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.
Say what? Out of context? It was totally in context. Those people in bondage to the law are children of the earthly Jerusalem but the people promise (which we are) are children of the Jerusalem which is above which is free.
I understand why you would post this, but the protestants here will not read it or will read it and try to twist it to conform to their view of Catholicism as a cult.
The words of the early believers are not important to them unless they seem to conflict with Catholicism or shed some “negative” light upon the faith.
For many of them, the history of the Church ended with the Apostles and I guess the rest is just apostasy.
Scripture is not and never was intended to be an exhaustive compilation of the whole of salvation history, but to them, if it is not written exactly as they would have it in Scripture it is not a part of the deposit of faith or the history, tradition and practices of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church founded by Jesus.
It is their loss.
Moses appears with Jesus at the Transfiguration.
Is it your belief that the Moses seen by Peter, James and John was a mere ghost conjured up by Jesus?
If not, there is no other explanation other than Moses is with Him in heaven, body and soul.
****no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day So you’re saying you know more than the writer of Deuteronomy? Show me your “proof”.****’’
I do not know of “his seppulchre”, but I do believe Moses is with Jesus in heaven, body and soul.
The *Church* (presuming by which you mean the Catholic church) is NOT our *mother*.
And it is highly debatable that it is very holy in light of its history of corruption of popes, the Inquisition, and the rampant homosexuality and immorality that's existed within it for centuries.
St. Peter Damian's Book of Gomorrah: Homosexual Situation Graver than Damian's Time
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/929551/posts
I believe Dante had a good description about the future of those who turn against the CHURCH.
His opinion about those who turn against the church (presuming again that you mean the institution of Catholicism) is meaningless.
It's what one decides to do with Christ that counts.
One can certainly reject a system of religiosity and still belong to Christ.
That’s one of the definitions of a cult isn’t it?
>>but by no means give it either to the catechumens or to anyone else who has not yet become a Christian, otherwise you will have to give an answer to the Lord.<<
Tell and you will be punished? Another sign of a cult.
>>and certain ones we have received from the Apostolic Tradition, handed down in secret.<<
If I was suspect that Catholicism was a cult I am totally convinced of it now.
And then they made up the story of Mary being bodily assumed. The Catholic Church is a cult for sure.
No there's not for Moses.
Deuteronomy 34:5-6 So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day.
Jude 1:9 But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, "The Lord rebuke you."
I would say that everything Jesus said about the Pharisees we can say about the CC and much more.
Metmom, i don't think it gets any worse than this. I really don't. To be reprimanded by a reprobate is just the height of arrogance, deception, and complete darkness.
If it comforts you to think that the story is “made up” then there is nothing I can give you to open your heart to the truth.
What you and other protestants don’t seem to understand regarding the doctrines of Mary is that these doctrines are not revelations about Mary, nor are they NEW revelations about God.
They are a deeper understanding of God’s love for us, His creatures who are now His children, adopted through Jesus.
God meant for us to be sinless and blameless and to live with Him in paradise. It was for this that He created us. He wants us all to be perfectly united to Him so that we may share in His glorious presence in heaven.
There is no human who was more perfectly united to God than Mary, who carried Him in her womb. Her unity which is unique and different from that of Jesus who WAS God.
In Mary is the fulfillment of all the love of God for us and the fruition of the redemption that is ours through Jesus.
And, yet, did He not say,
“The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie heavy burdens and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen.” (1)
Reprobate, am I? For standing up for my belief in Christ’ s Church? WELL.... IN YOUR OPINION. How about HERESY ON YOUR PART! Not nice.
Jude hardly says that Moses is not in heaven or anything else other than the Angel Michael battled Satan for his body.
We are not told what happened to Moses, are we?
The “blasphemous judgement” was against the devil and would have been blasphemous because it was not Michael’s place to make that judgement against the devil. To do so would have been to make himself God.
So, we know that Moses died, we know that Michael fought for his body and buried him, but we do not know where or if his body is still where it was buried.
What we do know is that when Jesus was transfigured, Moses is there, in his body, not as a spirit.
If Moses is not with Jesus in heaven, whom or what did the Apostles see at the transfiguration?
You have lost it dude. READ WHY? To protect the faith of CHRIST. This was written by the Early Church.
Apparently you think the Church is evil because of the actions of the Corrupt prelates, etc. The sacraments are no less valid. Those men will receive their reward.
Apparently you think the Church is evil because of the actions of the Corrupt prelates, etc. The sacraments are no less valid. Those men will receive their reward.
the “chair of Moses” doesn’t tell you anything? Like maybe those who choose to remain under the law must sincerely DO all that is in the law?
Those of us who are under grace will stay under grace thank you very much.
The irony of it isn’t lost on me.
What this tells me is that no one is perfect, even those who lead Christ’s church and that I am to remain true to the faith they have passed on to me regardless of their personal sins and failings, because I trust the Holy Spirit and the revelation of truth given to the Church.
I am to strive to be perfect as our Father is perfect, for Jesus did not abolish the Law, but rather fulfilled it.
And these two commandments did He give,
Love God with all your heart, mind, strength and soul and
Love one another as I have loved you.
Those two commandments are the summation of all of the Ten, which Jesus has shown us.
I am not relieved of striving to live according to them simply because I have forgiveness through grace.
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