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."
You have rejected the proof.
I didn't say a word about your ellipsis.
Geesh. This is getting ridiculous.
What? Your attribution to me of beliefs I do not hold and acts I did not commit? I agree.
If your proof is not within the Word of God, then your proof is of the words of men. How can men have more authority than God? Of course I reject it.
For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:
3:11 Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it.
3:12 For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.
3:13 And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?
3:14 But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;
3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
3:16 Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.
3:17 For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.
The proof IS the Word of God. You reject it.
RC’s create threads and follow Prottys quite . . . compulsively . . . it seems . . . evidently with super tweaking as a major objective.
Prottys are much more of a carry-their-own-load equal opportunity group of pontificators.
We tend to believe and demonstrate much more consistently even-handidness, no double standard and avoiding whining.
INDEED.
Men are not “liars” because they disagree with other men.
Nor are they “haters”.
= =
YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.
I have not entertained any hate in my heart nor my emotions nor my mind, soul, spirit
toward any RC
hereon regarding any issue . . . certainly not in the last several years.
Any contention to the contrary is simply NOT TRUE . . . as God well knows.
Of course, I realize that won’t keep various RC’s from
READING MINDS AND MOSTIVES (making things personal) and asserting otherwise in their characteristic personal attacks.
are not one the Oracles of Jehovah the Almighty, so your personal interpretation of Scripture has no such authority.
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...).
==
INDEED!
Paranoid much?
. . . evidently with super tweaking as a major objective.
I will tell you again. This is not some kind of game, this is not fun or tweaking. You bear false witness against the cherished faith of a billion people, and you do it with stunning proficiency.
God forbid : yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
Reading whose mind? Making things personal with which person?
The Lord God Almighty knows the score in such matters. I’m quite comfortable in His Hands.
INDEED.
READING MINDS AND MOSTIVES (making things personal) and asserting otherwise in their characteristic personal attacks.
And it is instructive to note that no Protties have EVER done ANYTHING like
that, deeming it to be unworthy.
All should follow the prottie example faithfully to live in
the FULLNESS
* OF *
THE TRUTH
2:19
For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.
2:20 For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently ? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.
2:21 For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:
2:22 Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:
2:23 Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:
Yes, the whole score. I’m quite comfortable with that.
The Lord God Almighty knows the hearts and minds, the intents of each heart and mind hereon.
Claiming who I meant when I posted no names is, yes, READING MINDS.
Sometimes irony can be so goshderned ironic.
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