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.
Wow! 2,000!!!
An example was when the Pastors preaching that day tied directly into my personal Bible study at home.....without skipping a beat....was really amazing...as there was no way I could have known or the Pastor what each was doing....on leaving the sanctuary, and smiling within that the Lord had met my desire for confirmation... I noted a large tapestry on the wall which stopped me in my tracks...another confirmation as this is a rare depiction not seen in churches ...and of which I have a copy adorning my home.. purchased to comfort my heart at a very troubling and uncertain time in my life...I had to sit down for only the Lord knew the meaning of this to me.
There were others of course, but when I say personal I meant just that...these confirmations were not from people welcoming me there, nor a Pastors visit, nor any outside influences, but strictly between the Lord and I...and in such ways HE knew would assure me of my decision.
Thereafter you then determine what the church has to offer and your place within it. This too He reveals as you attend further along.
This is having a relationship with the Lord where He clearly and without question has already moved ahead of where you are and has the table set and waiting for you...you only need to walk to it.
Substitute is not the same as replacement.
Definition of VICAR
1
: one serving as a substitute or agent; specifically : an administrative deputy
2
: an ecclesiastical agent: as a : a Church of England incumbent receiving a stipend but not the tithes of a parish b : a member of the Episcopal clergy or laity who has charge of a mission or chapel c : a member of the clergy who exercises a broad pastoral responsibility as the representative of a prelate
— vic·ar·ship noun
See vicar defined for English-language learners »
See vicar defined for kids »
Origin of VICAR
Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin vicarius, from vicarius vicarious
First Known Use: 14th century
Those words were addressed to all of the Apostles. Not just Peter.
Aw geez, not this post again. Did you ever ask yourself why every post you ever made with a punctuation error is brought up ad naseum, but the actual content of your posts is ignored. The only logical answer is that there is an aversion to the truth.
(See post #1961 - **** isn 't a dirty word unless one has a dirty mind)
What I said, and if you would go back and READ, is that I am not ROMAN Catholic. I will stand before God’s Throne with the assurance that I have not rejected him, nor his Holy Mother, nor His most Holy, and Catholic Church.
Look to your OWN salvation.
The only supposed errors were “found” by heretical men, who didn’t have a clue to the Truth, nor the wisdom to know it.
The only supposed errors were “found” by heretical men, who didn’t have a clue to the Truth, nor the wisdom to know it.
They didn’t have garage churches in 96 AD, or any other time.
Your Church exists only in YOUR mind. The Holy Catholic Church was established by Christ himself.
Your facts are NOT Historical, but Hysterical...LOL!
If you don’t even know of the historical errors in the Apocrypha the jokes on you.
Again, your beef is with the Western Church. On the Eastern side, we have no such group. Our Doctrine and dogma was established by the Seven Holy Ecumenical Councils.
I might be mistaken, but other than the Church councils, and the Pope speaking ex cathedra, the Roman side doesn’t claim perfection either.
It is amazing what hatred is manifested by those who claim they were once “Catholic”
LOL - no garages then either. House Churches were underground affairs, like the Irish Hedge Schools, done to skirt the authorities and the laws that made Christianity a capital offense. I wonder if any of these guys take Acts 4:32 literally enough to pool their possessions and engage in communal living in.
You had best get down off of your mule. or remove the splinter from your OWN eye.
And posts with "***" or "#^$@" etc. in places where potty language would apply WILL be pulled as "references to potty language."
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
Only you pulled my post with no explanation and there is nothing on your home page addressing the situation. At least I got an explanation.
But it’s ok to use it in a tag line as does smvoice?
Your mistake was assuming there was something in their minds.
No, it’s not important enough for me to go back and read. Roman Catholic, Catholic, devoted Catholic, self-described devoted Catholic, potato, potahto. Whatever..
No it is not ok. smvoice, drop the tagline - the one with the potty language reference “*#@!” when posting on the Religion Forum.
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