Posted on 01/23/2011 5:12:54 AM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas
Did Martin Luther Act Infallibly in Defining What Books Belong in the Bible?
If Luther did not act infallibly:
- How can Protestants be certain that they have an infallible collection of Books in Holy Scripture?
- How can the Bible be the sole rule of faith, if no one knows with certainty which books belong in the Bible?
If Luther acted infallibly:
- How do you know?
Thank you Daniel....it just looks like the same issues which plague Christians today....on how we got our Bible, was clearly disputed for many years as much as it is today.
I’ve found the “disputed” apo. too often like fairy tales.....never have the sense of reading Gods word when reading them. Though certain passages or places were interesting...but more like a good read than the affect scripture has. So IMO I think we have the scriptures, as they are, to teach and tell us all we need to know.
This split system approach may help with the reliability of the whole FR system. The outages and downtime are really hurting this site.
Divide and conquer.....
No thanks.
>>I sees no reference to “fellow servants”<<
If you read the rest of Matthew 18 Jesus teaches of the servants. After all the entire chapter starts with the question, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
There are those who are chosen to lead the church, not rule over it. That is Jesus place, not any man.
I suggest that your post is true because there is an actual standard of Truth which the Church represents, therefore when that standard is violated by members of its preeminent protector and defender the breach is more strongly felt.
In the case of the politicians and other prominent Catholics, it is Catholics demanding they live the faith more fully and truthfully, not the secular or protestant communities. Just as it is Catholics demanding that the clergy live and preach more faithfully.
That thousands come into the Church or return to the Church every year belies your confidence in her pending demise. One could point out the transitory nature of many protestant sects, with people coming in and out of them all the time. But, if one switches from one protestant sect to another, where is the newsworthiness of that?
Ghandi saw the hypocrisy in all Christians, otherwise he would have been a protestant.:)
“Peter’s words are then prophetic for us as there are still those who would twist Scripture to their own end, to deny the Master and His Church.”
I don’t deny His Church. I’m part of it.
What I deny is that the Bishop of Rome is the Vicar of Christ, and that the ‘church’ of the NT is a hierarchy of Bishops...
Also, Peter is claiming his authority as a witness to the Transfiguration, but also saying, “19And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
he says, in summary, I was at the Transfiguration, but we have something more sure than my personal testimony, we have scripture.
Interesting that scripture is to be treasured over the word of Peter, whom you would claim was the first Pope.
>>Oh, and by whose or what authority did they designate teachers?<<
I’m not sure there is any record by the apostles other then those who were the most learned and those most hungry who learned from the apostles themselves. Jesus did tell us that some are called.
No way!!!!!! You sound like those who are trying to take God out of the churches, schools and gov. places. So now we take out the religious threads and tuck them over there in a corner somewhere? Nope....I oppose that idea.
“Of course since literacy was limited to a very few, the dissemination of scripture is a moot point and thus protestant conjecture on this allegation is rendered meaningless and irrelevant.”
Nope. If that was true, there would have been no need for ANY translations, yet there were multiple translations into the current form of English - PARTIAL translations, one of which included the Gospels.
However, it took Wycliffe to translate the entire Bible - why? And why were his copies spread by hand at great risk, and yet spread? After outlawing any English translation without approval in 1408, why did no Catholic approve a translation into English? Why did Thomas More complain about Tyndale’s translation, yet Tyndale’s translation is the basis for the KJV, and the DR revision in the 1700s? Why did the Catholic Church try to prevent Tyndale’s translation from being distributed, even though it is still a very good translation, available from Amazon.com:
Also, why was it that the Apostles knew scripture without printing presses? Hmmmm?????
The Catholic laity should not be the only ones making those demands, nor should they have to be making those demands of their own clergy.
And it should be the Catholic clergy making the demands of the Catholic politicians, not merely the laity.
