Posted on 01/23/2010 4:09:32 PM PST by NYer
I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you. 1 Corinthians 11:2
Most Protestant Christians believe that the Bible is the only source concerning faith. According to them, there is no need for Apostolic Tradition or an authoritative, teaching Church. All that they need is the Bible in order to learn about the faith and to live a Christian life. The "Bible Alone" teaching can be appealing in its simplicity, but it suffers from fundamental problems. A few are considered here.
First the Bible itself states that not everything important to the Christian faith is recorded in it. For example, not everything that Christ did is recorded in the inspired Books:
But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. [John 21:25; RSV]
According to John 20:31, some things have been recorded in the Gospel in order to come to know Christ; however, John 21:25 suggests that there is still more to know about Him. At least for St. John the Apostle, there was more that he needed to teach which was not recorded in the Bible:
I had much to write you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink; I hope to see you soon, and we will talk together face to face. [3 John 13-14]
Also St. Paul instructs Timothy on how to orally pass on the teachings of the faith:
...what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. [2 Tim. 2:2]
St. Paul even commands (2 Thess. 3:6) the Thessalonian Christians to follow the oral Traditions of the Apostles:
So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us (Apostles), either by word of mouth (oral) or by letter (Epistle). [2 Thess. 2:15]
These commands promoting Oral Tradition would be quite strange, if only the Bible were needed to pass on the entire Christian faith.
A second problem with the "Bible Alone" teaching is canonicity - i.e. which Books belong in the Bible? It must be remembered that the Books of the Bible were written individually along with other religious books. Centuries later the Church compiled together the inspired Books under one cover to form the "Bible." A big question in the early Church was which books are the inspired written Word of God. (Inspired=written by men but authored by God; See Catechism of the Catholic Church 106.)
Scripture did not come with an "inspired" Table of Contents. Nowhere in the sacred texts are all the Books listed. There are some Books cited in the sacred writings but these lists are vague and incomplete (Acts 28:23; 2 Peter 3:16). There are also references to books not found in the Bible, such as St. Paul's Epistle to the Laodiceans (Col. 4:16). St. Paul even encourages the Colossians to read this epistle, but still it is not in the Bible. Jesus in the Gospel never attempts to list the "official" Books of the Old Testament (OT). This issue was hotly debated in His day. Today Protestant and Catholic Christians disagree over which Books belong in the OT. Catholics follow the list in the Septuagint (2nd century B.C. Greek translation of the Hebrew Scripture) while Protestants follow the list used by the Pharisees. A list from Jesus could have eliminated this problem, but no such list is found in the Gospel. As a result the Bible needs a visible authority outside of itself to list the inspired sacred Books. This authority must be guided by the Holy Spirit since these Books are from the Holy Spirit.
Some Christians claim that the Table of Contents in their Bible lists the inspired Books. Even though found in modern Bibles, the Table of Contents is still not inspired. It is not the Word of God but words added later by human editors, much similar to footnotes. The Table of Contents is basically the opinion of the publishing editor. Others may claim that the closing verses in the Book of Revelation, specifically Rev. 22:18-19, cap off the Bible and define all the preceding Books as inspired by God. But do these verses apply to the whole Bible or only the Book of Revelation? Another flaw with this idea is that not all Bibles have the same number of Books. As alluded to above, Catholic and Protestant Bibles contain different numbers of OT Books, yet all these Bibles close with the same verses: Rev. 22:18ff. Both cannot be right. Finally the Book of Deuteronomy contains similar verses (4:2 & 12:32). Does this imply that the Books after Deuteronomy are not inspired by God? No.
A third problem with the "Bible Alone" teaching is proper understanding of critical Bible passages. Most Protestant Christians promote personal interpretation of the Bible, i.e. anyone can interpret these passages by himself. Unfortunately this leads to chaos. For example over Baptism, some Protestants accept the validity of infant Baptism, while others do not. Some believe in the necessity of Baptism for salvation, citing Mark 16:16, while others disagree by citing John 3:16. They all claim to be Bible-based, but still they disagree over fundamental issues regarding salvation. Sadly the "Yellow Pages" phone directory is a witness to the many "Bible-Based" churches who disagree with each other over key issues of the Christian faith. Personal interpretation of the Bible naturally leads to a mire of human doctrines as a result of differing personal opinions.
