Posted on 05/03/2008 4:38:34 PM PDT by NYer
Scripture, our Evangelical friends tell us, is the inerrant Word of God. Quite right, the Catholic replies; but how do you know this to be true?
It's not an easy question for Protestants, because, having jettisoned Tradition and the Church, they have no objective authority for the claims they make for Scripture. There is no list of canonical books anywhere in the Bible, nor does any book (with the exception of St. John's Apocalypse) claim to be inspired. So, how does a "Bible Christian" know the Bible is the Word of God?
If he wants to avoid a train of thought that will lead him into the Catholic Church, he has just one way of responding: With circular arguments pointing to himself (or Luther or the Jimmy Swaggart Ministries or some other party not mentioned in the Bible) as an infallible authority telling him that it is so. Such arguments would have perplexed a first or second century Christian, most of whom never saw a Bible.
Christ founded a teaching Church. So far as we know, he himself never wrote a word (except on sand). Nor did he commission the Apostles to write anything. In due course, some Apostles (and non-Apostles) composed the twenty-seven books which comprise the New Testament. Most of these documents are ad hoc; they are addressed to specific problems that arose in the early Church, and none claim to present the whole of Christian revelation. It's doubtful that St. Paul even suspected that his short letter to Philemon begging pardon for a renegade slave would some day be read as Holy Scripture.
Who, then, decided that it was Scripture? The Catholic Church. And it took several centuries to do so. It was not until the Council of Carthage (397) and a subsequent decree by Pope Innocent I that Christendom had a fixed New Testament canon. Prior to that date, scores of spurious gospels and "apostolic" writings were floating around the Mediterranean basin: the Gospel of Thomas, the "Shepherd" of Hermas, St. Paul's Letter to the Laodiceans, and so forth. Moreover, some texts later judged to be inspired, such as the Letter to the Hebrews, were controverted. It was the Magisterium, guided by the Holy Spirit, which separated the wheat from the chaff.
But, according to Protestants, the Catholic Church was corrupt and idolatrous by the fourth century and so had lost whatever authority it originally had. On what basis, then, do they accept the canon of the New Testament? Luther and Calvin were both fuzzy on the subject. Luther dropped seven books from the Old Testament, the so-called Apocrypha in the Protestant Bible; his pretext for doing so was that orthodox Jews had done it at the synod of Jamnia around 100 A. D.; but that synod was explicitly anti-Christian, and so its decisions about Scripture make an odd benchmark for Christians.
Luther's real motive was to get rid of Second Maccabees, which teaches the doctrine of Purgatory. He also wanted to drop the Letter of James, which he called "an epistle of straw," because it flatly contradicts the idea of salvation by "faith alone" apart from good works. He was restrained by more cautious Reformers. Instead, he mistranslated numerous New Testament passages, most notoriously Romans 3:28, to buttress his polemical position.
The Protestant teaching that the Bible is the sole spiritual authority--sola scriptura --is nowhere to be found in the Bible. St. Paul wrote to Timothy that Scripture is "useful" (which is an understatemtn), but neither he nor anyone else in the early Church taught sola scriptura. And, in fact, nobody believed it until the Reformation. Newman called the idea that God would let fifteen hundred years pass before revealing that the bible was the sole teaching authority for Christians an "intolerable paradox."
Newman also wrote: "It is antecedently unreasonable to Bsuppose that a book so complex, so unsystematic, in parts so obscure, the outcome of so many minds, times, and places, should be given us from above without the safeguard of some authority; as if it could possibly, from the nature of the case, interpret itself...." And, indeed, once they had set aside the teaching authority of the Church, the Reformers began to argue about key Scriptural passages. Luther and Zwingli, for example, disagreed vehemently about what Christ meant by the words, "This is my Body."
St. Augustine, usually Luther's guide and mentor, ought to have the last word about sola scriptura: "But for the authority of the Church, I would not believe the Gospel."
Sacraments are nothing without faith. They are a work of the Holy Spirit, not of ourselves. They are a gift from God. And they are not works.
Other than that, your cite is right on.
I’ve experienced some of those differences between the two, as well.
Then go back to Genesis 3:15. The enmities put between "the woman" and Satan are THE SAME as the enmities put between Jesus Christ and Satan. Moreover, the verse clearly states that SHE shall crush the head of Satan.
So, good luck trying to explain that.
Do you think Jesus loves your bigotry?
Has it escaped your attention that much of the New Testament was written AFTER Paul was martyred? This is a FACT which is universally agreed upon.
It's simple really. Those supporting the idea of sola scriptura must be able to present all of their ideas as supported by scripture.
Those who don't, don't. Get it?
Including the unbiblical and contradictory 'Mary was sinless' Catholic Doctrine which is refuted by Romans 3:28 - All have sinned.................
Do infants sin?
"Other than that, your cite is right on." [excerpt]
“Are you telling me you can’t see the “two waves” in that passage?”
I’m not telling you anything. Let the scripture speak for itself.
“Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only.”
“And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus.”
“And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord.”
Collectively, Jews and Grecians, “and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord.”
LOL! You've obviously never worked in a nursery. Never yet had to teach a child to be bad, plenty of times had to tell them no and teach them to be good and not bite another child or steal another child's toy!
I already responded to post 638. And your citation is an example only of your inability to understand what a sacrament is.
Do you know what an infant is? Do they sin?
An infant who is born and dies one minute later, has this child committed an actual sin?
Please explain Genesis 3:15. Who is “the woman” what is the enmities that protect her seen (Jesus Christ) from Satan (note: the enmities are the SAME) and why is the woman crushing Satan’s head?
No wonder you are confused; you don't even know what the "keys" were. You don't recognize how the kingdom has come to Earth, nor to whom it has come.
Jesus understands and loves me . . .
and certainly understands my pontifications infinitely more than evidently any RC does . . . unless it’s DarthVader;
And, if we took as a definition of bigotry, that which we Prottys observe from certain RC’s . . .
then my perspective AND MOST INTENSE emotions about said perspective . . .
is not even close to the same galactic cluster as ‘bigotry.’
I just follow the facts where they lead.
Well, #9 has mysteriously disappeared after several days, so that pretty much verifies the suspicion. Not that it matters. Just good to know.
But hey,
another deeply entrenched, !!!!TRADITION!!!!-bound; Traditions-of-man obsessed; dogmaticlly hyper, rigid and narrow; intensely self-righteous class of elitist RELIGIOUS political power-mongers of the Jewish variety talked of Jesus as though He was a demonized zealot/bigot 2,000 years ago.
I’m happy with sharing such a label with HIM.
Good points.
Seems to me . . . off the top of my noggin . . .
that said woman is much MORE PROBABLY
The Church Universal, the Bride of Christ . . .
against whom, the gates of hell [defensive, interestingly] shall not prevail.
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