Posted on 10/28/2011 6:59:29 AM PDT by markomalley
October 31 is only three days away. For Protestants, it is Reformation Day, the date in 1517 on which Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to that famous door in Wittenberg, Germany. Since I returned to the Catholic Church in April 2007, each year the commemoration has become a time of reflection about my own journey and the puzzles that led me back to the Church of my youth.
One of those puzzles was the relationship between the Church, Tradition, and the canon of Scripture. As a Protestant, I claimed to reject the normative role that Tradition plays in the development of Christian doctrine. But at times I seemed to rely on it. For example, on the content of the biblical canon – whether the Old Testament includes the deuterocanonical books (or “Apocrypha”), as the Catholic Church holds and Protestantism rejects. I would appeal to the exclusion of these books as canonical by the Jewish Council of Jamnia (A.D. 90-100) as well as doubts about those books raised by St. Jerome, translator of the Latin Vulgate, and a few other Church Fathers.
My reasoning, however, was extra-biblical. For it appealed to an authoritative leadership that has the power to recognize and certify books as canonical that were subsequently recognized as such by certain Fathers embedded in a tradition that, as a Protestant, I thought more authoritative than the tradition that certified what has come to be known as the Catholic canon. This latter tradition, rejected by Protestants, includes St. Augustine as well as the Council of Hippo (A.D. 393), the Third Council of Carthage (A.D. 397), the Fourth Council of Carthage (A.D. 419), and the Council of Florence (A.D. 1441).
But if, according to my Protestant self, a Jewish council and a few Church Fathers are the grounds on which I am justified in saying what is the proper scope of the Old Testament canon, then what of New Testament canonicity? So, ironically, given my Protestant understanding of ecclesiology, then the sort of authority and tradition that apparently provided me warrant to exclude the deuterocanonical books from Scripture – binding magisterial authority with historical continuity – is missing from the Church during the development of New Testament canonicity.
The Catholic Church, on the other hand, maintains that this magisterial authority was in fact present in the early Church and thus gave its leadership the power to recognize and fix the New Testament canon. So, ironically, the Protestant case for a deuterocanonical-absent Old Testament canon depends on Catholic intuitions about a tradition of magisterial authority.
This led to two other tensions. First, in defense of the Protestant Old Testament canon, I argued, as noted above, that although some of the Church’s leading theologians and several regional councils accepted what is known today as the Catholic canon, others disagreed and embraced what is known today as the Protestant canon. It soon became clear to me that this did not help my case, since by employing this argumentative strategy, I conceded the central point of Catholicism: the Church is logically prior to the Scriptures. That is, if the Church, until the Council of Florence’s ecumenical declaration in 1441, can live with a certain degree of ambiguity about the content of the Old Testament canon, that means that sola scriptura was never a fundamental principle of authentic Christianity.
After all, if Scripture alone applies to the Bible as a whole, then we cannot know to which particular collection of books this principle applies until the Bible’s content is settled. Thus, to concede an officially unsettled canon for Christianity’s first fifteen centuries seems to make the Catholic argument that sola scriptura was a sixteenth-century invention and, therefore, not an essential Christian doctrine.
Second, because the list of canonical books is itself not found in Scripture – as one can find the Ten Commandments or the names of Christ’s apostles – any such list, whether Protestant or Catholic, would be an item of extra-biblical theological knowledge. Take, for example, a portion of the revised and expanded Evangelical Theological Society statement of faith suggested (and eventually rejected by the membership) by two ETS members following my return to the Catholic Church. It states that, “this written word of God consists of the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments and is the supreme authority in all matters of belief and behavior.”
But the belief that the Bible consists only of sixty-six books is not a claim of Scripture, since one cannot find the list in it, but a claim about Scripture as a whole. That is, the whole has a property – i.e., “consisting of sixty-six books,” – that is not found in any of the parts. In other words, if the sixty-six books are the supreme authority on matters of belief, and the number of books is a belief, and one cannot find that belief in any of the books, then the belief that Scripture consists of sixty-six particular books is an extra-biblical belief, an item of theological knowledge that is prima facie non-biblical.
For the Catholic, this is not a problem, since the Bible is the book of the Church, and thus there is an organic unity between the fixing of the canon and the development of doctrine and Christian practice.
Although I am forever indebted to my Evangelical brethren for instilling and nurturing in me a deep love of Scripture, it was that love that eventually led me to the Church that had the authority to distinguish Scripture from other things.
.And most of your prayer is to the mother of Jesus...
That is blatantly and provably false.
Having actually studied the subjects I reject those who try to construct some kind of conspiracy theory regarding ancient pagan religions and the occult somehow infiltrating and co-opting Christianity through the Vatican. The only conspiracy is a conspiracy of the grossly and maliciously ignorant who have never considered the concept or practice of visio divina.
Neither have the accusers considered the role of symbolism in communicating and creating mnemonics for the teaching of Scripture to the illiterate and those who have no written language. The real shame is the willingness of some to unquestioningly conclude that the worst about the Church must be true.
FOTFLOL!!!
