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.
So you are saying that all the Protestants here are “those people”? Have any here stated those positions? Are you claiming that all here adhere to some web site that you have found? Should I find all the sites that adhere to a “queen of heaven” and equate you to them? There are many out there.
Once again you attempt to obfuscate by going outside of the group here that you have accused of such but not shown any here who have said anything like that. So, NO I am not convinced that you have shown me anyone that you have accused here of making that statement.
How quickly they forget! Didn't we have this dicussion a mere few months ago! The Gospel of Luke explains EXACTLY what Cynical Bear has stated - and I posted the same to you:
Luke 23:38
And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
You’ve gotten to be a rather one trick pony haven’t you. If the questions are too hard just say so.
The Church is indeed beautiful.
It is the Body of Christ, the Communion of Saints. An eternal family, sharing, praying with and for each other.
The Church of Me it is not.
That would be very sad.
I think that post may be a first. A fallible man asking his fallible self for his fallible opinion.
It’s enough to cause a short circuit between a fallible man’s keyboard and chair.
Since you are new to the forum you should know that tired old canards are thrown up time and time again in hopes of them magically becoming true or at least fooling a n00b. This "List of Hippopolutys" is no exception.
1) No such list exists in his book.
2) The list does not even suggest that it is complete. The list only has half of the names it should. We know that there were 12 Apostles and more than 70 Disciples, but the list presented ad naseum has only 41 names. Who were the other 41?
The list is at odds with all other Church records including the the writing of numerous Church fathers, not the least of which was St. Irenaeus. In writing between 175 and 190, not many years after his Roman visit, St. Irenaeus enumerates the series from Peter to Eleutherius (Adv. Haer. 3:3:3; Eusebius, "Hist. eccl." 5:6)
It must also be noted that Hippopolytus (not Hyppopolytus) was the first antipope and had reason to differ from the official list of popes.
First:
The Dogma of Papal Supremacy wasn’t formulated until around 800 AD or so. One of the disagreements between the two branches of the Catholic Church was over that exact dogma. The Pope has always had the title of “First among equals” He was the chairman of the board. He was the tie-breaker. And at that time, Peter would have laid hands on Linus when he was facing the cross on Vatican Hill. The fact that Peter wasn’t listed as Bishop of Rome on most written records doesn’t mean he never was. In addition the Universal Church, both halves, as well as the Church of England and Lutherans, have always acknowledged that fact.
So since I am an Eastern Orthodox Catholic, just how would the “Popery” argument work on my half? We are not united to Rome, nor have we been since 1054. And we believe we are the true Church just as they do. Our differences are being worked out.
ROFL So much for Apostolic succession and the whole Peter first Pope nonsense.
The fact that Scripture doesn't record the bodily assumption of Mary doesn't mean that she wasn't. The fact that Scripture doesn't record that Mary was immaculately conceived doesn't mean that she wasn't. The fact that Scripture doesn't record that purgatory doesn't exist doesn't mean that it doesn't. And on and on it goes. The fact that Scripture doesn't say that Peter rode around on a stickhorse doesn't mean that he didn't.
Everything that Scripture DOES NOT SAY is what Catholicism is based on. Isn't that just the beauty of cultism. You cannot prove that it's not so because Scripture doesn't say that it is.
The logic of madmen. And the desperation of the deceived. All to receive that "special" cracker. That's what it is ALL about.
Pull out your own mote of “smugness” before criticizing mine.
The building is not the issue. It is that every Protestant seems to have the Puritan/John Calvin Disease of thinking they have the right to interpret the scripture for themselves.
Not only is that unscriptural, but contrary to the traditions and teachings of the Holy Church, from the very beginning. God never intended scripture to be apart from his Church, because that evil is why there are myriad sects, each believing their own interpretation. Hence the Jim Jones, David Koresh, Moonies, etc.
I was paying attention. SAME THING.
Thank you. Truly I do not hate anyone here, but as I came from a ZEALOUS Southern Baptist background, I searched for the Historic Church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and found it in Eastern Orthodoxy (Catholicism). I studied for the priesthood, and would have been ordained, except that I went thru divorce which barred me from taking Holy Orders. That being said, my RC brethren and I do disagree on some things, but by in large, we agree more than disagree. I only wish to bring my brothers back into the fold.
Peter was the Rock. Period.
How do you figure that? You haven’t disproved anything.
Negative. There are ancient records that prove these things. You just choose not to believe THEM!~
That’s why I included the list from the Anti Nicene fathers. The first Bishop of Rome is Linus who was ordained by Paul. Then of course we have the letter of Paul to the Romans in which he names many people there but not a mention of Peter. I realize Catholics can’t admit that Peter was not the Bishop or the Pope in Rome but it remains evident from all sources that he was not. It’s more evident that Paul had more influence in Rome than did Peter.
They claim that Mary was sinless from birth but the following verse would indicate otherwise.
Galatians 4:4-5, "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons."
Ah, but there's nothing like getting to see the Canards of Christmas Past through new eyes!
I think we're due for Trail of Blood soon.
You haven't even BEGUN to be criticized, Tex. I would have to take your posts as serious before the reprooving, and rebuking with all longsuffering and DOCTRINE began.
"Contrary to the traditions and teachings of the Holy Church"? There's your first problem.
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