I didn’t think to count em.
Too busy enjoying the scenery?
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.
I don’t know what any one of them believes as it pertains to the trinity or in what place they put Jesus in their lives. Nor do I care, I would suppose, as I have never had serious conversation with any of them that I know of. I will deal with them as God puts them in my path but so far He has not.
Tell me, was He fully man and fully God?
It’s called context.
You can add “Protestant Caucus” at the end of thread title if you like.
Or you could keep whinning.
The choice is yours.
CCC 460 The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature":78 "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God."79 "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."80 "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, :so that he, made man, might make men gods."81
I didn’t think to count em.
Too busy enjoying the scenery?
That is correct. Two natures.
Not just two natures. Where they two distinct natures?
Then along comes a new FReeper who thinks he's bringing brand-new revelation to the site.
For the twentieth time...
This week. And it's only Tuesday...
I don’t know what any one of them believes as it pertains to the trinity or in what place they put Jesus in their lives. Nor do I care, I would suppose, as I have never had serious conversation with any of them that I know of. I will deal with them as God puts them in my path but so far He has not.
I have (shudder) had them more than cross my path. I had a Campbellite try to convert me in order to save my soul not only from the Catholic Church, but the Knights of Columbus (this from a dude who changed churches more often than I change my razor blade). I had a JW try to convince me to the extent that he even lent me his JW Bible. I not only found it interesting at the translational differences both in words and in apparent meaning, but also in the phrases that he had underlined in pen.
If you come into close quarters with one of these, dude, gird your soul very carefully in the Grace of God and in the teachings of Jesus. You may wonder at times where I come from? I know some of these folks all too well...
CCC 460 The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature":78 "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God."79 "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."80 "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, :so that he, made man, might make men gods."81
Do you know what this means? You may wish to bone up on Psalm 82:6 and John 10:34 before you answer.
Catholics believe that we are made in the image of God, and that in order to enter the kingdom of Heaven, we cannot be impure in any way. Does that make us equal to God? Of course not. The angels are not equals to God. Yet they are in Heaven.
And those in Heaven are perfected to the point where they judge angels. Does that make them equal to God? No.
One clue is in the appearance of Jesus with Moses and Elijah, and the appearance of Moses and Elijah were so overwhelming that the Apostles wanted to honour them as much as Jesus. Does that mean that we are lifted so far above our current state that we appear as gods to living humans here on Earth? Not equal with God, but seriously above our current station.
I think that it is both, with a bunch of Judaism thrown into the mix, and smatterings of other Eastern religions measured in as the qat waxed and waned.
Only polytheists acknowledge the existence of more than one God and actual Christians are monotheists.
Many of our separated friends worship a principal god and a subordinate one.
1. The image in the mirror.
2. Selected verses from Scripture.
It’s interesting to watch different people who get called to deal with different issues. Like I said I have never had to deal with any of those. The two I had to face early on already and pretty consistently throughout my life is evolution and paganism.
I know the two verses very well and understand the problem. The misunderstanding comes from the words that have been translated god. The words that have been translated “god” are all descriptive words. The original word in those two verses for instance is Elohim. When Elohim is used it is describing Gods’ attribute of being a judge. In those two verses it was referring to the Judges (men) among the Israelites. When put in context it was indeed referring to God as a Judge but in those two instances it was referring to men who were called judges (Elohim).
One more point on that CCC460. Notice that that contains both the lower case and upper case g used in god. That is no coincidence or oversight.
Nestorian believed there were two separate entities. Your accusation that “you are obviously a NESTORIAN” is false and frivolous based on only your assumption. Perhaps a feeble attempt to label?
Christ did establish a church, which is His body, but it only consists of those who were born of the Spirit, as only by such it has her members, (1Cor. 12:13) and its reality is not established by self-declaration or outward form, though it visible, but by power, and its unity is of the Spirit, which transcends structures.
While making a distinction btwn “church” and “community,” as part of her presumptous self-exaltation, it is not true that Rome now excludes all those without her as as Christian or as saved. If one disagrees then they are not in union with the pope, but are most likely a sedevacantist. And which actually can make a good case for post V2 Rome being inconsistent with her past, while her errors are still errors.
Domine Jesus: “On the other hand, the ecclesial communities which have not preserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery,61 are not Churches in the proper sense; however, those who are baptized in these communities are, by Baptism, incorporated in Christ and thus are in a certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church.”62 http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html
LUMEN GENTIUM: 16. The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter. (Cf. Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:15-16 and 26)
For there are many who honor Sacred Scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and a pattern of life, and who show a sincere zeal. They lovingly believe in God the Father Almighty and in Christ, the Son of God and Saviour. (Cf. Jn. 16:13) They are consecrated by baptism, in which they are united with Christ. They also recognize and accept other sacraments within their own Churches or ecclesiastical [Protestant] communities...
They also share with us in prayer and other spiritual benefits. Likewise we can say that in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit, for to them too He gives His gifts and graces whereby He is operative among them with His sanctifying power. Some indeed He has strengthened to the extent of the shedding of their blood... http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html
818 “..one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers . . . . All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church.”272
819 “Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth”273 are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: “the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements.”274 Christ’s Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church. All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him,275 and are in themselves calls to “Catholic unity.”276
838 “The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter.”322 Those “who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church.”323 With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound “that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord’s Eucharist.”324 CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
We can see Holy Scripture as the work product of the Church and the fallacy and heresy that arises when some attempt to separate the Church from its book. All manner of Christology can, and has, been proof texted from scripture alone.
When asked where is the tradition that matters that is not in scripture, this comes to the front of my mind. Without it, we would not have the the Holy Trinity, the Truth of Christ, Christianity or His Church as He intended and authorized His Apostles. This is all that stood between heresy and the true Christian faith.
I, and every Christian in the West bear a huge debt of gratitude to our brothers in the East for the majority of this work. To, among many others, the Cappadocian Fathers and St John Damascene, the Doctor of the Church and author of the masterful compilation of Christian theology: An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith which should either be on every Christian's bookshelf or bookmarks.
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