Paganism is at the heart of the Reformation, not the Church. These guys both know it.
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.
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.
But for the Protestant and antiCatholic crowd, they just don't do it now. It'll happen some time in the distant future, right?
I don't think the 3rd century has anything to do with it. However, if you connect the dots you will see that they repeated make the claim that the Holy Spirit does not cooperate with any one with a formal education or with an IQ above 90.
In this case, we can connect the antiCatholic idiots. Suits the theme well, since the only thing that these guys have in common is hatred and fear of the Church. Or is it jealousy?
Council of Ephesus in 431 when the concept of the “queen of heaven” was adopted from the pagans would be a good example. Ephesus being the center for the “queen of heaven” Diana was where the church was having a hard time because the merchants who made the trinkets etc for the worship of Diana where rising up. Read about that in Acts 19. As had been a problem with God’s people for centuries they were adapting pagan practices to attract pagans into Christianity. You can also read the warning to the church of Ephesus in Revelation in regards to combining the two.
I agree and I know you probably appreciate Jvette and the respectful way she frames her comments, as do I, for just that reason. Jvette, I hope you continue to post this way rather than falling into the all-too-easy mode of insults, degradation and fabrication of errors that seem to be the habit of some here.
Just don’t click on it has always worked for me.
The entire hierarchy of the RCC is built on Peter as the first Pope which by all accounts other than the RCC is not true.
The trouble with the made-in-the-Reformation crowd is that to even rely on the Koran is rely on something that somebody else has made up. They'd much rather rely on what they made up this morning between showering and making coffee.
Just kidding Jvette.:-)
I agree, our conversations have always been civil even though we disagree on much. Now if only I can show her the error of her ways. Hehe
Paganism is at the heart of the Reformation, not the Church. These guys both know it.
You've got a stalker? I'll call up TMZ now and they can get a camera team on it right away.
I’ve had it before even. The worst one seems to be the r off of your. It turns up missing a lot. I’m sure there are r’s floatin out there somewhere.Oh, if you send TMZ tel em I want anonimity.
Similarly, those without any education in the richness of Catholic history, doctrines, dogmas, Tradition and practices find themselves unable to converse on the subject.
I think that it goes deeper than that. I think that they know under their woolly Reformation pates, that the Chruch is right and that they are wrong. Some of them anyway. Others are just too addicted to the image in the mirror and will not listen to any other source.
We must always remember this: a rat is most dangerous when trapped and backed into a corner. We do a whole lot of backing them into corners.
Fortunately if one understands the rest of the Scriptures they would not “create a whole theology” around that mistranslation.
Do you mean the D-R?
I agree that that is not a game changer, but you must admit that 'faith alone' is a rather contentious issue here on FR.
I don't have a copy of the Message Bible but I do of the NWT as well as the NAB, AV 1611 ed. and others, the American Standard Version, the New King James Version, Lamsa’s translation from the Peshitta and various Hebrew and Greek Interlinears.
Each has it's strengths and weaknesses but no one is “on the path to hell” because of a particular translation.
Have you examined the beliefs of the JW's? I must confess that they are true to their translation, much more so than most of the children of the Reformation. However, they make the Pentecostals appear sane by comparison.
For others, their theology begins between rising and breakfrast each day.
The green book was a Bible, not a Koran, as we have found out. Babbling thusly is charming for a three year old, yet is not seemly for an adult.
In my opinion, simple rebellion explains a great deal.
I am tired of the attitude of superiority. Tired of the childish and immature antics of bullying in place of reasoned discussion and common decency and respect. I imagine I'm not alone in these feelings but I will not allow such offences to go unanswered. If you think this contributes to "garbage", I'm sorry, have the same thoughts towards your fellows who you encourage in their contributions of same.
Take off. I'm going to ask for surfer dude to come and annoy your womenfolk, too.
Isaiah 14:
12How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
You are correct. It sure does.
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