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.
I give up.
The Councils were called in response to controversy. The Creeds were issued to resolve those controversies. It was then that each word was laboriously debated under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to establish the true meaning. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the Church was then tasked with protecting that orthodoxy. Those who take exception with or distort the meanings of the Creeds are not only acting outside the Church but clearly outside the will of the Holy Spirit.
Absolutely. Hence begins the next lesson.
:)
ROFL And we all know how stories told over and over again among different people are always the same when it goes through a few. If that’s how you view scripture there’s no wonder we have a hard time communicating and why you don't take scripture seriously.
Tex, when did oral traditions become equal to scripture? Was there a time frame for that? Can it be found in Scripture as to when it happened?
Between 80-89 AD, after the Great Fire of Rome.
Mark, the symbol of the cross and the Latin Inscription is a taunt directed at the Emperors and the Empire. It was the equivalent to giving the Roman Empire the finger, which was why the symbol was forbidden for so many years. Rome gave Jesus their best shot and He arose in fulfillment of the Scriptures. Jesus 1, Emperor 0.
Crucifixion was the most severe form of execution imaginable by a very brutal people. Our word excruciating is derived from the words "ex cruce" meaning from the cross. It was reserved for enemies of Rome as a form of state sponsored terrorism to break the will of subjugated peoples. It was forbidden to crucify Roman citizens, regardless of their crimes which is why St. Paul was not crucified. The Church converted a symbol of terror and oppression into a symbol of hope and joy.
From the beginning of the Church, oral traditions were accepted. There are references given about “teachings”in the scripture, but not a specific mention.
Next Lesson: The First Ecumenical Council of Nicea
The agenda of the synod included:
The Arian question regarding the relationship between God the Father and Jesus; i.e. are the Father and Son one in divine purpose only or also one in being
The date of celebration of the Paschal/Easter observation
The Meletian schism
The validity of baptism by heretics
The status of the lapsed in the persecution under Licinius
The council was formally opened May 20, in the central structure of the imperial palace at Nicea, with preliminary discussions of the Arian question. In these discussions, some dominant figures were Arius, with several adherents. “Some 22 of the bishops at the council, led by Eusebius of Nicomedia, came as supporters of Arius. But when some of the more shocking passages from his writings were read, they were almost universally seen as blasphemous.”[16] Bishops Theognis of Nicea and Maris of Chalcedon were among the initial supporters of Arius.
Eusebius of Caesarea called to mind the baptismal creed of his own diocese at Caesarea at Palestine, as a form of reconciliation. The majority of the bishops agreed. For some time, scholars thought that the original Nicene Creed was based on this statement of Eusebius. Today, most scholars think that the Creed is derived from the baptismal creed of Jerusalem, as Hans Lietzmann proposed.
The orthodox bishops won approval of every one of their proposals regarding the Creed. After being in session for an entire month, the council promulgated on June 19 the original Nicene Creed. This profession of faith was adopted by all the bishops “but two from Libya who had been closely associated with Arius from the beginning.”[17] No historical record of their dissent actually exists; the signatures of these bishops are simply absent from the Creed.
..so is I Peter and 2 Peter, written from Babylon between 60-65 A.D. actually written from Rome, even though Peter was in Antioch until 3 years before his death, between 80-89 AD? Hasn’t it always been claimed that Babylon was code for Rome? What I’m saying here is that I & 2 Peter were written 60-65 AD. Peter wasn’t in Rome until 77-86 AD, by your post of the time of his death. He was bishop of Antioch before that. When did he leave Jerusalem to become bishop of Antioch? Was he referring to Antioch as Babylon? It seems he would have to have been. He wrote those letters in 60-65 AD. And either he was in Jerusalem still when they were written, or he was in Antioch. But he wasn’t in Rome. Do you see the confusion in this?
WAIT! I’m not through with the FIRST LESSON ;) Just a few more questions to form the BASE of which everything else was built.
You just skipped over about 235-240 years of Church history. Important years that need to be established, from the Church’s very beginnings to that First Ecumenical Council of Nicea.
There are somethings I just do not know the answer to. I know that somethings are confusing. That is why I look to the writings of the Great Hierarchs of the Church, Basil, Gregory the Great, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Ingnatius of Antioch. These men were THERE.
Also some things have to be taken on faith. Is it really so important what exact date Peter was in Rome on? We know he gave his life for Christ. That is really the important issue. When Peter and Paul passed to glory, we know they left a well organized Church behind them.
That is a time period where there was rampant persecution. I am not familiar of any great events in that time period.
Every place He sent someone was for a reason. And not to be overlooked or under-appreciated because it SEEMS unnecessary to where we are today. That's why the Book of Acts is so important. It tells us where, when, how, and why He did what He did. If a person takes the time to study that one Book, much of the confusion will end.
I prefer jokes that are actually funny. Martin Luther, Jean Cauvin and Ulrich Zwingli come to mind.
ROFL Prove me wrong. Show that each of those three languages all said the same thing. Now, if you do, you must also admit that you believe the scripture to be inaccurate. Which is it? Do Matthew, Luke, and John disagree showing that they were not inspired by the Holy Spirit to write what they wrote or were they each quoting a different language version?
There were 3 languages noted. There are four Gospel writers, each of whom said something different. You claimed to know which Gospel writer wrote which inscription in which language. Where does Scripture show that?
Ah...yesyesyes, I was just reading Ulrich Zwingli and practically ROTFLOL..tell me, do you think there is laughter in heaven? Or do all comedians go to hell, where they can torment the “pursed lip ones” forever?
Well, let’s start here. Did John quote that Latin version or not?
John quoted the Latin inscription. IESUS NAZARENVS REX IVDAEORVM (Jesus of Nazareth The King of The Jews.)
And was Latin the Roman language and one of the languages Luke said were on the plaque or not?
Of course there’s laughter in heaven! The jokes are actually funny, there. In hell, the bad comedians spend eternity laughing at their own jokes, just like here.
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