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.
Nor do we pray to others thinking that they’re going to give us something that God Himself wouldn’t, like God isn’t going to answer our prayers like Jesus promised He would.
Reliance on Paul? Are you denying that the words of Paul were not words the Holy Spirit gave Paul to write? Paul was after all the Apostle to the Gentiles right? All the gospels are used but the words of the Holy Spirit to Paul were specifically meant for us Gentiles were they not? Would you deny that by quoting Paul we are quoting the Holy Spirit?
No, not at all. Peter and Paul were certainly familiar with Jewish and pagan priesthoods but they don't use the term “hiereus” (priest) to describe leaders in the Christian church except in their future role as heavenly kings and priests under the high priest, Christ.
And Paul chastised those who wanted to take up the role before then.
The terms bishop (overseer), deacon (servant or minister), presbyter (elder or older man) were descriptive of the work done and level of responsibility not titles anymore than apostle was a title, Apostle.
In deed other groups have priests and attach titles to their position, but that hardly fits the sense of what Jesus said about each Christian being a servant, a “diakonos” at Matt. 23:8-12.
The key word there is “required”. Protestants for the most part would use the word “expected”. Using the word “required” would demand the question “required for what”? Using the word “expected” would demand the question “expected because of what?
>>and that nothing matters except mere words attempting to excuse one.<<
Why would you presume to think that nothing “matters except mere words”? Making that presumption in an attempt to accuse of not taking seriously the exhortation to follow through with the fruits of salvation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is rather spurious I would think.
Well, since the Holy Spirit guided them, I would say he already has a copy. Including the books the Protestants threw out!
Scripture calls all believers saints. The CC denies that and tries to insert a level between Jesus and us his true church. It’s just one more example of inserting themselves between God and the true saints to wrest control and authority from Jesus. They claim that all saints whether on earth or in heaven are one body yet deny the “one body” when taking control for Jesus here on earth. Do they also contend they are over the saints in heaven?
That would be correct. As long as you rely only on Jesus for salvation “to the end” you will inherit. If you stop believing that why would you think you would still “qualify”?
And your evidence that it wasn’t the Holy Spirit who inspired them to “throw them out” is?
Our evidence is that OUR Bishops that were inspired to put them IN. I don’t think the Holy Spirit contradicts itself!
One is saved by faith. Good Works are the manifestation of TRUE faith. Not the “Kumbaya” kind.
No numbers. If one is saved through faith in Jesus Christ, one will manifest works.
No problem with our Church Father. Only the interpretation of his letter.
I'd say your knowledge and belief of scripture is remarkably underwhelming...
Jesus was for the Jews only, according to this bunch.
You were shown the scripture...To deny the scripture is to call Jesus a liar...We should believe your religion instead of Jesus??? No thanks...
Jesus was for the Jews only, initially...
Paul was for the Christians and the whole world.
Paul was for Jesus...Paul was given the commission to bring the Gentiles into the church...
It is Paul to whom Christians must turn, as long as they use the magic phrase "in Jesus' name"
If you ever turn to Jesus (repent) and ask him to save you, and show you something, he'll remove the blinders from your eyes and give you spiritual understanding...
No one is instructed to turn to Paul...But in the church age, we are instructed to turn to Paul's message from Jesus Christ...
You guys don't pray in 'Jesus' name, do you???
Sometimes we need to pray to God...Do you think God hears your prayers???
1Ti 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, and that is his wife, mother, and daughter, Mary the man Christ Jesus;
Do you ever wonder why we need a mediator between us and God??? Do you ever wonder why God inspired over 30,000 verses of scripture to be put in His bible???
Joh 14:13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
Apparently unbeknown to Catholics, we need to pray to God and ask it in Jesus' name...
Joh 16:22 And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.
Joh 16:23 And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.
Joh 16:24 Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.
Joh 16:25 These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father.
Joh 16:26 At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you:
I'm sure that last one is way above your head so I won't go into it right now...
If you don't pray in Jesus' name, I don't see how God even hears your prayers...What a pity...
And apparently you don't have the slightest clue as to WHY we need to pray in Jesus' name...
So you would also say that anything in those books that doesn’t completely agree with all the other books would indicate that they were not inspired by the Holy Spirit?
Doesn’t the CC teach that grace come “through” good works rather than as a result of grace?
Mark, they throw out a verse like some kind of Harry Potter incantation believing that it will somehow change the context of Scripture, confuse the actual Christians and bend their faith to the will of anti-Catholicism. The irony is that it is obvious to all but them that they are the only ones who have succumbed to the conjuration.
Since I am not roman catholic, how would I know?
No. But I don’t believe there ARE any contradictions
Where in that post did I say Roman Catholic?
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