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.
Me too, thanks to you. And for years I lived a block away from a loud Pentecostal Church. I didn't realize they trace their lineage all the way back to 1914. :)
Has it occurred to you yet that man sees the outward appearance but God sees the heart? You don't "see" us do what? We don't kneel in church so that means we don't bow the knee to Jesus and confess he is LORD to the glory of God the Father? You think kneeling in church is what Paul told the Philippians that one day ALL would bow and confess Jesus Christ as LORD? Sometimes, I am convinced you just like to kid around and get a rise out of people, other times I think you may not "get it" at all but only think you do. Here's my last word on this subject, God cares more about "bowing the knee" in a heart attitude than physically kneeling before him. Someone certainly can do both - submitting to him and confessing him as LORD AND kneeling - but it's ONLY the bowing of the heart that matters.
O.K., I’m gone for a while. Thanks.
What? Bowing the knee in the privacy of your own home in prayer doesn’t count because nobody else sees it and knows about it?
So much for not doing works to be seen by men.
It’s kind of mind boggling the things men will use to judge another’s spirituality over things that Jesus never said counted.
Those who appeal to their good religious works are the ones to whom Jesus says, I never knew you.
Sorry, but I have no idea what makes you think this verse makes Paul a "standalone replacement for Jesus". That's just goofy. The question was about the devil and his counterfeiting what God does. The verse in II Corinthians 11:13-15 speaks EXACTLY of this. Here, I'll quote it again:
For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.
Pray tell, why do you not think this is speaking of the devil, you know - SATAN? Why would Satan be posing as an angel of light and his demons as ministers of righteousness if not to deceive, mislead and counterfeit the truths of God? Was Paul just talking about Halloween???
I would suggest that it matters how we “bow in our hearts”....yes...but we are corporeal creatures and we express our hearts and our lives and our being with our bodies while we are here on earth. Our body language speaks for us so strongly that it can be quite accurately interpreted by a baby who has not yet mastered speech.
When we pray, whether it is kneeling or standing or sitting or prostrate, we are praying with our bodies, as the spirit moves us. We are Magdalene weeping at the feet of Jesus; we are the woman seeking to touch the cloak of Jesus; we are John resting his head on the breast of the Lord; we are Peter crying out from the boat “It is the Lord!”.
It seems to me to be such a waste of time and purpose to have an on-going debate about who and why and how people kneel before God.
Once again,...in both real and practical terms...it boils down to one’s own individual and personal, very personal, way of expressing our communio with the Lord.
Why it should take many posts and many words to debate this very fluid issue is beyond me.
I was a Roman Catholic and I have no desire NOR leading to go back to that. But I AM part of the universal body of Christ. This doesn't mean, however, that I have forsaken the worship of the true God. The faith that was preached in the first century is the same faith that I share. I think you have been misled into believing that only membership in the Roman Catholic Church qualifies one to be a "true" Christian. Though it seems that the "hierarchy" within your church has changed it's collective mind over the years and now admits that non-Catholics can be saved and part of the spiritual body of Christ. Perhaps Pope Boniface VIII is rolling over in his grave to hear his bull has been changed, but I do believe it is a positive step in the right direction of recognizing the universal spiritual body of Christ. Complete and total agreement on ALL and EVERY possible parts of thought and doctrine is simply impossible and, I think, diminishes the unity we have in the major tenets of the Christian faith.
The basics of the Christian faith are still here today because we have the Holy Scriptures as our infallible authority. It is through God's power and purpose that we have it and it is divinely-inspired Scripture regardless of the church's recognition of it. It is one of many of God's gifts to his people.
Thank you. I agree. Hope you have a blessed and peaceful night!
Thank you. I need to lay the difficult burdens of this day in my life at the Lord’s feet and rest on His breast.
It is the day of my 61st wedding anniversary and my second anniversary without my husband—the saint in my life—to be here to share it with me.
Judith Anne-—you would understand.
Habakkuk 2:4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.
Justification by faith alone .
He got that right
Has it occurred to you yet that man sees the outward appearance but God sees the heart? You don't "see" us do what? We don't kneel in church so that means we don't bow the knee to Jesus and confess he is LORD to the glory of God the Father? You think kneeling in church is what Paul told the Philippians that one day ALL would bow and confess Jesus Christ as LORD? Sometimes, I am convinced you just like to kid around and get a rise out of people, other times I think you may not "get it" at all but only think you do. Here's my last word on this subject, God cares more about "bowing the knee" in a heart attitude than physically kneeling before him. Someone certainly can do both - submitting to him and confessing him as LORD AND kneeling - but it's ONLY the bowing of the heart that matters.
It is one manifestation. My point is that you guys do not manifest any thing of the sort, but only talk about it. We do it and can be seen to do it, not because we wish to be seen, but because that is part of who we are and what we do. I see it as very lacking on your end, simply because of a) no obvious manifestation, and b) the amount of smoke screen generated. There is no indication that this is conformed with; there is only a defense lawyer "maybe" or "could be".
Have a blessed one. Thanks.
Sorry, but I have no idea what makes you think this verse makes Paul a "standalone replacement for Jesus". That's just goofy.
I don't think that Paul is a standalone replacement for Jesus, but every post by the children of the Reformation regarding Paul increasingly convinces me that they do.
For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.
Pray tell, why do you not think this is speaking of the devil, you know - SATAN? Why would Satan be posing as an angel of light and his demons as ministers of righteousness if not to deceive, mislead and counterfeit the truths of God? Was Paul just talking about Halloween???
The claim was that satan counterfeits every work of God. That claim was challenged, and countered with only fluff.
It is true that you have not preached the level of heresy that some of your crew do.
faith that was preached in the first century is the same faith that I share.
Can you show proof for this claim?
The basics of the Christian faith are still here today because we have the Holy Scriptures as our infallible authority. It is through God's power and purpose that we have it and it is divinely-inspired Scripture regardless of the church's recognition of it. It is one of many of God's gifts to his people.
1 Timothy 3:15 indicates what entity is the pillar and foundation of truth, which is what you have rejected.
Justification by faith alone . He got that right
More OT trumping Jesus Christ's words? I know who I believe in.
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