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.
Maybe in human terms, but NOT under God's. He marks us as his own, seals us for eternity, indwells us as the EARNEST of our inheritance.
The Bible is human terms we try to apply to God. Jesus would not have used the term inheritance and used examples such as the Prodigal Son if He meant them other than the way that Christianity always was. An earnest is a sign of a promise that the holder may redeem. It is not a guarantee that the holder will redeem it, but that it will be honoured if redeemed, much like a gift card with no end date.
You always seem to come back to this argument as the reason why you will not ever express assurance in your salvation and mock those who do.
Making up fairy tales and calling them Christian does not make them such.
Do you not really believe God? Have you not really trusted in Christ as savior? Do you not believe God GIFTS you eternal life by his grace through YOUR faith?
Of course I do. I believe it very strongly.
What IDIOT would reject such a gift anyway? Sure people refuse to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and savior, but once one HAS and the Holy Spirit takes up residence creating a NEW NATURE within, how could anyone "spurn" it later? WHY?
I'm sure that Benny Hinn believed in God at some point.
No, these "reasons" you give are highly suspect and I have to question someone who claims to believe in Christ, believe that God gives to us eternal life through Christ, yet rejects the right to be called a child of God,
Wrong.
rejects the right to claim the promises of God BECAUSE he IS God
I plead for His Mercy, not arrogantly declare what His Judgement on myself will be.
and rejects the assurance God desires for us to know so that we truly have the freedom that is in Christ Jesus to live holy and abundant lives for the glory of God.
I have the hope and the faith of St Paul, not the assurance of a Pharaoh.
Some of the worst laws we have came about because of "exceptions" rather than the rule. Roe v. Wade was approved because a woman (falsely) claimed to be pregnant as a result of rape. Therefore the Supreme Court passed a law that, in essence, has made abortion legal at any time and for any reason. You say you reject that a person can state that they are saved by the grace of God through faith in Christ solely because someone might in the future "spurn" the gift of God and turn into an unbeliever. That sounds like one of those rare exceptions.
If this was not more common than you state here, then why did Jesus, Paul et al spend so much time on exhorting people not to fall away?
But you know, even more, if a person genuinely rejects Jesus Christ after he has placed his faith in him, only two things are possible. One, he did not come to faith in Christ but only pretended it and, in that case, never really ever was saved. Or, he is confused and going through a valley of despair and has not yet overcome doubt.
Have you forgotten the parable of the sower of the seeds? Jesus stated that there were four possibilities. Are you overriding Him?
Many people go through times of doubt and even fall into sin. God disciplines us as a good father does and he is always faithful to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Not without repentence.
Jesus said he will lose none of us and that means, if we are his, we will always be his. So which are you?
I pray that I am one of His and will always be. But while the decision to be His follower is mine and yours, the final Judgement of us is always His. Not yours and not mine.
Upbraid all you want, it will not cause me to disbelieve that God wants us to KNOW we have eternal life. Why did he direct the writers of Scripture to say exactly that if he didn't want us to have assurance? If God wants us to constantly beg for his mercy, never knowing from moment to moment if we'll "make it", then tell me why he inspired John, for example, to write "These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God." (I John 5:13) or for Jesus to say "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life." (John 5:24)
or "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth hath eternal life." (John 6:47)?
Believe. May know.
If you are in an unrepentent state of sin at death, do you believe that you are saved anyway? Do you believe, as CB was so astonished by as a doctrine, in OSAS? No matter what you do?
Yeah, yeah, it's all about you and your telling Jesus of your own salvation, despite Scripture, and redacting much of it.
That is correct. I did mix them up. Thanks.
Ping to previous post.
One paramecium no doubt appears different to another paramecium.
http://bible.cc/genesis/3-15.htm
Young's Literal Translation and enmity I put between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he doth bruise thee -- the head, and thou dost bruise him -- the heel.'
Douay-Rheims Bible I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.
The original Hebrew text reads "they". The Septuagint and Jerome both interpreted it differently. The KJV went with the Septuagint here.
Olympic grade deflection and topic changing.
