Radio Replies First Volume - "Bible Only" a false principle

Celledoor.com ^ | 1938 | Fathers Rumble & Carty

[GonzoII]

"Bible Only" a false principle

565. The Gospel of Christ is simplicity itself.

In one way it is. It tells us clearly that Christ established a definite Church which He commissioned to teach all nations. It is very simple from this point of view, for men have but to accept the Catholic Church, and be taught by that Church.

But the Gospel is not simplicity itself in the way you intend. Men have devoted their lives to the study of the Gospels, preparing themselves for the task by profound research in the Hebrew, Syrian, Arabic, Greek, and Latin languages. And even then, many passages are most difficult to understand.

566. But at least the plan of salvation can be understood by the simplest person. We Protestants even tell our children to read their Bibles in order to discern it.

According to the findings of your simple readers there must be hundreds of conflicting plans of salvation, all revealed by the one Christ! As for the capacity of your children, you might as well give them the article in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica on Spectroscopic Analysis as the subject matter of their studies. But the Bible itself is against your theory. Thus St. Peter says that in Scripture there are certain things "hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." 2 Pet 3:16. To his mind the private interpretation of Scripture can be most dangerous.

567. God has given us brains to think for ourselves. We do not need Help to understand Scripture.

God had given men brains before He came to teach them Himself, and He came to teach them precisely because their brains could not succeed in finding out the things which were to their peace. If you say that His revealed teachings in the Scriptures together with our brains are enough, those very revealed teachings tell you that they are not. Even in the Old Law God said, "The lips of the Priest shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth." Mal 2:7. In the New Law Christ sent His Church to teach men, transferring to His Church that authority of God once possessed by the Priests of the Old Law. In the New Testament itself we find Philip the Deacon saying to the Ethiopian, who was reading the Scriptures, "Thinkest thou that thou understandest what thou readest?" and the Ethiopian replying, "And how can I unless some man show me?" Acts 8:30. St. Peter, too, explicitly refutes your ideas. "No prophecy of Scripture," he writes, "is of any private interpretation." 2 Pet 1:20.

568. St. Peter means that the Prophets did not prophesy by their own will, but by the Holy Spirit. He does not refer to interpretation by us.

Your own Protestant Bishop Ellicott says of these verses, "The words private interpretation might seem to mean that the sacred writers did not get their prophecies by private interpretation, but by divine inspiration. But this is certainly not the meaning. The real meaning is that the reader must not presume to interpret privately that which is far more than ordinary human thought."

569. Any man who can think has the moral right to interpret anything.

He has not. The very laws of the state are not subject to the interpretation of each and every citizen. There is such a thing as thinking erroneously. In difficulties of civil law a man consults a lawyer who knows legal practice and parallel statutes. Who gives you the right to take greater liberties with divine legislation? A man who knows nothing of Hebrew or Greek, and is quite untrained in Scriptural exegesis, would misapprehend the sense of Scripture in hundreds of places.

570. Did not Christ promise that He would send the Holy Spirit to teach us all truth?

He did not promise that the Holy Spirit would teach each individual separately. If every individual were under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, all who read Scripture sincerely should come to the same conclusion. But they do not. The frightful chaos as to the meaning of Scripture is proof positive that the Holy Spirit has not chosen this way of leading men to the truth. It is blasphemy to say that the Holy Spirit does not know His own mind, and that He deliberately leads men into contradictory notions. Christ promised to preserve His Church as a Church by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the only Church which shows signs of having been preserved is the consistent Catholic Church. The individual is guided by the Holy Spirit to a certain extent in the ways of holiness, but in the knowledge of revealed truth he is to be guided by the Catholic Church which Christ sent to teach all nations.

571. I don't see the need of learning to understand a simple story for simple people.

The Bible is not a simple story for simple people. We live thousands of years after the Bible was written, and our language and customs are very different now. No book written at one age is easy for another age. The study of antiquities demands a knowledge of primitive languages of which few are capable, and for which still fewer have the time. Anyway God never intended the Bible to be the sole guide to religion for all time. Christ taught orally and with authority, and He sent His Church to teach in the same way and with the same authority.

