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."
Bravo, sir. Bravo.
2Sa 12:23 But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.
(e-Sword: KJV)
I don't get it. Please elaborate.
My mistake. The winky-face was on the first paragraph. You certainly know that an infant cannot form intent.
That's your problem, your trying to "read into" it when there isn't anything in the verse that demands the Jews and Grecians be treated "collectively." The first sentence speaks of preaching to Jews only, and the second sentence speaks of preaching to Greeks. Period.
The tradition may be wrong, but that's not the point. The point is you can't prove it from the Bible.
I HAVE A NEW TAGLINE!
The difference is what we call the “Beatific Vision.” King David didn’t get it until after Jesus “set the captives free.”
Something slightly relevant to consider are the words King David found in 2nd Samuel 12:23.
2Sa 12:23 But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.
(e-Sword: KJV)I don't get it. Please elaborate.
I would accept that in the legal sense, but not in general. I cannot gauge that capacity.
I know that my eldest son played a game with me while he was still within the womb- He would stick his foot against his mother's belly, and I would grab the foot, whereupon he would retract, all excited, according to my wife. But soon thereafter comes the foot once again, and in the very same place... over, and over again. He thought it was fun.
Now, does that exhibit an intent or not? Who can say?
I am unfamiliar with such terms as “Beatific Vision”.
Scientists.
OMG! I just got this vision of you wearing a headset with the wire plugged into your wife's navel!
truth hurts sometimes, no? You deny this was/is a position of the rcc?
In layman's terms, it's seeing God, face to face. It carries all manner of second and third order implications.
I have to admit though, I mistook the intent of your post. I don't think the verse quoted necessarily implies anything beyond David joining the child in death.
Yes.
Your turn.
OM.....Goodness?....do we always use the Lord’s name in vain? Point validated. Now, go to confession.
I asked to EXPLAIN the verse, not cut and paste it.
Hardly...I left the theology of sitting on clouds plucking harps back in childhood.
I challenge your definition of bigotry. Not bigotry, meer observation. I’ve lived through 3 separate rcc periods in my life before I was rescued.
Bigotry!? You know what that means? My comments, as I said before, are personal observations. If the truth hurts, I’m sorry.
Do you bring your Bible to church?
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