Is it any wonder that the gospel of Jesus is a simple one? The free gift of eternal life for simply having faith in Him. Is it any wonder He warns of mixing pagan worship with the simple gospel of belief.
Among the more recent ancient pagan religions and rites in the Catholic Church, think Haiti. In Haiti every voodoo ceremony begins with Catholic prayers.
How about the spiritist cult of Santeria? A blend of African paganism and Catholicism involving "gods" passed off as Catholic saints who front for demons.
How about the cemeteries of Rio de Janeiro on religious holidays? You would find the Catholic faithful there petitioning the spirits of their ancestors along with Catholic saints.
Hmmmm..Brazil and Cuba...spiritism and voodoo-related African religions of various kinds blend with Catholicism.
Latin America? native superstitions remain among the Catholics.
Which came first? paganism or Catholicism? Images, holy water, and many of the rituals now part of Catholicism have been adapted from paganism.
Mary?
Many Catholics boast that Mary has taken the place of "Maia, the nymph of Greek mythology, who was the mother of Hermes by Zeus, the sky god. The month of May was named after Maia, who was known as "the queen of May...{and}the Jesuit effort to turn the Queen of May into the Virgin Mary was successful..."- The Catholic Sun, May 26,1993.
There is no conspiracy theory. It is TRUTH.
Sheesh,....
Not only do Catholics not know what Scripture teaches, they don’t even know what the Catholic church teaches.
But let me get this in before reading any further.....
In before the *it doesn’t really mean what it says, it means what we say it says*.
>> Eternal life is not automatic based on a statement that for some amounts to little more than lip service.<<
The key to that sentence is “little more than lip service”. Just lip service leads to hell. True faith produces works, not from our own initiative but from the Spirit within us. The evidence of works is simply the evidence of the Spirit within us.
>> Those who tell Christians that they have nothing more to do that to say “I accept Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior” are misleading them to believe that they may live life as THEY wish without worry of losing salvation. Jesus many, many times tells us what we must do.<<
I disagree that they are “misleading” them. The “I accept Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior”, if said in truth leads to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which in turn leads to works. Anyone who truly believes when they make that statement will move on in their faith if they maintain that belief.
>> they are again entangled therein<<
That’s a result of a loss of that childlike faith. Never give up that childlike faith in Jesus alone. Don’t start relying on works because our nature knows that works will never be good enough without the underlying faith. Faith is what saves, works is just the evidence of true faith.
King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)Matthew 18:21
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?
John 20:20-23
Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.
John 13 (New King James Version)
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John 13
New King James Version (NKJV)
John 13
Jesus Washes the Disciples’ Feet
1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
2 And supper being ended,[a] the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, 4 rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. 5 After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. 6 Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?”
7 Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”
8 Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!”
Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”
9 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!”
10 Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” 11 For He knew who would betray Him; therefore He said, “You are not all clean.”
12 So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. 16 Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
The Sacrament of Confession.
Better read the book of Revelation.
There was more than one church there.
There is nothing in your post which is contradictory to Catholic teaching on “faith and works”.
A man cannot “earn” heaven through works that are not the fruits of his faith in Jesus.
Faith that is not true cannot survive, just as the seed that does not fall on fertile ground.
That is why we need sanctifying grace, it strengthens us on our walk.
If Catholics left it at that we could agree but they don’t. The RCC has incorporated other demands for obtaining salvation.
Ephesians 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
2 Corinthians 1:21-23 21And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, 22and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.
2 Corinthians 5:4-9 4For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
6So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.
The Bible say we are save by grace. Singular. The plural of grace is never ONCE found in Scripture.
I am of the belief that all things belong to God to use for His purpose in whatever way He will.
I worship only Him.
The pagans desired to worship God, but did not know the true God. Christianity took that desire and showed them the God of Abraham and taught them to turn their worship to Him.
The charge made against Catholicism is not only specious it is against all of Christianity for the reasons I said in my last post.
There's the requirement for baptism, confession, communion, last rites, etc.
It's odd that when Jesus said that those who are going to be judged based on their works will be judged on this...
Matthew 25:35-36 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.'
Jesus never said any of the things the RCC has since added itself under threat of damnation by anathema's.
Loving our neighbor and doing those works come naturally for the believer. Evidence of that is that those judged to be sheep did those things out of love for their fellow man, not to earn brownie points with God. By their questioning, it's obvious that they weren't even really aware of the fact that they were doing what God expected of them.
OTOH, those who did good works for show and appealed to them were the ones Jesus said that He never knew.
Matthew 7:21-23 21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' 23 And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'
Obviously, the religious works don't cut it. And what's the first thing so many churches try to get people to do?
Religious works.
Specious isn't the half of it. Nothing is quite so irritating as an bigot with a search engine. We are presented with an endless stream of false premises presented as appeals to ignorance. Some think that all they need to do to prove the truth of any accusation is to provide a link to it under the premise that if it is on the "internets" it must be true.
So true. Legalism doesn’t cut it. Doing it to earn it will end in disaster.
I did not say you lied. If there are any falsehoods of yours you’d like to discuss, please feel free.
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