And obviously, not even a majority of Catholic laity are making those demands, as the majority of Catholic laity are showing - in the voting booths - the liberal politicians just where they stand.
In reality, Catholic politicians ARE listening to the Catholic laity.
Ghandi saw the hypocrisy in all Christians, otherwise he would have been a protestant.:)
He didn't become a Catholic either.
Yes. Greek has gender, which makes it possible to distinguish things more finely than the English language allows. Ephesians 2:8 is always quoted by those who claim faith is a gift given by God, but they wouldn't make the claim if they knew Greek.
----------------------------------------------------------
HD “What you have steadfastly refused to answer is who gives you your belief? Where does your faith come from?”
What I do know is that the Calvinist idea that they are gifts given by God to the Elect is nowhere taught in scripture. Both belief and faith are repeatedly - in literally hundreds of verses - described as something men do, not receive.
The idea that faith is a gift comes from confusion between pronouns and the nouns they are linked with in several verses in the second chapter of Ephesians. The problem really arises because English words, unlike Greek, have no gender and because certain words that are singular in Greek have a translation in English that sound plural. Also, it doesn't help that some translations, like the NIV, add punctuation that reinforces the idea that faith is a gift even though it's unsupported by the text. I'll give the Greek and then the English. I'll make the nouns ("the riches" and "the gift," singular neuter) and the respective pronoun ("this," singular neuter) in question bold so it's obvious which goes with what. "Faith" (singular feminine, πιστεως) I'll italicize. (And the really sad thing is that most of the English translations miss out on reproducing some beautiful parallelism in the Greek.
4 ο δε θεος πλουσιος ων εν ελεει δια την πολλην αγαπην αυτου ην ηγαπησεν ημας 5 και οντας ημας νεκρους τοις παραπτωμασιν συνεζωοποιησεν τω χριστω χαριτι εστε σεσωσμενοι 6 και συνηγειρεν και συνεκαθισεν εν τοις επουρανιοις εν χριστω ιησου 7 ινα ενδειξηται εν τοις αιωσιν τοις επερχομενοις το υπερβαλλον πλουτος της χαριτος αυτου εν χρηστοτητι εφ ημας εν χριστω ιησου 8 τη γαρ χαριτι εστε σεσωσμενοι δια πιστεως και τουτο ουκ εξ υμων θεου το δωρον 9 ουκ εξ εργων ινα μη τις καυχησηται 10 αυτου γαρ εσμεν ποιημα κτισθεντες εν χριστω ιησου επι εργοις αγαθοις οις προητοιμασεν ο θεος ινα εν αυτοις περιπατησωμεν
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
The thing to note here is that the "that" that so many think refers to faith cannot because it is a neuter pronoun that refers back to the neuter noun "riches" and to that noun's apposition "gift," also singular neuter. It doesn't refer to "faith" because, if it did, it would have been feminine in gender.
A better way of translating this passage would be simply to repeat the noun to which the pronoun refers and to make sure the parenthetical comments appear as such both times.
But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ (by grace you are saved) and has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding wealth of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus (for by grace are ye saved through faith). And that exceeding wealth, the gift of God, is not of yourselves. It is not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, in which God has before ordained that we should walk.
6,402 posted on Sunday, January 24, 2010 8:38:45 PM by aruanan
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What is circular about the Holy Spirit, or trusting Him to do what Jesus promised He would do?
So which is it chosen to lead or serve? Lead implies leadership. To serve implies subservience. Why is it not both/and?
The pope and the rest of the hierarchy do not rule, they serve under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
The pope is called the “Servant of the servants of God.”
If you read the rest of Matthew 18 Jesus teaches of the servants. After all the entire chapter starts with the question, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
The only accurate sentence in that is that the chapter stars with “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
I have read it more than once and the only servant is the one who refused to forgive the debt of another.
As for who is the greatest, Jesus says the one who has become like a child, the one who is humble like the child.
What is it that makes the child humble?
