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.
You were the one who referred to them. Surely you must have had something in mind when you made that comment. Where then, did you get the idea that?
I have not posted any falsehoods. The charge is yours.
If, heaven forbid, you were to sin against the Holy Spirit. Would your blanket forgiveness for all your future sins still cover it? Or would Christ be in some Catch 22 with you?
Oh, okay,
“How’s that for a marathon run-on sentence”
I did not like it.
“That is blatantly and provably false.”
Yes. It is.
And you know what metmom? many folks seem to love it that way!
Natural law: Your "interesting site" also claims that Jesus is really the Archangel Michael and that Moses was really the Pharoh Tutmoses II for 22 of Tutmoses' 54 year reign. It sure appears your only "standard of evidence" is that it reflects negatively on the Church. If you were a Christian you should be embarrassed and ashamed for attempting such a smear. However, it looks like you are leaning towards the Jehova's Witnesses, so I am not holding my breath.
That's typical of Boatbum's and the like's posts -- they will ally themselves with anyone against the Church -- even those that claim that Jesus was the Archangel Michael. Of course, some may believe that...
Of course he can't, ONLY God sees the heart. Bending the knee, saying words, doing good deeds, all those things can and are faked every day. God sees the heart. He is the one that says every knee WILL bow and every tongue WILL confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the GLORY of God.
Isaiah 45:22-24 King James Version (KJV)
Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. Surely, shall one say, in the LORD have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come; and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed.
Romans 14:10-12 King James Version (KJV)
But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.
Philippians 2:9-11 King James Version (KJV)
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
I wonder if the same thinking would have it that Paul just renamed the pagan “unknown god” Jesus.
Thanks for this response to the matter of “hope”-—which is one of the three theological virtues.
There are about 60 mentions of “hope” in the New Testament alone (and about as many in the OT). The mention of Hope in the NT-—especially in the Pauline epistles, but also in Peter and 1John are especially beautiful.
It might be helpful to clarify what is meant by “no hoping”, as was posted by smvoice.
More likely, "I meant the part about Mary dying before she was bodily assumed into Heaven. That part is optional."
I can imagine it IS quite irritating that we have such an easy method to extract information that in the past required an expensive library or access to one. The Internet has been both a blessing and a curse - I'm not at all implying that everything on it is true. But, come on, when we can see multiple research papers and articles that point to ancient religions and their symbols and then see those very same symbols used in a religion that also claims antiquity, it's should be logical to question why. That you do nothing but disparage and name call anyone who uses such information, shows an inability to prove it wrong. If you have evidence contrary to what these sources say, post it. It's that simple.
If all you can offer is disdain, curses and superiority as your "input", perhaps open religion forums are not your cup of tea. Respect should be mutual and expected when we dialog with others.
Speak for yourself. As I already told NL, I was posting the article that compared ancient pagan symbolism with that of the Catholic Church. I also showed that this was NOT fabricated information with additional sources. It's really too bad that no source BUT Roman Catholic ones are acceptable to you guys, but that is obviously too narrow and biased to be objective, as we know all too well. Your church has a history of destroying any and all "unapproved" documentation and usually the writers along with them. I thank God he saw fit to allow much to survive.
No, that is NOT what Paul did. What he DID do was to tell the men in Athens that the temple they dedicated to The Unknown God - hoping that any they left out wouldn't be offended and do bad things to them, built a temple to basically "any and all gods, etc.", that there was only, one true God:
Acts 17:22-24
Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
| boatbums: "This interesting site" Natural law: Your "interesting site" also claims that Jesus is really the Archangel Michael and that Moses was really the Pharoh Tutmoses II for 22 of Tutmoses' 54 year reign. It sure appears your only "standard of evidence" is that it reflects negatively on the Church. If you were a Christian you should be embarrassed and ashamed for attempting such a smear. However, it looks like you are leaning towards the Jehova's Witnesses, so I am not holding my breath. That's typical of Boatbum's and the like's posts -- they will ally themselves with anyone against the Church -- even those that claim that Jesus was the Archangel Michael. Of course, some may believe that... |
I guess your 'sing and dance to ignore oblivion" little group is now moving towards it's idea that Jesus is just the ARchangel Michael
No wonder -- always reformatting I guess, that's your group.
The fact is that your group takes pagan beliefs as its own, rejecting Christianity bit by bit until finally your group will join the Wiccans.
congratulations
| boatbums: "This interesting site" Natural law: Your "interesting site" also claims that Jesus is really the Archangel Michael and that Moses was really the Pharoh Tutmoses II for 22 of Tutmoses' 54 year reign. It sure appears your only "standard of evidence" is that it reflects negatively on the Church. If you were a Christian you should be embarrassed and ashamed for attempting such a smear. However, it looks like you are leaning towards the Jehova's Witnesses, so I am not holding my breath. That's typical of Boatbum's and the like's posts -- they will ally themselves with anyone against the Church -- even those that claim that Jesus was the Archangel Michael. Of course, some may believe that... |
I guess your 'sing and dance to ignore oblivion" little group is now moving towards it's idea that Jesus is just the ARchangel Michael
No wonder -- always reformatting I guess, that's your group.
The fact is that your group takes pagan beliefs as its own, rejecting Christianity bit by bit until finally your group will join the Wiccans.
congratulations
boatbums: It's really too bad that no source BUT Roman Catholic ones are acceptable to you guys
uh-uh, I'm sorry, but if sites that say Jesus is just the Archangel Michael is acceptable to your group, then go ahead. The rest of us Christians will just laugh at your group's descent to the oblivion it tries so hard to dance and sing away.
Yes, that's where Boatbums' and other such groups are headed towards.
They chip away a bit and a bit away from Christianity, protesting each time about every thing, until finally they become like the Jehovah's Witnesses.
For example, next week the North-Western Evangelical Bible-Reformed branch of PresbyMennonCongregationalutherAdventipentecostathism is due to split into the Central-North-Western Evangelical Bible-Reformed branch of PresbyMennonCongregationalutherAdventipentecostathism and the Central-Southern-North-Western Evangelical Bible-Reformed branch of PresbyMennonCongregationalutherAdventipentecostathism, but this is good driven as there as a dispute in the Congregation on matters of doctrine, Bobama thought that he should be Preach-pasto-Prophet Elder on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and alternate Sundays while Michelle thought that she should be that -- as she had yoga-pilates-kickboxing class on Thursdays.
Nice try; wrong nonetheless. Try actually reading those passages. They say NOTHING about the establishment of confession as a sacrament.
Hoss
That’s what I thought.
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