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."
Petronski...You (Catholics in general) 'look like you are worshipping Mary'...Obviously your church tells you it is not worship...What can you do except accept their authority...
You ever try to look at it objectively??? You appear to go thru the motions of worship...The perception is that you worship Mary...
If you did not worship Mary, wouldn't it seem that others outside of your religion would recognize that???
[Do RC’s ever try to look at it objectively??? [RC’s] appear to go thru the motions of worship...The perception is that [a significant percentage of them] worship Mary...
If [they] did not worship Mary, wouldn’t it seem that others outside of [the RC edifice, the RC] religion would recognize that???
= = =
EXCELLENT POINTS.
Exactly...
OK, So let’s address false doctrine. In order that we can have a manageable dialog within reasonable time constraints, can you select two (no more than two for now) specific areas that you believe are false doctrine and why?
You're breaking the rules again.
Try harder.
Your post had nothing substantive to it, hence the reason for my 'gainsaying'
obviously, I was referring to the top earthly authority in the early church. It’s so obvious that I have to wonder about your motives for posting. Is there a statute of limitations on pedantry? What’s the oldest post you have felt the need to answer in such a way?
You said you accept the WCF. Am I wrong?
You're saying I need to set aside what I actually believe and worry about your misperception about what I believe? Do you know how arrogant you sound?
If you did not worship Mary, wouldn't it seem that others outside of your religion would recognize that???
You presume goodwill. I do not.
Do you know how insulting that is? Catholics haven't thought through their beliefs, they don't understand what they are doing, they just follow along worshiping Mary and denying it because the Church tells them to deny it.
Where do you get the nerve?
Three strikes and you’re out.
But falsely describing them is false witness.
Specifically which Catholic teachings do you think may endanger the Salvation of Catholics? What specifically do we NOT believe that is critical in your opinion?
Iscool, I agree with you. My quote “In the first excerpt, Mary is praying to her Son to deliver our souls” was a quote from SOMEONE ELSE.....then “I” responded: “She [Mary] has no power of her own.”
Hope that clears things up for you. You are absolutely correct that ‘Mary has no influence on Jesus to deliver souls, pizza, or a big screen tv...” (LOL @ the pizza, big screen tv remark)
I'm glad to see you are starting to accept Catholic teaching.
That looks like it. Unfortunately I couldn’t ‘zoom in’ on the tiny pic of the altar they have posted. If I could you could clearly see what I’m talking about.
You presume goodwill. I do not.
= = =
Triggered a memory of that old proverb . . .
we see others as we are.
I know them by their fruits.
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