The Bible was not written as a catechism. It is a collection of many different styles of writing - poetry, history, parables, letters, songs, etc. - requiring different ways of understanding. Sometimes Jesus in the Gospel purposely taught in figurative language and parables, which makes literal interpretation impossible. Even St. Peter admits that St. Paul's Epistles can be difficult to understand:
...Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. [2 Peter 3:15-16]
Finally the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:30ff needed St. Philip to explain the Book of Isaiah. Obviously not everyone can understand the meaning of Scripture by simply reading it. More is required. These difficulties in the Bible demand an independent visible teaching authority that is guided by the Holy Spirit.
Even the Bible points to the importance of the Church for teaching the Truth. According to St. Peter in the Bible:
First of all you must understand this, that no prophesy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. [2 Peter 1:20-21]
At least prophecies in the Bible are not a matter of personal interpretation. These prophesies must be properly interpreted by "men moved by the Holy Spirit" since the Holy Spirit is the Author. These "men" are the Bishops of the Church - the successors to the Apostles (Acts 20:28-32). Finally the Bible does not call itself the bulwark of the truth; however, St. Paul does make reference to the Church in those terms:
...the household of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth. [1 Tim. 3:15]
According to the Bible, the Church is "the pillar and bulwark of the truth."
All Christians, including Catholics, should read the Bible in order to grow more in the faith; however, we still need the Church. The Church is needed to accurately pass on Apostolic Tradition (Romans 10:17), define the canon of the Bible (i.e. list the inspired Books), safeguard the accurate transmission (e.g. translations) of the Bible and interpret key passages, all with guidance from the Holy Spirit according to God's Will. The Church is needed for other reasons too. It must be understood that the Church is not merely men making arbitrary decisions but men executing authority from God guided by the Holy Spirit. The Church may at times be tested by scandals or scarred by the sins of men. We may sometimes disagree with the policies of the Church, but she is still the instrument of the Holy Spirit. This visible Church is the one built by Jesus Christ on St. Peter, the rock (Matt. 16:18-19; John 1:24). This is the Catholic Church.
Right and it’s blatantly Gnostic and elitist.
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Wellllllllll, it would appear from all your demonstrated posts that you are an expert on at least one of those tracks/ persona’s.
Though I found your take on the recent exchanges absolutely hilarious, I'm not at all happy to laugh at kosta's expense.
Oh, well, I knew your promise to "be more out of my hair" today (post #1,282) was be too good to be true. Oh well...
that if an exception to a general rule were buried in the deepest trench in the ocean, kosta’s . . . obsessive-exception-finder would seek it out. LOL
I have to hand it to you that your reply has absolutely nothing to do contextually with what I wrote.
Sometimes, it seems like reality leaves you more tied in knots than . . . informed.
Mind reading? RM what do you think?
I believe you more than you can imagine.
That's not the Creed the Undivided Church proclaimed. The procession, better yet departure of the Spirit, as regards his origin, or in Greek ekporeuomai, as used in the Creed, is not the same as paraporeuomai (to pass by), but in Latin they are both the same words procedere. So, it is no wonder that the cocnept was lots in the west and became a heresy.
Despite courageous resistance of a number of Roman Bishops, the western Church finally succumbed to the Frankish pressure and adopted the and the Son (filioque) heresy at the end of the first millennium, and from there on continued its non-Patristic path that eventually produced all the reasons for the Protestant Reformation which, unfortunately, turned out to be an even grosser deformation of concepts than the one the 11th century.
Which is understandable, easily enough: How much can a pot know, or tell you about, the potter who made it? It's what we might call a "categorical problem."
Don't ask me. Ask your Friend Quix. He seems to find it amusing enough to ask me "how did all this unknowable become knowable...?" (this is only a few posts after he thanked me for a "learning lesson"). Is this classic or what?
I think our inability to reach any agreement on such matters proceeds from the fact that you, dear kosta, and I come at these problems from diametrically opposed directions
On that I must agree...
You want to follow the Baconian approach to the ascertainment of truth, which is to proceed from effects to causes — inductive reasoning.
