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."
And you know “God’s perfect word” perfectly? You seem as resistant to new thought as the Bereans were open to it.
I agree. EVERYTHING I have ever seen indicates that John’s writings ALL date from the late First Century and decades AFTER Paul was martyred.
Are you into mythology?
There has been no woman since eve without sin.
The Roman catholic abomination is a MOCKING of Christ and his Kingdom from the Vatican to the Knights of Columbus.. from the gaudy vestments to last drop of holy water.. from purgatory to the robotic and mechanical prayer of the rosary..
Well over ONE BILLION CHRISTIANS would beg to differ, as did ALL of the prominent Protestant Reformers.
The bereans were not open to 'new thought,' they searched the scriptures to challenge anything that appeared to be 'new thought.' ("...there is no new thing under the sun...")
So Eve was more blessed? Or is a lack of sinfullness not a blessing?
Eve's sinless nature at birth is certainly offset by her participation in the first sinful act, and her sinful nature thereafter. How then would she, in her fallen state, be blessed at all? More to the point she was cursed, and all her progeny.
Compare that to being selected to be the mother of the savior of the world, to be the vessel bringing forth salvation, and an end to the very curse laid upon Adam and Eve. It certainly does not take very much to be higher on the 'blessed' scale than Eve.
You're just nit-pickin' to try to gain some ground on the discussion...The TRUTH is the word of God and the Word of God...
You guys seem to think you can understand and expound on scripture using common sense and logic...
“for all have sinned and come short...”
The Roman catholic abomination is a MOCKING of Christ and his Kingdom from the Vatican to the Knights of Columbus.. from the gaudy vestments to last drop of holy water.. from purgatory to the robotic and mechanical prayer of the rosary..
++++++++++++++++++++++
Wow.
So much ignorance in one post.
Wow.
Have you not ever looked into the reasons for each of those things? The Rosary...is hardly a mechanical prayer...if you’re doing it right. The Knights of Columbus (I’m a Fourth Degree Knight) isn’t anything but a great group of guys helping their community with the assistance and guidance of Christ.
Look into this stuff...and preferably do it by visiting a Catholic Church. Or FReepmail me - and I’ll answer any questions you have.
One question for you:
To what confession do you belong? Please be specific...none of this “I’m a Christian cop-out”
So the Bereans would have spontaneously become Christian without any teaching from Paul or another disciple?
Or are you playing word games? Did Paul bring a new message, a new good news, or was it all a re-hash?
You're playing DUMB... real dumb.. most people are not THAT dumb..
And we see that you do no such thing.
Does this mean all are sinners or all have actually committed sin? What about an infant who dies within moments of birth, has he committed actual sin?
Eve was accursed. Many sinners have been "blessed" to some degree; especially those that have been saved, huh?
Eve was accursed. Many sinners have been "blessed" to some degree; especially those that have been saved, huh?
Not all christians are the reformed or the orthodox.. I am metaphorically in the pasture (John ch 10).. most all christians are in the sheep pen(a)... I am not..
Is there any point to that argument? Are we talking about an infant?
Was Eve being created without sin a blessing?
Is it better to be with sin than without sin?
It's ridiculous to even ask the question, yet that is what your arguments imply.
God created Eve out of nothing, in a perfectly sinless state. How is that not a blessing?
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