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.
Do you have something to add? Like actual Scriptural proof?
Mark, this is another case where Scripture is incomplete. It is a story told by eye witnesses decades after the fact. There are minor differences in detail, yet none can say that the differing accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John perjured themselves or the Lord. John tells us that the message was placed there at the command of Pilate himself and was done over the objections of the Chief Priest. It tells us more of the mind of the Romans than the Holy Spirit. This sinner's conclusion is that this point is not important to the Gospel message.
Jesus' sacrifice was to gather and unite us. How sad that we use it to divide us.
What time period are you talking about concerning the early Church? Acts 15 concerns the first Church Council. I’m curious as to time periods here, as to when these jurisdictions were set up. And when Rome became the Imperial City. Thanks.
Let me know if I need to include footnotes, definitions, examples or drawings from now on.
It's about IMPLICIT meanings, EXPLICIT meanings, and LITERAL meanings. Those things that Catholics are so good at, remember?
How many times do we have to reiterate the meaning of this word. The Latin meaning of this word is "she who cooperated in our redemption". This is as bad as liberals insisting that fad modern definitions be applied by the Supreme Court to render decisions based upon something other than original intent.
ping to post
Just like every OWS protester believes they have the *ability* to interpret the Constitution.
Very lame. You didn’t sign it, “Rev. Billy Bob Rolex,” either.
None of you has much of a sense of humor.
They can’t read, they have no sense of humor, and each is his/her own pope.
That differs only slightly from my own belief that she was preserved sinless from the moment of consent. It was a message to all mankind.
What do you suppose compels some to argue over the punctuation and ancient idioms in ancient manuscripts of Scripture and ignore the most vividly and repeatedly stated theme; that we simply love one another as God loves us? Its as like some evil magician's diversion. (Any guess who or what that might be?)
...and the mirer of mirth entered the town..seeking those who smile...
Yep. I do indeed
And this sinner agrees with you. It is just so interesting to see that those who hang their hats on the peg of sola scriptura violate that principle with reckless abandon, while never admitting it.
A funny one will do nicely.
Let me know if I need to include footnotes, definitions, examples or drawings from now on.
How about the ProE 3D model?
It's about IMPLICIT meanings, EXPLICIT meanings, and LITERAL meanings. Those things that Catholics are so good at, remember?
Yeah, it's all about claiming sola whilst violating it on a regular basis.
I wasn't completely sure of the Mariology of our Eastern Brothers and Sisters but I am happy to know we are united in this too.
An apt comparison. The basis for the Reformation's reinterpretation of the Bible is the same as the basis for liberals reinterpreting the Constitution.
Where we differ is on the Dogma of Immaculate Conception. One of those issues the Orthodox-Catholic Dialog is working on.
The point of “good works” and going to Mass and making confession is so we “remain in Him” and thus “He will remain in us”. People fall away when they do not keep themselves close to Jesus through prayer and doing what He commanded. That is how people feel comfortable enough in their sin to call good evil and evil good believing that by merely professing or confessing a belief in Jesus they are saved.
I do not beg and grovel and live in fear. I live to remain in grace by following Christ and doing as He commanded.
One of your best posts. Thank you.
I had no idea that a joke could be so scrutinized that a charge of “claiming sola whilst violating it on a regular basis’ could be leveled. With a straight face. Please tell me you’re wearing a big afro multi colored wig, a big pair of sunglasses and a fake arrow through your head as you’re writing..
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