Not at all. I believe in "live and learn." No axioms. I don't ask you to believe me if I tell you the stove is hot and bad for your health. Go ahead an touch it and we will be in perfect agreement!. Forever.
It seems, however, that it is your side that follows inductive reasoning. The religious people see the sun rays through the clouds and think they see "God." They look at the universe and they say "God made this." They see the effect and make up the cause. That's not learning.
That's delusion, because we don't know the answer for sure, so we can either admit ingorance or make up an answer. I choose to call what I don't know an unknown and move on.
On the other hand I start with an axiom, which is "self-evident" to me, and reason from that — deductive reasoning.
When you say an axiom, you are basically saying an arbitrary supposition, an a priori absolute law, a personally decided starting point that is entirely yours and not universal, to your taste and not to everyone's taste. This is pure solipsism, which is by definition narcissistic: me, myself and I.
My approach with the hot stove works for everyone. No axioms are needed, not even reasoning, yet my approach is universally true. Yours is, by your admission, only "self-evident" to you.
But I already know that from your previous replies. Just remember that axioms are not necessarily true even if they are self-evident.
And I do not find any contradiction between Holy Scripture and the natural world, the world of Creation — there is nothing in modern science that contradicts anything God said, as "recorded" in the Holy Bible, that I have ever seen. So far.
Fascinating, betty boop. I suppose you must believe, then, that sciece teaches diseases are caused by demons! perhaps some evidence of for this conclusion wouldn't hurt.
Quix: Ahhhh more of that condeming God because he’s not made in kosta’s image that I’ve alluded to.
Is what I said not true?
Get enough sleep lately? What tracks and perosna's [sic] pray tell?
So pray tell, how, dear kosta, does my method differ from yours? Evidently there is an axiom at the "bottom" of your intellectualizing. In this respect, there is no difference between you and me. At that level. So to speak.
But the difference consists in this: the "messages" we respond to. I aver that the Truth of Reality is in-built, from the moment of Creation, via Logos, Alpha and Omega. I believe the language of mathematics/logics authoritatively expresses this Reality. You, on the other hand, seemingly are highly skeptical about any system of observation/measurement/evaluation that you do not get to "create"/determine for yourself in the first place. That is, it seems you propose yourself as the "measure" of all that is.
To which I might say: Well, this may be the measure of you; but not necessarily of the rest of us. God have mercy....
I don't know how else to put it: All I can say (suggest) is that, to the extent you put the needful criteria of your self first, you occlude God's Truth.
My point about axioms is that they are not arbitrary, nor subjectively determined in any sense. You wrote that an axiom is: "an arbitrary supposition, an a priori absolute law, a personally decided starting point that is entirely yours and not universal, to your taste and not to everyone's taste. This is pure solipsism, which is by definition narcissistic: me, myself and I."
This is pure hortatory bilgewater.... The crucial point about the mathematical axiom is that it is a universal by definition. That is, applying to all times and places whatsoever, for all time.
SOMETIMES
you are incredibly predictable.
Hmmmmm Wellll . . .
From my perspective . . . it was an illustration . . .
a contrast with a presentation, a perspective, a line of intellectual positioning.
I don’t KNOW “kosta50” more than as a screen name and a collection of words.
It’s hard to discern with absolute confidence who or what or what sort the person behind the words is.
And, I don’t need to laugh at anyone’s personhood expense either.
However,
silly presentations of crazy ideas—those presentments are much fair game as far as I’m concerned.
It just suddenly struck me . . . that we’ve had quite a pile of words of a certain sort, tone, ‘logic’ [using the term loosely], attitude, stance, perspective, type of intellectualization, set of values etc.
And, PERSONALLY, I don’t think that stinking pile of rationalized convoluted nonsense gets or should get the least bit of a free pass.
I just felt at that moment of insight, that the best way to highlight the absurdities in that line of presentation was the satirical sequence I typed.
Kosta is supposedly scrolling on by my posts anyway. I did hope, however, that the lurkers would find humor in my humble words AND that the humor would highlight the absurdities in the convoluted pseudo-intellectualizations casting such nonsensical aspersions at Biblical Christianity and God’s existence so ostensibly glibly.
Naw. Just observing the word patterns, word sequences and word tones.