572. Hoiv does it help to know Hebrew or Greek?

Because one must know what the original words meant in the language in which Scripture was written. A knowledge of Hebrew and Greek soon shows that the translators do not always find an English word to express the exact sense of the original. God inspired the thoughts of the original writers, not the work of the translators. And if you read a sense into Scripture which God did not intend at all, you no longer have God's Word.

573. Christ chose poor fishermen, not learned men.

He trained them personally, and infused into their minds an exact knowledge of His doctrine. We cannot claim to have received a similar revelation, that we should rank ourselves with them.

574. Then Catholics have to believe just what the Priest likes to tell them?

The Priest cannot tell the people just what he likes. He is obliged to teach just what Christ taught, and which has been taught him in the Name of Christ by the infallible Catholic Church.

575. Is your Church afraid that people will form opinions for themselves?

If we consider some of the opinions people have formed for themselves from their private reading of Scripture there is need to be afraid. Christ's method was to establish a teaching Church. Protestants have a peculiar method of their own, but you cannot blame the Catholic Church for not using the Protestant method, a method which has led to nothing but uncertainty and widespread unbelief.

576. Admitting the necessity of guidance, are not our Protestant ministers as capable as Catholic Priests in telling us what Scripture means?

They might be, if Priests had not an infallible Catholic Church to guide them. The Catholic Church rejoices in the special assistance of the Holy Spirit, and the Priest has the help of her defined doctrines and the constant Catholic tradition as a safeguard. But your Protestant ministers do not claim to be spokesmen of an infallible Church. On their own principles they have to admit that they are possibly wrong. And as a matter of fact, where all Priests are agreed in the essential teachings of Scripture, your ministers come to all kinds of contradictory conclusions. The unity of teaching among Catholic Priests is a greater indication of capability than the chaos which prevails outside the Catholic Church. But the capability of Catholic Priests has little to do with relative personal attainments. It is derived from the authority of the infallible Catholic Church.

577. You speak of the authority of the Church and the weight of tradition. But I have been taught that Scripture is the only rule of faith.

You have been taught wrongly. Scripture itself denies that it is the only rule of faith. The last verse of St. John's Gospel tells us that not all concerning Our Lord's work is contained in Scripture. St. Paul tells us over and over again that much of Christian teaching is to be found in tradition. One who clings to the reading of the Bible only might be able to cite hundreds of texts yet not know Christian doctrine by any means. In fact, the adoption of the Bible only has led to as many opinions as there are men amongst non-Catholics. Finally, Scripture tells us most clearly that the Catholic Church is the rule of faith, that Church which Christ sent to teach all nations and which He commanded men to hear and obey. He who believes in Scripture as his only guide ends by believing in his own mistaken interpretations of the Bible, and that means that he ends by believing in himself.

578. Is not the Church built on the knowledge it gets from the Bible?

No. The Catholic Church was built by Christ and upon Christ before a line of the New Testament was written. She received her doctrine immediately from the lips of Christ, and is safeguarded from error in her teaching by the Holy Spirit. Between 40 and 80 years after her foundation, some of her members wrote the Books of the New Testament. If the Gospels were the only rule of faith, then before they were written there could have been no Christian rule of faith at all!

579. Christ gave us the command to search the Scriptures. Jn 5:39.

That was a retort, not a command, and you cannot turn a particular rebuke into a universal law. Were it a universal law, it would have been impossible of fulfillment by the vast majority during the fourteen centuries prior to the invention of the printing press! But take the context. The Jews, who boasted of their fidelity to the Mosaic Law, would not believe in Christ. He challenged them: "(You) search the Scriptures, for you think in them to have life everlasting; and the same are they that give testimony of me." The Catholic Church could say in the same way to Protestants: "You are ever speaking of searching the Scriptures as opposed to my methods, and think in them to have everlasting life independently of me; yet the same are they that give testimony of me."

