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.
Press *here* for *link* to *website* for penance information. Author of post: smvoice. Reformation Day-and What Led Me to Back to Catholicism. Post 317something, I don't have the exact post number yet.
So you went from being humored by someone you describe as getting stuck for a few hours to being so humble. Shifty!!
I walk in HIS blessings. So pray for those who delight in their deception. You know those who do not believe God’s Word is THE FINAL AUTHORITY! The height of arrogance! It started in the beginning in the garden and it continues.
There is NOTHING higher than the WORD of The MOST HIGH GOD, The CREATOR of all, the Alpha and OMEGA - the Great I AM that I AM!
Samuel anointed David as King over Israel. Anointed was done as a sign of consecration to God. People were anointed and so were types of food, the tabernacle, the altar, instruments of the tabernacle. In fact, everything that was anointed for the Lord belonged to the Lord for HIS purposes.
Just as Smvoice posted, Canon 212 of the Vatican II, Code of Canon Law, says:
Can. 212 §1. Conscious of their own responsibility, the Christian faithful are bound to follow with Christian obedience those things which the sacred pastors, inasmuch as they represent Christ, declare as teachers of the faith or establish as rulers of the Church.
I hope it is obvious that there are some here who will object to everything that puts their sacred tradition in any light but stellar, but will pull out all stops to do nothing BUT heap insults and criticism on anyone else's. I wouldn't let it bother me if I were you, but consider the history of those who try to muffle anything negative EVEN when it comes from their OWN sources.
Thanks boatbums. I scrolled back a bit to get a sense what was going on - couldn’t understand the accusations. So thanks for shedding some light on it for me.
Since you mentioned His Name, I'll leave you with one of most beloved meditations:
It appears that YOU are NOT the “thin-skinned disruptor” on this forum. I say, let ‘em squeal all they want, as much as they want since you DID show the source of your input and, as such, did what is asked by Free Republic. It is humorous that you are the one being called thin-skinned and not the one who hysterically tried to find a reason to erase your comments just so what they said didn’t have to be defended. There IS no defense for mandating that the “faithful” must be obedient to everything that is told to them by their “leaders”. Especially is the light of the heretical teachings that brought on the Reformation. It’s one thing if pastors and teachers stay true to the doctrines taught in Scripture but entirely different when they take off on tangents, inventing dogmas from “implicit” or fabricated Scripture or discarding Scripture all together when it suits them.
Now, wait now, you all have told me not to badger smvoice, and now you’re trying to drag me back into this discussion?
Not a chance. Post whatever garbage you wish.
Stop with the dramatics. I see no one trying to drag you back into this discussion. Bringing your attention to a link you were looking for should be more of a thank you response, I would think.
Not worth a response.
Hear hear!
And this after the mystery was solved. The poster was unable to post the link because there was no link. It was all a simple problem of memory.
The poster remembered something from Bible Study, some snippets of Canon Law from the Catholic Cult and an 1871 issue of a periodical called Catholic Cult World or something. The poster remembered it exactly or re-typed it, and then forgot for an hour or so where it all came from.
I’ve done that before. Easy to understand.
Now let’s move on ‘less we get too personal about me.
placemark
11I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. 12Blessed are you, O LORD; teach me your statutes! 13With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth.
14In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. 15I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. 16I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.
Psalm 19:7-11 7 The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;
8 the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; 9the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether.
10More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. 11Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
Nothing seems to irk a Catholic as much someone who has confidence in the promises of God, that those promises are for the here and now and that we can have confidence to boldly approach the throne of grace to find help in our time of trouble.
God is truth and cannot lie and our not trusting or believing His promises to us that He saw fit to record in Scripture for us is essentially calling God a liar. It's saying that we know better than God and that what He's promised us isn't true or trustworthy.
Thank God that He did not leave us as orphans but gave us the Holy Spirit, by whom we are sealed until the day of redemption, so that by Him we can cry out Abba, Father.
Philippians 1:6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Matthew 5:11-12 11 "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Imagine that.
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