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.
If you keep going on like that, you will have your self-pope licence revoked.
You first. We have already established that you wander very far afield of Scripture. The only out that you have is that you are "guided by the Holy Spirit" which can mean almost anything you post can be couched in excuses.
This is where man decides he can fill in the blanks and create doctrines and traditions based on conjecture. And this is exactly where religious institutions go off the track of God's Word. Making whole religions out of conjecture. And attempting to prove their doctrines by John's Scripture.
If something someone claims can be found clearly and explicitly found in Scripture in more than one place (2-3 witnesses), consistent with the whole of Scripture itself, case closed.
As far as anything that's been *revealed* or concluded or *assumed* as extra Biblical revelation no matter where it comes from and who claims authority to do so..... ppffffttttt.
Not interested.
That's where I compare it to Scripture. If it lines up with it, fine, if not it gets thrown on the trash heap where it belongs. That goes for anything whether it's some alleged *holy tradition*, some writings claimed to have been found inscribed on gold plates in Upstate NY, or any number of dreams or visions claimed by some televangelist.
ALL of it must be compared to Scripture for evaluation.
John, Matthew and Luke told us. Duh!
Told us what? Produce the originals. And, let's not forget my namesake. What did he say? Are you about ready to admit that you aren't sola; you are as guilty of creating extra Scriptural beliefs as those you condemn, however you do not have the wisdom of the ages, the accompanying writings of the Church contemporaries, or even the consistency of those who knew those who knew Christ. You merely have the contents of your stomach, your wife's mood, your boss's conduct and the performance of the stock market in order to formulate your beliefs of the day.
You wish.
Surprised? John tells us that there were three different inscriptions in three different languages and John tells us what one was, Matthew tells us what another was and Luke tells us what the third one was and I’m surprised? You were caught not even knowing there were three different languages on that there.
Hardly. I was surprised that someone arrogantly would ascribe that they were different and who would write what in what language. Mark wrote to the Romans; John wrote to the second generation Christians, and Matthew to the Jews. You only got one (Luke) correct and that was by the odds.
If the Holy Spirit at work in us is the same one that is and was at work in them, He can enlighten us just the same as He can and did enlighten them.
God is not a respecter of persons and there is nothing about the positions that they attained that makes them any more special or special to God than any one of us. He can enlighten us just the same as He can enlighten them. And we don't need a degree in theology from a seminary for it to happen.
Coredemptrix is not equal?
No.
Wrong. It's not denominations which make up the body of Christ and it's not through succession from whoever or whatever.
Any individual who is in Christ is part of the body of Christ according to God. Any church's or denomination's opinion or definition about it is meaningless.
Christ created His Church. He instructed the first generation and authorized them to instruct all other generations. Acts and Paul illustrates how to treat the churches of men who are created by men for the benefit of the men who founded them.
"I never knew you".
*ability* to understand Scripture would be more accurate.
I don't see anywhere in Scripture where God tells us that only certain people were given authority to interpret it.
IIRC, the Pharisees and Sadducees tried that already and got soundly rebuked by Jesus.
AMEN!!!!!
So it seems that just as there is controversy about the interpretation of Scripture, there is controversy over the interpretation of creeds and catechisms.
Everything then, is subject to interpretation. Adding a couple layers between Scripture and the individual does NOT clarify the interpretation of Scripture. On the contrary, is makes it more difficult as it adds layers of other stuff to interpret as well.
The Pharisees got into all kinds of trouble with that interpreting Scripture stuff. By it they added all kinds of traditions of men to Scripture which Jesus denounced several times over.
And so they wrote Scripture for us.
1 John 5:13-15 13I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. 14And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
And the passages from 1 Corinthians in post 2759 further back on this page.
We don't need more Pharisees.
Do you also believe Mary was sinless? Did she have children other than Jesus?
Making a claim that “that verse isn’t supposed to be there” simply condemns the CC if it’s true since according to Catholics the CC “wrote” the scriptures so must have erred which would surely put them in fallible and untrustworthy territory.
John says there were three languages used. John, Matthew and Luke each quote a slightly different version of what is written which tells me what each of those inscriptions says. It’s either that or the whole of scripture is untrustworthy. No outside knowledge or information needed.
Believe - HAS eternal life - isn't that what Jesus said?
He meant to believe in Him until the end. A passing whim does not count. And what do you believe in? If the understanding that you have of Jesus is unrecognizable a la the Oneness Pentecostals or the Branch Davidians, does that qualify one?
I don't have any way of getting this concept to "sink into" your mind, but I know this has been discussed many, many times. I person who accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, believes in him and receives God's gift of grace by faith HAS everlasting life. So, if one receives the gift by grace WITHOUT works, how could it still be by grace if works must be done to KEEP the gift? Either it is a gift or it is merited - it's NOT both, read Romans 11:6.
Reread the parable of the talents and you may re-evaluate this paragraph.
When your kids misbehave, do you disown them? You, being a human being, are capable of loving discipline and forgiveness because you love your children and they are yours - always. Are they ONLY your children when they're "good"? So, of course, God wants us to live holy lives and of course we hurt him when we wander off from his side, but he has promised that he will NEVER lose us, cast us off, forsake us or have anything or anyone pluck us from his hands. Now why do you think he said all that? If not to assure us of how much he loves us and cherishes us, then why say it at all? If, as you say, he WILL cast us away when we sin, then why did he even say he wouldn't? He included no exceptions in that, you know, Jesus didn't say he would lose nothing except the ones who do something wrong.
Jesus will cast aside nobody. It is the ones who reject Him, who do not do as He commands, who believe that they can make it all up as they go along that lose their salvation. Does the parable of the wise and foolish virgins not make any sense?
If God saves us by grace, then he keeps us by that same grace. I'm sorry you cannot receive that assurance or allow yourself to actually believe God's promises but, that's between you and him.
An inheritance and a seal and an earnest is a promise by God to us. It is fickle man who chooses otherwise. Paul tells us of running the race and walking the Via of Christ. If you refuse to run the race and sit down beside the Via, you do not get to enter into the narrow gate. You do not get saved unless you do as Jesus commands, and that is not simply the verses that you choose to comply with and ugnire the rest.
If my argument was based upon this one verse, then you would be correct. However, it was one of many that I used as proof. If we discard this, the argument still stands. Nice try, though.
CB is wrong about the inscription and so are you. He cannot and you cannot show me Scripture that says that Matthew wrote in Hebrew and that John wrote in Latin, and that each quoted a different version in that language. He also does not address Mark's fourth quote either.
You guys keep saying that we make stuff up. This shows that you guys make stuff up and without any Church Fathers or Tradition to back it up. It's just what the box of Cracker Jack that you guys opened this morning had inside of it.
When your beliefs consist of whatever you've scraped out from your toenails this morning, what need have you of the communion of saints?
If my argument consisted only of that passage for proof, then you'd be correct. However, it is only one of many, and was not even brought up as evidence in earlier posts. I think my credibility is just fine, thank you. I am not the one who makes it all up as I go along.
You may wish to start with your own extra Biblical beliefs.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.