580. Do we not read that the early Christians searched the Scriptures daily? Acts 17:11.

They first received the true doctrine from the teaching Church, and then merely checked it in the Scriptures. That is the right procedure, and Catholics today do the same. But your way is not first to be taught by the Church, and then verify, but to try to make out your own religion from the Bible with an untrained mind and by that private interpretation which Scripture itself forbids.

581. Well, I am afraid of nothing as long as I have the pure Word of God to fall back upon.

Without the Catholic Church you cannot prove it to be the pure Word of God. Nor need anyone be afraid of the pure Word of God. What we must fear is the Word of God adulterated by people who read into it whatever they like.

Encoding copyright 2009 by Frederick Manligas Nacino. Some rights reserved.
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
http://www.celledoor.com/cpdv-ebe/

[r9etb]

But what, precisely, do you mean by "repository?" Sorry to carp, but a precise definition would be helpful in understanding your meaning, which still isn't quite clear.

Yes, Scripture has authority, in the sense that where there is disagreement between Scripture and a claimed "statement of God," Scripture is taken as correct.

But it is not a complete repository of all that God has said and done (cf. John 21:25).

[xzins]

567. God has given us brains to think for ourselves. We do not need Help to understand Scripture.

I doubt that any reformer ever thought the above. In fact, they considered humans to be fallen creatures and in need of serious help.

[xzins]

569. Any man who can think has the moral right to interpret anything.

Again, it ignores the reformers understanding of fallen humanity, and simply doesn't sound like how they would word such a comment.

[xzins]

571. I don't see the need of learning to understand a simple story for simple people.

To repeat, this simply doesn't sound like the reformers, who were all considerably educated men. All of them would affirm the biblical principle of study. These few I've pulled out are indicative of heartburn I have with a lot on the above list. I consider them caricatures (at very best) of what I believe.

[xzins]

I don’t think I intend anything other than the standard definition of the word: a place where something is stored.

[r9etb]

I don’t think I intend anything other than the standard definition of the word: a place where something is stored.

But what is being stored, and how are we to regard it? Do you claim that the Bible is both a complete and solely authoritative record of God's word? Solely authoritative but not complete? Complete (to a point) but not solely authoritative?

It seems nitpicky, but in many respects those (and other) views of "repository" are characteristic of the various players in the many religious controversies we see around us.

[xzins]

Out of all of human history, and some history of the heavenlies, and out of all the words and deeds prompted or committed by God, the Bible contains those God considered necessary.

It does not surprise me that God’s Word is handled in a variety of ways by a variety of individuals. Hasn’t it been that way ever since Eden?

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“Honestly, your inflammatory language is kind of tiresome and unnecessary.”

What I wrote is not inflammatory except to those who want to keep their man-made fantasies alive. I also said NOTHING that was unnecessary. If you belong to a sect and are attacking both common sense and the Church thereby, it should be noted and said.

“I don’t put myself in a box defined by any man-made doctrine.”

Sure you do. Do you believe in sola scriptura or sola fide? Both date back to the 16th century. Both are man-made. Period.

“I seek the Kingdom of God, not blindly accept a doctrine whether it be Baptist, Pentecostal, or Catholic.”

I don’t BLINDLY accept anything either. What I do is simple: I humbly accept the fact that Christ is King and His Church teaches by His authority. By the way, Baptists date back to only 1600. Pentecostals? Less than 150 years old. Catholic Church? About A.D. 33.

“Denominations tend to put works and obedience over the Grace of God.”

I’ve never been in a denomination. My Church, which is THE Church puts nothing over the grace of God.

As the CCC says in #2000-2002:

Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by his love. Habitual grace, the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God’s call, is distinguished from actual graces which refer to God’s interventions, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the course of the work of sanctification.

2001 The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. This latter is needed to arouse and sustain our collaboration in justification through faith, and in sanctification through charity. God brings to completion in us what he has begun, “since he who completes his work by cooperating with our will began by working so that we might will it:”50

[quote from St. Augustine] Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing.51

2002 God’s free initiative demands man’s free response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him. The soul only enters freely into the communion of love. God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man. He has placed in man a longing for truth and goodness that only he can satisfy. The promises of “eternal life” respond, beyond all hope, to this desire:

[quote from St. Augustine] If at the end of your very good works . . ., you rested on the seventh day, it was to foretell by the voice of your book that at the end of our works, which are indeed “very good” since you have given them to us, we shall also rest in you on the sabbath of eternal life.52

[r9etb]

Out of all of human history, and some history of the heavenlies, and out of all the words and deeds prompted or committed by God, the Bible contains those God considered necessary.