To say yes to that question put that way
would be to essentially say yes to your whole convoluted pile of rationalized UNBiblical intellectualizations about such.
No way I can say yes to all that.
You seem to be implying to asserting that God condemns unfairly.
I’ve never found God unfair.
Some things I haven’t understood at the time. Some things have FELT unfair at the time. I’ve learned quite intensely later, they were exceedingly extremely more than fair.
However, it is a somewhat interesting thing to observe the finite haul the Infinite into the court of one’s own arrogance and judge the Infinite inferior.
AND TO PRETEND THAT
THAT
IS RATIONAL AND . . . LOGICAL . . . AND . . . BETTER THAN PSYCHOTIC . . . IS MORE THAN A LITTLE LAUGHABLE.
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To say yes to that question put that way
would be to essentially say yes to your whole convoluted pile of rationalized UNBiblical intellectualizations about such.
No way I can say yes to all that.
You seem to be implying to asserting that God condemns unfairly.
I’ve never found God unfair.
Some things I haven’t understood at the time. Some things have FELT unfair at the time. I’ve learned quite intensely later, they were exceedingly extremely more than fair.
However, it is a somewhat interesting thing to observe the finite haul the Infinite into the court of one’s own arrogance and judge the Infinite inferior.
There were only two listed . . .
gnostic and elitist . . .
I suppose you could choose or the peanut gallery could choose.
BTW,
a lot of experience and my best hunch
assures me that . . . .
it’s highly unlikely that folks of such a demonstrated attitude, set of values, perspective etc. are hardly bothered at all about where I’m plainly and obviously wrong.
What is likely to bother folks of that perspective most . . . is where part of such folks’ psyche’s are convinced, however, consciously or unconsciously, that I’m right.
Sad as it is existentially . . . there’s some humor in that.
My point about axioms is that they are not arbitrary, nor subjectively determined in any sense. You wrote that an axiom is: “an arbitrary supposition, an a priori absolute law, a personally decided starting point that is entirely yours and not universal, to your taste and not to everyone’s taste. This is pure solipsism, which is by definition narcissistic: me, myself and I.”
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Now, now.
when one sets one’s self up as
GOD OF THE PSEUDO-INTELLECTUALIZATIONS
about the existence of God and the lack of Biblical support for said God . . .
one arbitrarily defines and describes the rules under which one wishes to pontificate under.
And if, at any time, said rules prove inconvenient or uncomfortable, one just changes them—even if in mid-stream.
Then one ?intellectually” brow-beats any protest into silence or disgust or bewilderment or . . .
That of which I speak is not Gnosticism as condemned as a heresy, but simply a discernment of the many terms used in Scripture for our thinking processes through faith in Christ.
I can’t become Catholic because of their praying to saints, and because of their veneration of Mary above other female saints
think for a moment of what you have said, Mary should not be held in higher esteem than any other woman in the world????????She was Jesus’ mom....she carried God almighty in her womb, she raised and nurtured Him throughout His life here on earth, she suffered with Him during His hard times and through the Cricifixion of HER SON.....yeah, I’d give her some bonus points for that.....a lot of them and Catholics do not pray to saints....we pray through them......Saint Peter, please pray for me, Saint Anthony please help me....we ask them to intervene on our behalf to Jesus....and why not, they are there and pretty much on His good side. We also pray FOR our deceased parents, siblings, spouses, children, relatives, that they may be in heaven with Jesus....I’ll guarantee you that it cannot hurt, and if nothing else comes of it, it helps us remember our loved ones and satisfies our human needs to help, if we can.......very comforting, try it....you can lose nothing
EXTREMELY APT.
EXTREMELY ACCURATE.
EXTREMELY WELL SAID.
I still think we need to take up a collection to replace some shattered mirrors.
Christ made quite clear . . .
that his mother
and His BROTHERS . . . as in siblings . . . as in Mary’s other sons . . .
were EQUAL in priority TO HIM TO ALL WHO DID THE WILL OF THE FATHER.
Fascinating how the Vatican et al weasel out of that one.
Sorry, Terycarl, I just don’t think we’ll ever come to a meeting of minds on these things.
I believe in what the Bible says, you believe there is revealed truth outside the Bible, in men’s traditions..
Nevertheless, take care,
Ed
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