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.
Any mass on any Saturday or Sunday would have the same lifting up of hands in prayer in my town. Probably throughout the state, although I haven’t been to every parish.
Sorry, should have said “in praise.”
That’s the great thing about God. He knows what is in the heart, we don’t have to worry.
Thanks for the reminder. Around here, it’s easy to forget.
We’re blessed with the most rebellious and prone to tantrums.
:)
No one can honestly take these specious accusations or those who post them seriously. It is obvious to even casual Catholics that they are never based upon actual Catholic doctrines and practices, but are rather confabulated to attempt to inflame Catholics.
Those who profess to have been actual Catholics but possess little or no knowledge of Catholic doctrines beyond the Baltimore Catechism and Jack T. Squat comic books are akin to the fake Navy Seals and Green Berets I have encountered over the years. Their lies only impress themselves, the truly ignorant and each other. If they only realized how utterly ridiculous and contemptible the appear to real Catholics, like the Rambo's do to real vets.
And then you quote James 2:14-26 as what faith looks like.
Yes, that is what faith looks exactly like. To the twelve tribes who are scattered abroad. That James wrote his epistle to. Who are going through the tribulation. The same group of people who Hebrews was written to. The Hebrews. And the books of John 1, John 2, Jude, and Revelation. They are tribulation saints who are enduring to the end to go into the Kingdom that will be established upon Christ's 2nd coming.
We know (or SHOULD know where we are in God's Plan for mankind. We know that our gospel, our salvation, or faith is to be found in this present dispensation of the grace of God. The "BUT NOW" of Ephesians.
We know that the "Time Past" of Ephesians was before the Church the Body of Christ was formed, and the Kingdom promises were in effect for a group of kingdom believers. The Little Flock.
And we know that the "Ages to Come" in Ephesians must refer to the time AFTER the dispensation of the grace of God ends, the "But Now" period we are living in.
Where will those future believers in Christ as their Messiah go in God's Word to find their instructions from God for their part of God's Plan for mankind? It can't be in Romans through Philemon. It's for their understanding, but they cannot escape the coming wrath of God, the tribulation, that we are promised to be saved from. So where do they go for their survival manual? From Hebrews to Revelation. That will give them God's Word to THEM. They must endure, they must produce fruits meant for repentance, they must follow Christ as He has instructed them in those books, looking for His eminent return to set up the Kingdom promised them.
All the Bible is for our understanding. But there are certain parts that are for a certain group of people, their "private mail" from God for instructions to them in particular. That is what dispensational, rightly dividing God's word is about. Find where you are, and find what God is expecting for you in His plan.
Again, thamks. Sometimes, it’s so blatantly false that I’m taken by surprise.
I do notice that none of the real Catholics fall for that junk.
I hesitate to ask, but...is Jesus's teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven therefore not relevant, applicable, to everyone, us?
The question is when did "Time Past" end and "But Now" begin?
Verses 13-22 answers that question. When the middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles was taken down, and we were made one, is when "but now" began.
That means that while the middle wall of partition was up, it was "time past". Hebrews 9:16,17 tell you that as long as the testator lives, the testament is of no strength. Which means that Christ's earthly ministry was part of "time past". Why do you think He told the disciples to "go NOT unto the way of the Gentiles"? And "I am NOT sent but unto the lost sheep of Israel." ? It was the Kingdom that was being preached, Christ as Messiah, and the setting up of Israel as a nation of priests to the gentile nations. Once she accepted Christ as Messiah. But we know she did not. Only the little flock.
"but now" involves a body of believers, not a kingdom of believers. It began with Paul, and it ends with the rapture of the body of Christ. Then comes the "ages to come", the tribulation, the 2nd coming of Christ, the setting up of the Kingdom, the 1000 year reign, the unloosing of Satan for a season, the final judgement, etc.
Christ's teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven was taught to whom? Israel. Who were commissioned to teach the nations. But we now know the history of that. And WHY Paul was saved and given his commission.
Soooo.
That would be a No.”?
To be clear, you’re saying that:
No, Jesus’s teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven is not relevant, applicable, to everyone, us.
>>>> It should be no surprise that Satan counterfeits everything God does
Got a scripture for that?
Athanasius stood contra mundum ("against the world") in defense of the biblical doctrine of Christ. He opposed Arius when it seemed all the world would follow Arius's heresy. Athanasius's work remains even today one of the definitive statements of orthodox Trinitarianism.
It's quite a read; I have not read it for many years and would have to read it in depth in order to really post what this means (it occurs near the end of the essay).
Let me help you here.
Matthew 7: 21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,* but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.n 22Many will say to me on that day,o ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’p 23Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you.* Depart from me, you evildoers.’q
I think we might soon learn we can “dispense” with this Jesus teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven...
dispensation
Trust in your works if you want.
I’ll trust in the works of Christ that faith in Christ results in me being credited with.
Since I’m clothed in Christ, even if I am judged by my works, God will be seeing Christ’s works imputed to me and I’ll still be OK.
William Seymour brought a mixture of African animism, stream of consciousness preaching, and good speaking ability to a pastorless church without a guide in Los Angeles.
So you have to read the church fathers to understand the Catechism? It says what it says.
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