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.
“born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly......” etc.
The Mother of God gave birth to ALL of the Godhead, because it was inseparable.
The accusation was based on your posts.
Since you dispute the title given to The Virgin Mary, of THEOTOKOS.
By the anathemas given, you label yourself a Nestorian, not I.
God has no mother.
He did when he chose to be born on this earth. As I said, you condemn yourself, not I.
Information to all on Sacred and Holy Tradition:
“For guidance in questions of faith, for the correct understanding of Sacred Scripture, and in order to distinguish the authentic Tradition of the Church from false teachings, we appeal to the works of the holy Fathers of the Church, acknowledging that the unanimous agreement of all of the Fathers and teachers of the Church in teaching of the Faith is an undoubted sign of truth. The holy Fathers stood for the truth, fearing neither threats nor persecutions nor death itself. The Patristic explanations of the truths of the Faith 1) gave precision to the expression of the truths of Christian teaching and created a unity of dogmatic language; 2) added testimonies of these truths from Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and also brought forth for them arguments based on reason. In theology, attention is also given to certain private opinions of the holy Fathers or teachers of the Church on questions which have not been precisely defined and accepted by the whole Church. However, these opinions are not to be confused with dogmas, in the precise meaning of the word. There are some private opinions of certain Fathers and teachers which are not recognized as being in agreement with the general catholic faith of the Church, and are not accepted as a guide to faith.”
Thanks Brother....
It is my pleasure to enlighten anyone who has the eyes to see!
Most of our protestant friends don’t have a clue! :)
Wow. This thread’s still going on? Amazing.
LOL Condemn? Mary has nothing to do with salvation.
No. other than giving birth to the Godhead.
You condemn yourself as a Nestorian.
Yes indeed. A chance to educate Protestants about the faith is always a blessing!
Only in your churchianity.
Are they going to break with the official position of the CC or remain in agreement with it?
Neither and both....they most likely will have one foot on one side and the other.......when between a rock and a hard place.....
Every day they are asked.....whom do you serve....Christ or Rome...and every day they say both...that will not cut it when Jesus confronts them.
Yes, and unfortunately many have no appreciation for the history and traditions of the Church.
And, I think, less appreciation for the Incarnation. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us... born of a woman.
How simple and yet the world was changed forever.
Yet, for all its simplicity, there were the long struggles against heresy, the necessary delineation of theology... the creeds... the martyrs… all together as is so necessary for us as Church to be here two thousand years on.
The older I get the less I understand why some needlessly try to go it alone or with the Church’s book alone? And end up in such twisted binds and confusion: Jesus is God; St. Mary is His Mother, but St. Mary is not the Mother of God. Or St. Mary must have given birth to a “nature” or one nature, but not another, unlike all other mothers who give birth to persons not natures. How some try to make the Incarnation not so simple; not the Word became flesh, born of a woman.
All the possible heresies we see now, the Church dealt with centuries ago. Simply. As Our Saviour taught and the Apostles and their successors maintained: the Catholic faith, One, Holy and Apostolic, as Jesus established Her, the pillar and foundation.... So beautiful in His wisdom, so loved, healed and cared for by His Church.
It seems such an unnecessary loss and a sad decision to separate one’s self from Her, to rebel against His Church.
I’m glad you are here and thank you for your reply.
Just so I know where you stand on this subject, are you saying that the verse in Scripture that speaks of every knee bowing and every tongue confessing Jesus Christ as Lord to the glory of God the Father is talking about kneeling during church services? It sure sounds like that is how you “interpret” it since you brought up your observation that “Protestants” don’t kneel.
That reminds me of a joke:
A man decides to go with his wife to Mass one summer Sunday. As they settle into their pew, he turns and asks her how he’ll know what to do. She tells him not to worry, just follow what everyone else does.
They stand. Then sit. Then stand. Then walk around a little greeting each other. Then kneel. Then stand. Then sit. Then kneel. Then sit. He gets a little sweaty and takes his handkerchief out and wipes his face and then lays it across his lap to dry out a little. His wife looks over and says, “Is your fly open?”, to which he answers, “No. Is it supposed to be?” ;o)
I just asked Mom, and she said the first Roman Catholic Church she attended when we moved here didn’t even HAVE kneeling benches.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Words to live by:)
Thanks for the kind words.
I’m warn you, I am a lost cause, CB.
It’s not your fault, you are butting up against a profound conversion of heart. It was such that my faith cannot be shaken.
But, I admit to having learned a great deal from our conversations, though it might not be what you were hoping I would.
Every parish in my diocese has hands joined and raised during the Our Father, but we don't have any snake handling.
LOL, your tag line made me think of the old commercial for Sure deodorant.
Raise you hands if you’re sure. You feel confident and secure.
That’s how I feel as a Catholic.
Ah, just being silly, it’s been a long day.
Had to go through the “Virtus” lesson with my confirmation kids.
Have to say, I had their attention. LOL
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