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.
Ugh, I am getting tired and that last post was full of enough errors to convince me it is time to call it a night.
May God’s blessings be upon you all, thanks for the lively conversation.
Here's the deal, nobody is criticizing you. But there wouldn't BE a forum if opposing views cannot be discussed. All you need to do is quit thinking disagreement is attacking. As far as having the right to disagree on this forum, it can certainly be done WITHOUT mocking, deriding, crude humor, disgusting comparisons and nasty insults. I guess you get back what you give. Stick to Caucus threads if you can't take criticism, which BTW, is only discussing views.
That's a pretty good description of most heresies. The acceptable sovereignty of God taken to the extreme of salvation by election. God's love taken to Universalism; Monotheism taken to Modalism. Etc., etc.
Do you agree with every website that calls itself Catholic?
Of course not, but I do know where to look, who to ask and that there is authority and a hierarchy in the Church, there is a set of basic "I believe" in the creeds.
Brief story: When I was converting, I wanted to see what the different denominations taught. Couldn't do it. Could not find the authority for Baptists, lots of different authorities, couldn't find it for Presbyterian – they split like trees, etc. etc. If you are looking for "What is the Christian Faith and teaching according to X denomination," you won't find *one* in Protestantism. You will find many, quite different ones, quite different churches even with the same denominational name in the same town.
As far as Dispensationalism, those who say Christ's ministry is not talking to us today about the Kingdom of God and salavation, who say Paul teaches a different salvation than Christ taught and that Paul is not teaching the same salvation that the other Apostles taught...
To me that so far away as to be a different religion. If Christian does not mean a follower of Christ, then I don't believe we're talking about the same religion.
Have you thought to examine my posts in that light? Seriously. Backtrack a bit and read the posts of those on the other side of what I'm posting.
it can certainly be done WITHOUT mocking, deriding, crude humor, disgusting comparisons and nasty insults.
Same suggestion here.
Stick to Caucus threads if you can't take criticism
I'm not crying uncle, merely criticizing back as I get. 'Twas another poster who said they were yelling at me, and another who cried: "Stop it!"
I'm just the gentle one who offered the truce.
:)
Dispensationalism™ mm, not dispensation. I've been saying Dispensationalism and each time you replied with: "if by dispensation, do you mean the new covenant…"
I've had to say no to that question twice, so last time after Dispensationalism, I added [And, no, metmom, by dispensation I do NOT mean the new covenant.] in hopes of preventing a third repetition.
I failed and here we are again. Perhaps we can avoid a fourth time.
“If the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”
I really did not expect that the resurrection of the body had been lost as well. Certainly this can’t be so for most Protestants.
I’m off to bed as well. Thanks for your posts.
Dude. I am Eastern Orthodox. Not ROMAN Catholic. I have only said that about ten times. I wish you would READ. This was written by one of my Bishops.
I thank you again for making dispensationalism exactly what it is: God's managing of His people throughout the history of mankind. Regards, smvoice
>>>>A Catholic who admits that there is NOT unity in Catholicism? How’d that happen?
Not what I said.
Jesus also warned about hell more often than He talked about Heaven.
That’s all we’re asked to do.
Yea, “smackvoice” I am off your list too. Consider me a “Reprobate” for Jesus. (From Constipated-Monk following Protestants)....LOL!
From the Catholic Encyclopedia.
Nothing you posted here shows veneration. Do you have any other, or is this just like your claim of the choice of languages of the inscription on the cross?
Mark, who wrote to the Romans, didn't write in Latin, but John, who wrote to the Jews and Greeks, did? The world of the Reformation is really something.
Where is it written in Scripture that Moses’ body was assumed?
Scripture is VERY clear about Enoch and Elijah. But silent about Moses. So we have to assume that he was assumed for other reasons?
That’s weak.
I, nor anybody else, has any authority to say who becomes the church. It's not a club that anyone can keep others out of.
When someone believes, they become a member of the body of Christ by the work of God in their lives, irrespective of my opinion about it.
It's God's decision, not mine.
Both and neither. God never does get into the mechanics of it.
If His body was made new, rather than resurrected and glorified, then why did He still bear the wounds in His hands, feet and side? Same question for if it was a whole new body.
Just because we have a new body doesn't mean that it won't or can't look like the old one.
Isaiah 49:15-16 "Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.
No,no,no. You’re not getting me here.
I think that I am. I think that you are selecting certain verses and ignoring others such as:
John 14: 21Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”o
John 15: You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.b 4Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. 5I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. 6* c Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned.
One of the lessons of the Reformation is selecting certain verses and ignoring others. When Jesus tells us one thing and at another time, another thing, then both are required, not the one that you like better at the moment.
In the meantime, God's Word still reigns, and the body of Christ grows in grace and wisdom.
"For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men;" 1 Peter 2:15.
What part of each of them quoted a different rendition of the inscription above Jesus don’t you get? It’s a rather simple concept. Whether they wrote the letter in Greek, Hebrew or Latin doesn’t matter. They each quoted one of the three inscriptions. Straining at gnats is getting a little old.
Been there done that.
Very good.
Why do you think I belong to no organized religion?
I don't think that you consider Matthew 4:19 and 1 Corinthians 11:1 to be be connected.
Showing how many of them are also off track does not make the CC correct.
2 Peter 2:1-3 describes every church of men and the next passage describes those who make it all up as they go along, as opposed to the teachings of the Church, which Paul et al make very clear is the foundation and pillar of truth.
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