And again ... that doesn't really answer the question of what you mean by that.

It's fine to say "necessary," but the term "Bible ONLY" would tend to imply not just "necessary," but also sufficient.

A "necessary and sufficient" viewpoint says that the only place to find God's word is in the Bible ... and thus the Holy Spirit loses importance. That's what the article is talking about and rejecting.

"Necessary" says that you cannot dispense with the Bible as a source of God's word; but it means that we cannot take the Bible as the sole source: we must look to other sources as well. This view is in accord with St. John's description of the Holy Spirit: will teach you all things and(D) bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you (John 14:26). One implication of this view may be that God may speak "new words" to us that may be also accepted as authoritative. But because the Bible is "necessary," the new words cannot contradict what's already in the Bible. Note that Scripture appears not to place any particular end date on the work of the Holy Spirit, however -- a view which could suggest that it's still possible to add a book to the Canon of Scripture.

"Sufficient" says that we can find God's word in the Bible and trust it, but that it's not the only place we can find a trustworthy exposition of God's word. One might suggest that St. Paul was saying something like this in Romans 1:20, his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made....

Again, you can see each of these at work in the various religious controversies.

It's probably not right to break it out so cleanly into these three categories; I can find something good in each of them, though I suppose I tend more to the "necessary" one more than the others. I'm curious which of them you would see yourself fitting into.

[Iscool]

As it must be for the Church established by Christ. Christ established the Church BEFORE the New Testament was written. The Church, therefore, is built upon Christ, the Apostles and the truth given to them. Any Church which claims to hve been built upon the Bible must naturally have been established by men and not Christ, and is, therefore, a sect, false and rebellious against Christ.

However, it wasn't YOUR Church that Jesus established...It's a pity your religion gets it's hooks into so many before before they've had a chance to get their hooks into the scripture...

But then I assume they aren't looking for Jesus anyway...They are looking for a religion...

Any Church which claims to hve been built upon the Bible must naturally have been established by men and not Christ

Now that's a crazy statement...

Jesus revealed to Paul how He wanted His church set up...Paul set about to put these instructions on paper and made sure they were read in the churches...And those instructions are ONLY in the scriptures...

[Iscool]

The irony of “Bible only” is that it is not Biblical!

Sure it is...It's just as biblical as the Trinity...

But you guys still can't find the Trinity in the scriptures so not finding 'scripture only' apparently would be just as impossible for you guys...

[Iscool]

You believe in Jesus as other Christians do. You read the NT and see in it that the Church is of te believers. You then, anachronistically, assume that that means your sect is incorporated into Christ or that you personally ar incorporated into Christ without any Church at all. Both assumptions are wrong. Christ established a Church. When He established it - and through out the NT period - the Church contained all the believers.

But it doesn't contain any non-believers...You got the wrong Church...

Unless you can guarantee that Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi are in fact Christian believers, you got the wrong church...

There are absolutely NO unbelievers in the church of Jesus Christ...

Jesus did not establish a church to bring people to Him...The people that turned to Him ARE the church...

You got the wrong church...

[Petronski]

Sure it is...It's just as biblical as the Trinity...

By the terms of the false tradition of men known as sola Scriptura, both sola Scriptura and the Trinity must be rejected.

[Petronski]

However, it wasn't YOUR Church that Jesus established...

Not his Church, but certainly His Church. Christ established the Catholic Church. It is neither mine nor yours nor vlad's.

It is Christ's.

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“However, it wasn’t YOUR Church that Jesus established...”

Yes, actually it was.

“It’s a pity your religion gets it’s hooks into so many before before they’ve had a chance to get their hooks into the scripture...”

