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.
****Both and neither. God never does get into the mechanics of it. ****
So, if God doesn’t get to the mechanics of it, how do you make the claim that it isn’t the same body that is resurrected, or that we are given a new body?
In Scripture we hear the story of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. Jesus is warned by Martha that Lazarus has been buried for four days and will stink, meaning Lazarus has already begun to decompose.
Jesus raises Lazarus’ body. And before He does raise Him, He tells Martha, “He will rise again” and Martha says, “I know he will rise in the resurrection of the last day.”
Jesus says, “I AM the resurrection.”
Are we not to believe from this that our bodies will rise in the resurrection of the last day? Isn’t that why Jesus says, “I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe”?
Jesus says, “I will raise you up on the last day.”
The resurrection of the body is the belief of all Christians. Not that we will get new bodies, but that our old bodies will be raised up and glorified by God.
And where ever we are, or in whatever conditions our bodies, the same God who created the heaven and the earth and all that resides in them is capable of raising us up.
We are told that Angels are spirit.
Hebrews 1:14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?
We are also told that spirits do not have flesh and bone.
Luke 24:39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
Yet we are told that Angels can appear as men.
Hebrews 13:2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Knowing that spirit beings can appear as humans can you show whether or not Moses was a spirit being only “appearing” as a man? Can you show from scripture that Moses was indeed “assumed” into heaven in order to appear with Jesus rather than just “appearing” as a human like the angels do?
Scripture does not tell us that Moses was resurrected and assumed into heaven either. The very fact that you “assume” Moses was assumed into heaven is by itself “adding to scripture”. So, yes you did add to scripture as you do with the assumption of Mary.
We are made new in Christ, both our souls and in the resurrection our bodies, but they are both the same as we have in our earthly existence. We are not given new ones.
Now, tell me what you think of memtmom’s statement that Moses’ soul went to heaven and God gave him a new body so that he could return to earth.
Stop moving the goalposts and answer.
I am off to work for the day so will have to see your response later.
Hope all here have a blessed day in Jesus:)
Again, no addition to Scripture. I would have to have added it TO the written word rather than have gleaned it FROM the written word. Big difference.
IOW, they have gleaned a doctrine from Scripture which they cannot say is in Scripture explicitly because it isn’t.<<
I’m stunned to see a Catholic make that statement. Need I remind you of the comments made by Catholics that “scripture does not say it didn’t happen”? How about the assumption of Mary, the assumption of Moses and many other CC beliefs?
Does that mean I will still not be able to get around well because of the polio I had as a child? Do you believe those who are handicapped will still be handicapped or will they have a “new body”?
Our corruptible bodies are the result of "this present evil world." They are now vile, depraved, sinful, sickly, mortal, and subject to the lowest humiliation and eternal ruin. That is our OUTWARD MAN. The flesh. The inner man has already been changed. We are awaiting the conforming of our flesh to our spirit by Christ at His coming. Our incorruptible bodies will be as perfect as His. And will match our new inner man we now possess as believers. That is why our spirit groans, awaiting the appearing of Jesus Christ and the changing of our vile bodies. So no, CB, you will be as perfect as He is. I will be. So will everyone who is part of the Body of Christ. Praise God!
“I will raise you up on the last day.”
So plain and clear from scripture. A key part of the Christian faith and creeds since Christ and forever in His Church.
Yet we will hear how it doesn’t really say that, or Jesus can’t mean that, and all manner of carnal problems with this simple teaching, from some professing “sola scriptura and no traditions of men.”
Amen and Amen! Once again Catholics are going to be caught up on double speak.
The Apostles Creed, a creed that is professed by every Catholic in every Mass and by 90% of all Protestant denominations lists as an article of faith "The resurrection of the body".
Some of fringe denominations, in their zeal to prove they are not Catholic, have rejected Christianity.
Common D, tell me, will I have the “same body” that I do today with the deformities to my legs from polio or will I have a “new body” with none of that?
Correct. Also these protestants do not realize that there are more that bind East and West together, than separate us. We are Catholics all.
I'm less than common, but all stocked up on opinions of fallible men.
Depends entirely on where you end up.
Correct. Also these protestants do not realize that there are more that bind East and West together, than separate us. We are Catholics all.
Wrong again. We are Catholics, certainly not Protestants. Our Ecumenical Patriarch, celebrates mass with the Pope, every year.
I am certain that when our Lord Jesus welcomes you into your eternal home, there will be nothing that causes you any grief or pain, only His love and mercy forever. Christ, the Great Physician, will heal you body, soul and spirit, of all infirmities, in His loving embrace, and bless you with eternal health and joy.
Oh my goodness.
Eastern Orthodox are Protestant not Catholic?
sheesh. What an odd notion.
As we are often reminded by some of these posters some forms of Protestantism demand a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief.
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