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."
Your words, not mine.
What was Christ’s opinion on whether Gentiles needed circumcision?
Which of the Disciples in Acts seem to be in positions of importance/authority? Or are you of the opinion that no such governance existed or is present in Acts?
Again, it’s patently obvious that’s what I talking about.
Which is precisely what the Pope, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons are. You have a completely mistaken notion of what the clergy actually does. One of the titles of the popes is "Servant of the Servants of God".
Uh, "priest" is the English for "presbyter". I'm sure the word for "presbyter" is different in Swahili and Japanese, too. The names change, but the function has been a constant from the first days of the church.
Beautiful.
While you don’t consider yourself a Catholic, you must also understand that the Catholic Church considers ALL Christians to be part of the Church (though not necessarily in full communion). So, what you quoted DOES NOT mean that the Church believes that only those who consider themselves Catholic can be Saved.
I've seen on this very thread where some feel that NEWBORN infants are so selfish and tyrannical that they are worse than adults.
Actually, I believe yours is the more demonstrably hermeneutic reading of Scripture.
For example, I see no reason to exclude the possibility of riding a taxi to the dock when Aunt Tillie writes "I took a slow boat to China." But apparently you do, though that level of punctiliousness is practiced in almost no other area beside, dare I say, legalism.
One has to seriously wonder if that hermeneutic was actually "designed" to oppose Catholic teaching as such nit-picking is otherwise fairly rare in protestant interpretation. To my knowledge, no other sect beside the Church of Christ eschews instumental music because it is not mentioned in the New Testament. One would think all protestant sects would follow suite if they consistantly applied the hermeneutic they use in anti-Catholic polemics.
In my experience it is only readers of anti-Catholic polemics who imagine Christ re-sacrificed.
The average pew-sitter may not be as poetic or clear as Mad Dawg, but the general idea that Jesus is not re-sacrificed should be clear.
One other question about your description of the “not repeated, not perpetual” nature of the Eucharist. I said in my last post that it depends on the state of mind of the worshiper. Am I wrong on that? Or does the whole thing go on in the mind of the priest who is presiding, and it doesn’t matter what the person in the pews is feeling or thinking? This is not a trick or loaded question.
The neat thing about Sacraments is that they operate ex opere operato, that is "by the very fact of the action's being performed."
In simple terms, it is not the holiness of the priest or his understanding, nor the understanding of the recipient of a sacrament that makes it valid. (That is not to say it is irrelevant if one has faith or not, that is a different aspect.)
We don't have to worry that the priest may be secretly harboring doubts about what the Eucharist really is or means, we don't have to be limited by our human understanding (who can really grasp it all?) of what is happening.
What happens in a sacrament happens because of the actions performed, through the power of God, not through our understanding.
The feeling is mutual then. It doesn't say "sufficient." It doesn't say "only." "Scripture" being the subject doesn't change the form of the sentences used unless you bring something to the text that is not there.
Presumably, 1Tim 6:20 was quoted because of the presence of the word “science.”
Of course this verse has absolutely nothing to do with answering the question it responds to, but kudos on your ability to use a concordance.
Open your Bible and read 2 Timothy 3:16,17. Your argument about the word "profitable" would make sense, if the sentence from Paul ended at the four things he mentions that scripture is useful for. But it doesn't end there. The word that connects the two verses, meaning "to the end that..." or "so that..." and the conclusion that follows, define the intent (conclusion) of Paul's statement.
Paul is saying that scripture extant at a time around 64AD was necessary and sufficient to bring a person to salvation, complete and fully equipped for every good work.
The Bible babble continues
That's science, falsely so called...I'm thinkin' God wrote that for those of you who think science created God...
You're not mind-reading or attributing motives, are you?
Scripture is "profitable" or "useful" to those ends. I don't disagree. But it does not say "sufficient."
You're little theory here is that Paul isn't saying "sola scriptura," but more specifically, "sola scriptura ante-64AD."
Thus, your theory must be false, for it suggests that the New Testament WITHOUT ANY OF THE FOUR GOSPELS is necessary and sufficient blah blah blah.
Absurd.
Hey, if Luther can add “sola” to Romans 3:28, what’s to stop anonymous internet dude from adding “sufficient” somewhere in 2Ti 3:16-17?
A little sympathy please, we're correcting it as fast as we can.
You said: A little sympathy please, we're correcting it as fast as we can.
Snicker.
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