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."
The time stamp on this post indicates that you wrote this after FourtySeven’s post 472 which clarifies that Saint Christopher remains a Catholic saint. I hope for your sake that you simply missed his post to you. If you did see it prior to posting this, then you intentionally bore false witness.
There is an unfortunate tendency among human beings (because of the effects of Original sin) to fall to temptation, one temptation of course being to abuse one's power, even if said power/authority is given by God. This is one reason why the survival of the Church throughout the centuries is so remarkable, IMO. That despite this tendency towards sin (and no one can really deny that the Church has had some horrible Popes in Her past, much less cardinals, arch-bishops, etc) She has survived through the centuries, with an unbroken line of living witnesses (apostolic succession).
I'd be interested to hear/read what you (and any other Protestant) might have to say about my post #145, if only to satisfy my own curiosity. If I may be so bold, it's not a typical criticism of sola scriptura, and indeed, one I've never seen posited by any Catholic, much less addressed by any Protestant, except perhaps proudtobeanamerican1, if s/he is a Protestant/non-Catholic Christian.
I thought that it might have been an oversight on her part, as she seemed to be concentrated on other posts at the time. I was thinking of pointing it out to her but I then thought she would probably check her ping list at some point and see my post to her.
My post 486 clarified the matter as well, but I was pointedly told my facts are false.
Nonetheless, St. Christopher (still) remains a saint.
That's all wrong. Are you even concerned whether you're right or wrong? Do you even care that you're impugning the motives of about a billion people, on false information?
Hey, put a cork in it...Apparently we both read the same articles on the net...Check it out yourself before you start calling people liars...
I did not call anyone a liar.
I asserted a fact: St. Christopher is a Catholic saint. He has not been kicked out.
Your facts are wrong.
I do not understand your hesitancy here. The fact is, St. Christopher is still a Saint; the fact that his feast day was removed from the universal calendar in the 1960's doesn't change that. What do you want Petronski to "check out"? There's nothing to check out, the fact of St. Christopher's continuing sainthood is just that, a fact that cannot be changed.
Remind me later if I forget.
Doing several things today and not likely to get toooo involved in lengthy stuff.
Blessings,
Don’t you love it when the one who has it wrong presumes the one who has it right hasn’t checked it out?
Arrogance + ignorance.
Not only is Saint Christopher a saint, he is revered as such by the Orthodox and a large portion of Protestants (for certain Anglicans and Lutherans). And as far as “making a buck” on Saint Christopher or anyone else for that matter, the only thing I know of that the Catholic Church sells are Vatican City postage stamps (just like ALL other sovereign nations do) I believe they also charge for some tours in the Vatican (but again this is the norm for EVERY world-class tour).
The anti-Catholics often fail to grasp that their anti-Catholicism is really rather petty and ridiculous compared to those in the past. Neither Luther nor Calvin EVER questioned the fact that Peter was the first pope. And not only did they not question Catholic teachings about the Blessed Virgin Mary, they CONTINUED to preach them.
I suggest you learn more about Jamnia.
It’s funny peculiar (not funny haha), in a sad and pathetic sort of way...almost a perverse sort of kneejerk contrarianism.
It’s not rational, but then again, the motto has been stated as something like “you don’t need logic or common sense when you have Truth.”
Ohhhh-kayyyy
Read it and weep...St. Christopher was deemed a fake...
http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=36
That website does not say “St. Christopher was deemed a fake.” There will be no weeping. St. Christopher remains a saint, though his feast day has been removed from the Roman calender.
From "Catechism of the Catholic Church: 2nd Edition":
964: Mary's role in the Church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it. "This union of the mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ's virginal conception up to his death";504 it is made manifest above all at the hour of his Passion:
"Thus the Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and faithfully persevered in her union with her Son unto the cross. There she stood, in keeping with the divine plan, enduring with her only begotten Son the intensity of his suffering, joining herself with his sacrifice in her mother's heart, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of this victim, born of her: to be given, by the same Christ Jesus dying on the cross, as a mother to his disciple, with these words: "Woman, behold your son."505
Spin it any way you want but when a mere woman is 'united' with God she becomes a goddess. To say that the sufferings of the cross to pay the penalty for our sin by the Son of God has now also been applied to Mary is utter blasphemy.
Again:
966: Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death."508 The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son's Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians:
In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death.509
Note above that Mary is now 'Queen'over all things, and that she will deliver souls from death. These descriptions are affirmation of deity, or goddess worship.
To illustrate that this is indeed what is happening: I once attended a wedding of my nephew in St. Mary's Catholic Church in Evansville, IN. Upon entering the church one looks directly towards the altar. Whereupon one sees a huge statute of Mary with her feet standing upon the globe of the earth completely dominating the entire altar (let alone church itself). I looked in vain trying to find a statue of Christ. Finally I found one in a small alcove in a corner to the right outside of the altar.....it was about maybe a foot tall. So not only is Mary the focal point of the alter, she supercedes Christ in magnificence and size!
Consider these verses applying to Mary which are in complete contradiction to the catechism: Mary, a descendant of Adam, was born in sin (Psalm 51:5; Romans 5:12); Mary was a sinner, only God is Holy (Luke 18:19; Romans 3:23; Revelation 15:4); Mary had other children after the birth of Christ (Matthew 13:55, 56); Mary is a member of the church, not the Mother of the Church (Acts 1:14; I Cor. 12:13, 27).
Flame away and say what you will, but elevating Mary to equal or even superior status to Christ, elevating Mary to a full participant in the salvation of Man, and elevating Mary to the Queen of all things is utter blasphemy. To say that Catholics actively engage in goddess worship is an understatement. No wonder a reformation was needed!!!!!!!!!
I think one thing that always bothered them about Peter (I noticed an earlier comment in this thread that stated he did nothing after Acts 15, the FACT that he wrote epistles notwithstanding), is that in 2 Peter 3:16 he explicitely warns AGAINST YOPIOS.
Most of the anti-Catholics around here don’t even understand that a lot of their beliefs are totally in contrast to most Protestants. For instance, the Real Presence is accepted, to varying degrees, by Anglicans, Lutherans and Methodists, it is really only rejected by Calvinists and Baptists.
Good thing Catholics don't do that.
To say that Catholics actively engage in goddess worship is an understatement utter falsehood.
http://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Documents-They-Reliable/dp/087784691X
Bruce is extremely readable, and a true scholar with few axes to grind. He does not give short shrift to the church fathers, such as Origen, the Clements, Papias, Eusebius, etc., although he may not emphasize the councils to your satisfaction. Or maybe he does. In any case, the kind of detective work that assures that the New Testament is very faithful to the original texts is fascinating and reassuring.
Its your catechism which makes Mary ‘Queen of all things’ not mine.
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