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 know, that’s pretty immature and disingenuous to reply to
boatbums post and even quote it and not ping her, especially since when you hit the reply button, the reply automatically goes to her, and yet suddenly viola’ her name doesn’t appear anywhere in the *to* field in your reply.
That said, about your claims of hand raising during prayer...
I don’t believe it. At all.
The LDS IS a polytheistic religion because they believe that our Almighty God was once a man and they, too, can become as he is with their OWN universe that they can be god over. Islam, on the other hand, does NOT believe in the triune God that Christians do and, though they may say they worship the same god as Abraham, it simply IS NOT. Mohamed tried to merge all the gods of the area into one and they STILL use the moon and star symbols on flags and mosques. It SHOULD be pretty obvious that ANY religion that worships a "false" god is actually worshiping a demon.
The ancient religions of the Canaanites and Babylonians, for example. They worshiped a god named Moleck/Moloch/Molec/Chemosh even Ba'al. This god required child sacrifice, casting your first-born into a burning altar. I Kings 11:7 says:On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. Amos 5:26 says:You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god which you made for yourselves.
God specifically warned the Israelites NOT to follow the false gods, for example in Leviticus 18:21: Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.
The true God, LORD/Jehovah, said the first-born as well as the first-fruits were dedicated to him. Obviously, Satan was and is behind ALL false religions and many STILL exist today. There is, of course ONLY one, true God and he revealed himself to mankind who recorded his truths in the Bible, through Jesus Christ - God incarnate - and he continues to be found by all who diligently seek him.
****It seems such an unnecessary loss and a sad decision to separate one’s self from Her, to rebel against His Church.****
I know just what you mean and have heard many Protestants express the difficulty they had converting because of the “Catholic” Mary.
Protestants literally see everything in the black and white of the written word. I wonder sometimes if they believe that Jesus and His mother had a loving relationship. There is no record of it in Scripture. On the contrary, protestants honestly think Jesus rebuked her and belittled her.
***The Word became flesh and dwelt among us... born of a woman.***
Mary’s is the most singular and most profound role of any human in the salvation of the world.
God said Abraham would have children as numerous as the stars in the sky. If we are all stars, then Mary is the brightest. She carried within her the fullness of God’s love for us (John 3:16) and through her came our salvation. Though she is not the source of that salvation, she is the way in which He came. For God ordained that only Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Man could redeem us and He chose Mary to bear our redemption.
Mary was not a random choice. God knew her from before the creation of the world and prepared her for Himself.
But, their hearts are hardened and no words from us can soften them. Only Jesus can show them the honor He has given her. Pray He shows them His mother as He sees her.
I hope you begin to eventually see that this little ruse of "I'm not going to respond to someone on my 'list', but I'm still going to respond to their comments." only looks more and more childish every time you do it. Get over your little pout or don't reply to a post without pinging the poster. It's rude and against FR courtesy.
Thanks for sticking up for me, but I think even you may be on the “list” now, too. It IS childish and hardly the right kind of “spirit” expected of those particpating on Religion Forum threads.
thanks for your reply; very well stated. There’s lots in it that will open eyes and hearts as well as prayers and doctrine there.
One of the main frameworks for the early Church was family. Our saviour, God, had a family, just like us. And He had a mother, just like us.
I remember entering the Cathedral the first time during my conversion and seeing the statue of St. Mary. And thinking of my mother, deceased, and of Christ’s mother, and she watching him hung on a cross, and he looking down on her...
All of this and more is inherent to the Incarnation which is what separates us from all other revealed religions.
To not fully realize this, or to put some wall up against a part of it is to lose much of what being Christian means. It is like cutting yourself off from your family and God’s family.
That is a sad and needless thing to do to yourself and others in your family.
thanks again for your post.
Thank you for the words of encouragement and the words of your own testimony to the love of the family of God.
Unfortunately, not all see it the way we do, but I do not spend much time worrying about that, trusting that God will reveal Himself to everyone in His own time and not mine.