Uh, that doesn’t even make sense as a sentence. When you can form a coherent sentence let me know.

“But then I assume they aren’t looking for Jesus anyway...They are looking for a religion...”

We have a religion - Christianity - and it’s from Jesus.

“Now that’s a crazy statement...”

No, it’s perfectly rational. Again, which came first? If the Church came before the New Testament - and it did - then we know the Church is not based on the New Testament. The New Testament is based on the Church’s teachings as handed down from Christ to the Apostles.

“Jesus revealed to Paul how He wanted His church set up...Paul set about to put these instructions on paper and made sure they were read in the churches...And those instructions are ONLY in the scriptures...”

And the Church already existed BEFORE Paul. All Paul did was hand down in writing and orally what was already known and taught.

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“But it doesn’t contain any non-believers...You got the wrong Church...”

No, I have the right one.

“Unless you can guarantee that Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi are in fact Christian believers, you got the wrong church...”

No. There have always been sinners. Any group which claims not to have sinners is not the Church.

“There are absolutely NO unbelievers in the church of Jesus Christ...”

There have always been sinners and always will be. There were always some who lost faith in Christ as well. Judas was still an apostle even though he planned to betray Christ. Simon Magus was still a baptized Christian at one poit even though he clearly fell and left the Church.

“Jesus did not establish a church to bring people to Him...”

Yes, actually He did. Hence, the Great Commission. That’s why He said “Go” to the Apostles rather than, “They’ll come to you.”

“he people that turned to Him ARE the church...”

The Church told them about Jesus FIRST.

“You got the wrong church...”

Nope. You have the wrong idea and clearly don’t know the Biblical record of the Church.

[cva66snipe]

I listen to different Christian sects till one tells me I must use THEIR writings as the only way in which to discern GOD's Word. It is not any church which leads one into all truths it is The Holy Spirit working in the individual person.

Matthew ch11 25Then Jesus prayed this prayer: “O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding the truth from those who think themselves so wise and clever, and for revealing it to the childlike. 26Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way! 27“My Father has given me authority over everything. No one really knows the Son except the Father, and no one really knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

Which is what Christ meant here.

Matthew ch 16 15Then he asked them, “Who do you say I am?” 16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17Jesus replied, “You are blessed, Simon son of John,£ because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. 18Now I say to you that you are Peter,£ and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell£ will not conquer it. 19And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you lock on earth will be locked in heaven, and whatever you open on earth will be opened in heaven.” 20Then he sternly warned them not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Christ reveals Himself to us when He calls us. This is the very foundation Christ built the church upon. Man ran churches as well as it's leaders can be led astray and lead many astray as well with them. We are to compare their teachings to what GOD's Word says and not what they say we must do or believe. But the Holy Spirit can not be led astray. So which will I trust for truth and wisdom to understand GOD's Word when reading The Bible? The very one Christ said He would send to us for that very purpose. That is why hell will not conquer it.

[xzins]

“Necessary”, by definition, incorporates “sufficient.”

So far as cessationism is concerned, I am not one. I do believe in the continuing work of the Holy Spirit, but I do not believe in an extension of the scriptures, since the central point of history was the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, and the witnesses of His ministry attained their place within NT scripture by virtue of their having been a witness, or an amanuensis of a witness, of the resurrection.

Therefore, as you say, no utterance truly from the Holy Spirit will contradict the already given revelation of God as found in the scripture.

[r9etb]

“Necessary”, by definition, incorporates “sufficient.”

Nope. As an example, let's take your car.

An engine is necessary for your car to work as a car, but it is not sufficient -- you also need gas, tires, and so on.

In the case of Scripture, I agree with you that it's "necessary". Even according to Scripture, however, it is not sufficient.

[xzins]

Nope. Necessary in terms of the car would include all that was required to make it go. That would be parts, accessories, fuel, etc. that are “necessary.”

Had an older gentleman in one of the churches early in my ministry who would always include in his prayers a line about God granting us what we need, but not necessarily what we wanted.

He realized that what we “needed” would get us there. He also recognized that some of the perks were nice, but they weren’t needed.