Scriptures first, not just books about the scriptures as so many are but thoughts of the person writing the book and that is confusion if that is all you study.
The scriptures is what the God of Israel wants saved Christians to study first and foremost as every Word thereis is the Word of God.
God, not man, is the author of the scriptures and books about scripture will always fall short.
A trillion books about the Bible is not the word of God and many who wrote them never beleived the Word of God, the Scriptures, to begin with and therefore are in error concernint the Word of the Lord. The doctrines of Catholism for the most are apostate doctrines and will fail as they are the doctrines and the traditions of men.
Hence, Sola Scriptura.
Jeremiah 44
13. For I will punish them that dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence:
14. So that none of the remnant of Judah, which are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall escape or remain, that they should return into the land of Judah, to the which they have a desire to return to dwell there: for none shall return but such as shall escape.
15. Then all the men which knew that their wives had burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying,
16. As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee.
17. But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.
18. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.
19. And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men?
20. Then Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men, and to the women, and to all the people which had given him that answer, saying,
21. The incense that ye burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, ye, and your fathers, your kings, and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them, and came it not into his mind?
22. So that the Lord could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which ye have committed; therefore is your land a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without an inhabitant, as at this day.
23. Because ye have burned incense, and because ye have sinned against the Lord, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil is happened unto you, as at this day.
24. Moreover Jeremiah said unto all the people, and to all the women, Hear the word of the Lord, all Judah that are in the land of Egypt:
25. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying; Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and fulfilled with your hand, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her: ye will surely accomplish your vows, and surely perform your vows.