Sometimes it seems that the written word is an obstacle to that fullness of family.
You mention Jesus on the cross looking down at His mother and she at the foot looking up at Him.
No where does Scripture describe the emotions of that moment. But, how deep must have been her sorrow yet, how deep must have been her love and trust in the Lord.
Glory be to God for the gift of His Son and His Mother.
Yeah. I am. I’ve had it done concerning me on more than one occasion by more than one Catholic.
Do you really not understand how many pagan religions worship the mother and son, queen of heaven concept?
Surely you have read in scripture about the evil of Nimrod, his wife Semiramus, and her “son incarnate” Tammuz. If not you can read glimpses in Jeremiah of the women weeping for Tammuz.
Here’s just a short list of the mother and “incarnate” son who have been worshiped.
Babylon: Ishtar (Semiramus) and Tammuz
Pheonicia: Ashtoreth and Baal
Egypt: Isis and Horus
India: Isi and Iswara
China: Shing-moo and son
Greece: Irene and Plutus
Italy: Fortuna and Jupitor
Itally: Venus and Adurnis
“which is what separates us”? I think not.
>>All of this and more is inherent to the Incarnation which is what separates us from all other revealed religions.<<
Actually, what separates true Christianity from all other revealed religions is its message of forgiveness and salvation by grace through faith in Christ. All other religions are man working their way to God, trying to appease His wrath or the wrath of the myriad of gods they serve.
THAT’s what sets true Christianity apart.
Other religions teach of beings who have a god as a father and human as a mother. Christianity is not unique in that regard.
Any religion which demands adherence to membership, rituals, and works to earn forgiveness or favor from God is a dead end and does not work. Grace is not grace if it is earned. A gift is not a gift if there are qualifications and conditions attached to it.
We come to Him as we are, He meets us where we are and as we are and THEN changes us, by His grace through faith, only through the finished work of Christ on the cross. The only thing we have to do is acknowledge our need of Him (and by implication our inability to do anything to help ourselves) and throw ourselves on the mercy of the court.
Then and only then do we find mercy and forgiveness and it is ours.
What do you mean by that post? That Christ Incarnate and His Mother are another pagan pair?
What I meant was exactly what the post said.
The Good Lord has steered a number of alternate theologies my way for me to deal with. Of course it has wound up strengthening my faith immensely. I hope that I have been able to guide at least some of those folks towards God and away from where they were headed. I suppose that that comes from my prodigal son days in my late teens and twenties...
As long as we keep in mind that it’s God who does the calling. If He hasn’t called that person there is no amount of effort on our part that will bring that person to Him. Then there are those we simply plant the seed who will grow in God’s timing.
My! What a long block of text of opinion of a fallible man.
Sorry. Your rule invoked.
I don't know. If you analyze Scripture, even the Bible is not always consistent either. I always capitalize God as well as any terms related to Him such as pronouns. Scripture itself does not always do it depending on the various translations.
Some folks just aren’t cut out to be apologists for their religion, relying continually on straw men and inaccuracies, throwing the same spaghetti against the wall and refusing cogent argument and discussion.
It just doesn’t work.
That one trick pony was cute but even third graders leave behind that inability to debate on a more mature level.
We confess Jesus Christ as Lord at Mass and we kneel every Mass. I either kneel or stand at family prayer every day. These are examples of what we do. When do the Protestants of your acquaintance kneel at the confession of Jesus Christ as Lord. Do they kneel at all?
Both John 10:34 and Psalm 82:6 use the small g but notice in Psalm 82:8 God is with a capital g. That gives one hint that John 10:34 and Psalm 82:6 are referring to men. God is capitalized when referring to the one true God but not when referring to men or pagan gods. I would suggest that in the statement "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."80 from CCC460 it’s no coincidence. Since CCC460 uses both to designate what men will become it is significant as to the intent of the Catechism.
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