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."
Read my earlier post. It will answer your question.
Simple question for you, yes or no.
Not my question.
Are you claiming Luther did not add the word “alone” to his German translation of Romans 3:28?
Please do not make this personal.
“Did Luther issue a German translation adding that word, or not?”
In Dr. E’s answer, I recognize she broke the rule in using words with more than two syllables. In fact she used some quoted words with three syllables and even some German words.
“In fact, the Roman Catholic writer Joseph A. Fitzmyer points out that Luther was not the only one to translate Romans 3:28 with the word “alone.” —
At 3:28 Luther introduced the adv. “only” into his translation of Romans (1522), “alleyn durch den Glauben” (WAusg 7.38); cf. Aus der Bibel 1546, “alleine durch den Glauben” (WAusg, DB 7.39); also 7.3-27 (Pref. to the Epistle). See further his Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen, of 8 Sept. 1530 (WAusg 30.2 [1909], 627-49; “On Translating: An Open Letter” [LuthW 35.175-202]). Although “alleyn/alleine” finds no corresponding adverb in the Greek text, two of the points that Luther made in his defense of the added adverb were that it was demanded by the context and that sola was used in the theological tradition before him.”
So, as not to force one to read her research or to have to think it through, the answer in one syllable is, she said, yes.
I think you need to review what “personal” means.
HALLELUJAH AND PRAISE GOD FOR THAT! AMEN!
INDEED! VERY WELL PUT.
Thanks for the voice of sanity yet again.
I’m not about to presume to read my exhorter’s mind.
Some seem to evidence more of a
capacity
and
more of a willingness to grow up
than others.
Of course, as a reformed Christian, I believe there are no coincidences. 8~)
This kind of thing might end
when more RC’s
wake up and realize that their perspective is not the only one in town . . . not the only
—”RIGHTEOUS” one . . . using the term very loosely
—not the only ‘authoritative’ one . . . using the term very loosely . . .
—certainly not the only “Biblical” one . . . using the term extremely loosely . . .
—certainly not the only ‘reasonable’ one . . . using the term extremely loosely . . .
—certainly not the only ‘historically accurate’ term . . . using the term laughably loosely . . .
—certainly not the only Christian one . . .
—Certainly not the only logical one . . . .
. . .
Of course not . . .
In this case, it is hypothetically possible to speculate . . .
that such lack of awareness may be along the lines of . . .
The cause is often not aware of the result.
Any translation adding to the Word of God is in my sight a poison. God has a far worse judgment, but such is not mine to decide.
WOW!
SANITY STRIKES
YET AGAIN!
THANKS TONS AND TONS AND TONS
Much appreciated.
When replying, try making it one sentence long, preferably an inane question, two syllables per word at the most and an epithet for flavor. That seems to be the preferred method of discourse here.Oh, and your answer was from your own research, not opinion, dogma or edict. Do it again and you will be referred to the RM for proper penalty.
As will end a
LOT
of utter
UNBIBLICAL
UNHISTORICAL
UNCHRISTIAN
UTTER RC BALDERDASH.
“No, the truth is that you essentially insulted another Christian with your UFO comment.”
Nope. He has often and even in this thread promoted his odd beliefs. Since he claims HIS is the TRUTH about the True Church his belief are a valid issue for those evaluating his veracity. Telling the truth is not an insult. He claims that UFO’s are real and part of the eschatology of the True Faith. Those are facts.
I love it when Calvinists show evidence of believing in modern Christian miracles.
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