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."
No more sacrifices need be made for sin. That's the message of Hebrews. And the author was talking to people who KNEW sacrifices. Jesus was the final sacrifice and priest, and His sacrificial work is done and he sits at the right hand of God. And it is this point where Scripture is at odds with Roman Catholic teaching.
What Roman Catholics miss out on is the Scriptural teaching that one really is forgiven for all of their sins when the sacrifice of Jesus is applied to their sin debt before God.
Positionally, the born-again believer is able to stand before God as free from sin - by applying the once-for-all sacrifice made by Jesus. The term is justification.
Conditionally, the Christian struggles in this life with the "body of sin". Paul talks about the struggle in Romans, chapters 5 - 8. In those chapters Paul tells the believer how to have genuine victory over sinful habits.
Understanding the positional and conditional truths as taught in Scripture are foundational for living out the Christian life in victory instead of guilt before God.
AMEN! Every word by and for and through Jesus Christ.
On the authority of the Oracles of Jehovah the Almighty.
see my #1877 (this thread).
The Word of God trumps any teachings of men, no matter how many years they have expounded differently.
YOU are not one the Oracles of Jehovah the Almighty, so your personal interpretation of Scripture has no such authority.
Nor are they "haters".
There is plenty of hate in lying about what another man believes.
LOL. Neither Calvin, Luther, Zwingli nor Machen "redesigned a god in man's image, added words, nor invented doctrines." They worked to undo those errors committed by Rome for centuries.
And if "sola fide and sola scriptura...lead millions away from His Church [at Rome] and His [extraneous five, non-Scriptural] Holy Sacraments" then I say...
God be praised! The Holy Spirit at work!
Post Tenebras Lux!
AMEN!
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
And if "sola fide and sola scriptura...lead millions away from His Church [at Rome] and His [extraneous five, non-Scriptural] Holy Sacraments" then I say...
But that is not what happened. Your bracketed comments turn truth into falsehood.
To find truth, remove the garbage in brackets.
If you want to learn about that first hand, come back to His Church.
Are you claiming Luther did not add the word “alone” to his German translation of Romans 3:28?
The ... was used to keep your meaning intact; not to change the meaning.
Geesh. This is getting ridiculous.
16Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.
17Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.
18Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.
The Scriptures ARE the Oracles of God, not me, and interpretation is not needed. The passage is as plain as the nose on your face (assuming, of course, that you have a nose...).
Too bad it is not the entire Bible.
Amazing! Your posts are foretold in Scripture.
25Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
26And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
. 29Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
30And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent
Very nice. You have an electronic Bible.
You are welcome to try to disprove it, but I think your chances are slim. Prove the need for a priest.
If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;
6:4 He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,
6:5 Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.
6:6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.
6:7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
6:8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
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