How humble is it to believe in one’s own infallibility in determining and interpreting Scripture?
Catholics recognize Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium, they hardly treasure one over the other.
>> How humble is it to believe in one’s own infallibility in determining and interpreting Scripture?<<
Infallibility in determining and interpreting scripture? Are you saying anyone who interprets or reads scripture must be infallible? Surely you jest. There is only one infallible and that is God Himself.
You did not read my post carefully.
I want news/activism on one robust server and everything else on another. The links would work the same.
It would make the rickity site more solid, especially during busy times such as elections and important news events.
BTW, Google has over 450,000 servers. Spreading the system over many servers is a key strategy for maintaining uptime.
“A simple search of the word church in the Bible reveals that its usage is not limited to describing only the believers, but rather an institution of beliefs, elders, and such.”
A simple search shows it typically refers to congregations - religious assemblies. The Greek word means simply an assembly of people, and is used in one place in the NT to describe a riot.
It is also used to refer to the universal church stretching thru time, but there has never been a unified - a truly catholic - organization of congregations or believers.
See here for 114 uses in 111 verses:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G1577&t=ESV
Speaking of infallibility
From the past and present, here are some things that have been said about papal infallibility by Catholics themselves:
“Unless I am convinced by the testimonies of Scripture or evident reason (for I do not believe either Pope or councils alone, since it is certain that they have both erred frequently and contradicted themselves)...I neither can nor wish to revoke anything.” (This was said by Martin Luther at Worms in 1521 while still a Catholic priest).
“No enlightened Catholic holds the pope’s infallibility to be an article of faith. I do not; and none of my brethren, that I know of do.” (This was said by Bishop John Purcell in the Campbell-Purcell Debate on the Roman Catholic Religion in 1837. The Debate was later printed in a book and Bishop’s Purcell’s statement is found on page 27. He made his remark before papal infallibility was decreed by the Vatican Council in 1870 to be an article of faith).
“Therefore, to resume, I establish: (1) That Jesus has given to His apostles the same power that He gave to St. Peter. (2) That the apostles never recognized in St. Peter the vicar of Jesus Christ and the infallible doctor of the church. (3) That St. Peter never thought of being pope, and never acted as if he were pope...I conclude victoriously, with history, with reason, with logic, with good sense, and with a Christian conscience, that Jesus Christ did not confer any supremacy on St. Peter and that the bishops of Rome did not become sovereigns of the church, but only confiscating one by one all the rights of the episcopate.” (This, along with many arguments against papal infallibility, was said by Bishop Joseph Strossmayer in his speech before the Vatican Council in 1870).
“It has now become quite clear that the conception of continuity, authority, infallibility of the Church and the Church’s teaching, on which there has not been sufficient reflection, has led the Catholic Church into a dangerous tight corner.” (This, alone with other doubts regarding papal infallibility, was said by Hans Kung, a prominent Catholic theologian, in his book, “Infallibility, An Inquiry,” 1971).
“Please discuss the means by which Jesus and the Apostles were able to quote scripture. What infallible council gave us the Old Testament?”
How did Jesus, the Son of God, quote scripture? Before or after he raised Lazarus from the dead?
“Catholics recognize Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium, they hardly treasure one over the other.”
Nope. If tradition and the Magisterium hold the only true interpretation of scripture, then they rule over scripture.
For example, did Mary have other kids after Jesus? The scriptures are unambiguous, and repeatedly refer to the brothers and sisters of Jesus, and say that Joseph didn’t know Mary until after Jesus was born. Yet Catholics say brothers mean cousins, because that is the only way to insist on the perpetual virginity of Mary. The tradition overturns the clear language of scripture.
Also, Catholics teach Purgatory, Indulgences, and other doctrines that are not only not found in scripture, but deny the power of God in Jesus Christ to redeem us.
“How did Jesus, the Son of God, quote scripture? Before or after he raised Lazarus from the dead?”
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