How about just answering the question?
I did. If you abandon Christ, Christ will abandon you at the Judgement. Remember? I never knew you...
And you claim that you were Catholic before? You don't mind if I take that with a grain of salt?
Scripture is Scripture and the words of Jesus are the words of Jesus. All of them, and not just the ones that appeal.
It's surprising what you can learn gazing at your own navel lint each morning...
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.
You assigned this arbitrarily in terms of language and in choice of author. You further have three languages and four authors who all write different verses.
The fact is that you are extra Scriptural here; this is a logical outcome of somebody who follows his own personal church and creates his own personal doctrines and interpretation of Scripture.
Did you notice there that it says “follow me” and not “follow the church”?
And who was it that wrote Corinthians? Are you now saying you are a follower of Paul?
We are both an imitator of Jesus and Paul, who tells us to imitate him as he imitates Christ.
>>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,<<
Yep, that would be what the Catholic Church does. Not strictly stay with scripture. The bodily assumption of Mary would be a good example. Also the “queen of heaven” nonsense.
You have just demonstrated some of your own extra Scriptural developments.
2 Peter 2:1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
Denying that Christ is our only advocate and inserting Mary between Christ and man would be another classic example.
So would your recent posts.
Believe as you will.
To be successful it had to undermine the authority of the Catholic Church and achieved this by eliminating Scripture that supported Apostolic Tradition and "rightly dividing" and redefining what remained.
In the end a central Church teaching authority was replaced with a collection of pretenders and individuals all chasing their doctrinal pet theories in tens of thousands of directions. It served the princes that they were so easily divided then and it serves Satan that they remain so today.
Let us not forget the unholy alliance of the Protestants and the Muslims during the two great invasions of Europe; where the children of the Reformation tried out the role of Quisling in the hope of gaining scraps from the table of Suleiman the Great.
Just keep posting the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth.
Right back atcha.
2 Timothy 3: 10You have followed my teaching, way of life, purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, 11persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra, persecutions that I endured. Yet from all these things the Lord delivered me.g 12In fact, all who want to live religiously in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.h 13But wicked people and charlatans will go from bad to worse, deceivers and deceived. 14But you, remain faithful to what you have learned and believed, because you know from whom you learned it
Let us follow the example of Paul, right? Except the majority of the time when Paul refutes the very principles of the Reformation...
Dearest PAPA!
We send you greetings from the FRont here and hope all is well in Rome. We should be sharing wonderful news by this point, but alas, times are a little trying right now. We have used the last of our Approved Scripture Arrows. All five of them are gone now. Our quivers are empty as the opposition seems to be standing no matter what is thrown their way. We would appreciate a fast track approval by the Magisterium for more Officially Sanctioned Scripture Arrows. If at all possible...
We've also run out of stale rolls to lob. We would start throwing rocks, but cannot agree on whether they are Petros or Petra. We will await further instruction on that point.
I just really wish we would have kept the stale rolls to eat, as many of us are now forced to eat our own words. Oh, the trials we must endure for Mother. The books of doctrine and tradition are not a great help to us at the moment. They seem to blow around with every wind that arises. [[sigh]]]. We shall survive, though. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against our one and only, first and foremost, unwavering and unending institution of the one billion, nay TWO BILLION STRONG little flock.
P.S. Could you spare a few crackers and some Welch's Grape Juice? We're getting pretty hungry out here...
Thus the proof that Catholics have put Jesus and Mary as equals.
No, it only proves that you are extra Scriptural, redacting verses at will.
What a complete and utter double standard.
Careful when you submerge yourself in Scripture. You may find that the entire Reformation is a deadly lie.
If each of those didn’t tell us what each of those three inscriptions were why don’t you tell us what they were.
Or, if you can’t, why don’t you just admit that you got caught trying to make a point that was ridiculous hoping you could somehow show inconsistencies in scripture. Just like you tried to pass off a verse trying to get people to think that Jesus told everyone to listen to Mary when it was the other way around?
Yeah; they all claim that "my theology is more esoteric than your theology..."
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