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."
So according to you, I’m going to hell for not agreeing with all the false claims you make about me.
Riiiight.
This is the single, most salient point in favor of sola scriptura. Imagine this same hubris, but spanning century upon century, formed of whole cloth, by the fiat of human councils, by declaration of their own infallibility, bound in compendiums and given the same weight of authority as the Holy Oracles of the Lord, God Almighty.
Given the bare fact that error must exist, as evidenced in the normal course of human judgment, how can one correct or remove such human error if it is given the same weight as the Divine? It makes no sense at all.
The very first charge of the Church must be to preserve The Message. There can be no higher authority than that we know to be the Holy Word of God. It must be the final arbiter, as it is the only standard that we know to be true.
We do have a propensity for sin...Babies are not born righteous...Babies have no desire to be obedient to the will of God...Babies are born with a sinful nature...A propensity to sin...
I am willing to cede the point. 'Default' was too harsh a word. But whatever we are now, must, by the nature of the curse, be worse than the condition of Adam, who, without the curse, still had the ability to sin, and arguably, the inclination to do so as well.
If God thought it was necessary, He would have told us...And maybe He did tell us if we spend enough time in the scripture to find out...
That is my point in a nutshell. That which we do not know, we do not know, and in such a condition, we would do well to believe in the Word of God.
I think it's amazing that you equate your personal interpretation of scripture with God.
Make CERTAIN that there are no children there, especially infants. I learned on this thread the newborn babies are as selfish as any tyrant and it’s doubtful that your idolatry can protect you from them.
YOU show the signs of a becoming a great Protestant Marian Theologian! All the women could be talking at once and they'd still not miss a word!
I was at a meeting like that yesterday I was the only guy type personnel there.. Next time I'm going to hang a placard around my neck saying "ADHD GUY. Speak one at a time, slowly and clearly if you please. Audio-visuals would help."
I was exhausted when the meeting was over. They were rejuvenated!
Breathes there a man with hide so tough
Who says two sexes aren't enough?
Goodness!
I didn’t say anything close to that ball park!
I didn’t even THINK such a thing.
I still consider you a Christian saved by Christ’s blood . . .
However, God does discipline those He loves
and there is His
universal law of reaping and sowing.
Therefore what is thoroughly up to Him regarding all of us.
Last I checked, all of us includes you.
My Mother used to get most of her exercise jumping to conclusions.
The result has been thousands of Protestant denominations; each little Protestant pope setting up their interpretation of Scripture as the one that is correct.
BTW, I don’t make false claims about you or any other RC individual.
I use many things you say as spring boards to make generic observations therefrom.
And, of course, I have as much fun tweaking you as you do tweaking me.
False.
It does appear that bitterness, resentment and literal hate triggers a number of RC’s to make personal attacks on my personhood, character etc.
But only God can read their hearts and minds on such scores. I wouldn’t know who to include and who to leave out of that group.
In the absence of reason and argument, their common recourse will be to mockery, mischaracterization, and threat.
Then quit whining about it.
This is not fun. Dealing with your serial misrepresentation of my faith is not enjoyable and I am not tweaking you. I know you consider this some kind of sport, but your wholesale abandonment of Exodus 20:16 is very serious indeed.
You seem to be suffering the illusion that I’d give such a free pass!
LOL!
I never argued the Lord wasn't with both waves. Your point is irrelevant.
As far as Peter is concerned, there is nothing in the text that would lead anyone to believe he had anything to do with the Antioch church.
There is also nothing to preclude his involvement, which is what you've been trying to "prove" from this text all along.
As I said before, the tradition may be wrong. I don't particularly care. My point is the text simply will not support what you want it to say.
I take EX 20:16 quite seriously and work earnestly to stay on the Godly side of it.
Perhaps it’s blind bias that keeps some folks from seeing that.
The rationalization is, "I am having fun, fun is being had, we're both here, so 'we're' just having fun." The reality is,"I'm the only person whose emotions count."
When, as is rare, the victims of this abuse rise up and attack their attacker, the attacker puts on a self-pity act. Attacking HIM is on an entirely different moral level from his attacking them. After all HIS feelings MATTER.
To me one of the most obvious red flags of all is when somebody sows anger and pain and then claims "we were just having fun." As far as I'm concerned, that kind of statement is virtually a diagnostic case closer.
The rationalization is, "I am having fun, fun is being had, we're both here, so 'we're' just having fun." The reality is,"I'm the only person whose emotions count."
When, as is rare, the victims of this abuse rise up and attack their attacker, the attacker puts on a self-pity act. Attacking HIM is on an entirely different moral level from his attacking them. After all HIS feelings MATTER.
To me one of the most obvious red flags of all is when somebody sows anger and pain and then claims "we were just having fun." As far as I'm concerned, that kind of statement is virtually a diagnostic case closer.
You nailed it, Dawg. I could not have put it better.
Ooops
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.