annalex wrote:
“But the Church, not only the scripture written by the Church, binds with a heavenly bond.”
To all who might read this, I apologize for returning to something already commented on, but I can’t get this out of my craw, head or heart. What is here being asserted is that the Church is superior, because the Church gave birth to the Bible, not the other way around. This is really quite a clever and compelling argument, until you think about it a little.
Let us take a direct analogy: Mary gave birth to Jesus. Ergo, Mary is superior in authority and stature to her Child. That is what is being argued above. The clever part is that there is an element of truth in it. As soon as God made known His will that the Seed who would crush the serpent’s head would be born of a woman, He established the (partial) truth that the “Church” would give birth to its Lord. This is, of course, true. But it is only a part of the truth, and the lesser part. For the Son of Man, the Seed of the woman, was also, as John says, the Word, who was at the beginning, who was with God, and who was God. Separate these two truths and what do you have? Well, to make a long story short, whatever you have is not the holy Christian faith, the faith once handed down to the saints. It is something else. It is akin to the “something” of the Sadducees or of the Pharisees. And however sincerely it is believed - as it was sincerely believed by both Pharisee and Sadducee and whose sincerity was vouched safe in their decree of crucifixion! - it is also, simply, wrong and utterly contrary to the revealed will of God. Mary, as the Church, is the ministerial servant of the (infinitely) greater One, not the other way around.
To say that the Church validated the Holy Scriptures, as if they had no validity in and of themselves, is exactly akin to saying that Christ would not be the Messiah but for the validity afforded Him by Mary. I cannot help but think how horrified Mary of Nazareth, the most blessed among women - and the very picture of true faith and trust in God, would find this preposterous idea and assertion. Her Child was her Lord. He was to her as He was to John the Baptizer - infinitely, INFINITELY, greater. By this I by no means denigrate either John or Mary. Rather, I validate them. For this is what each plainly said. The point of comparison between the Son of Man and Son of God and John simply doesn’t exist. The point of comparison between Him and Mary simply doesn’t exist. The pot does not claim equality with the Potter, much less superiority over Him. To do either is, in fact, blasphemy.
Without the Holy Scriptures the Catholic Church is nothing, NOTHING. Without the Christ, Mary is nothing, NOTHING. For the Holy Scriptures are the voice and will of God, without which everything is nothing. But with and under the authority of the Scriptures the Church is very kingdom of God, the chosen people, the heirs of God’s kingdom. With and under Christ Mary is no mere girl from Nazareth, she is simply the most blessed woman who has ever walked or will ever walk the face of the earth.
The Church gave birth to the New Testament, and it canonized and correctly explained the Old Testament, but she did not give birth to the Old Testament, that was the work of Moses and other prophets, all under divine inspiration of course. With this correction, yes, you got it right: "not the other way around".
Mary gave birth to Jesus. Ergo, Mary is superior in authority and stature to her Child
The analogy is invalid for two reasons. First, Christ did not say anything similar about His Blessed Mother that He did say about the Church. For the analogy to work one should find Christ saying something like "What my Mother binds on Earth I will bind in heaven". There is no such statement.
Second, you analogize things that cannot be analogized. It is true that the Church gave us the New Testament, and also that Mary gave birth to Jesus. It is also true that as a general rule if X makes Y then X has superior authority over Y. However, while the Church most certainly made the New Testament under divine guidance, Mary did not make Jesus. Unlike a book, no matter how holy, Jesus is not an object that had been created. The Incarnation is a singular event that cannot be analogized in such manner.
Without the Holy Scriptures the Catholic Church is nothing
This is plainly not true. With or without the Scripture the sacraments of the Church remain and the institutions of the Church remains. All that happens is that written teaching becomes oral teaching.