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.
smvoice, perhaps D-fendr missed the RM’s instructions here at this post (link provided).
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2799123/posts?page=3155#3155
RM:”smvoice’s source information was adequate.
Leave copyright investigation up to the moderators. To avoid flamewars like this in the future, if you question the source, let me know by Freepmail.”
I'm directing you to the Forum Rules, pointing out their obvious intent concerning banned sites as you talk about what you intend to do with "loads of posts" and how you think you will do so while conforming to the forum rules.
The RM doesn't scare, certain not by me, nor is he/she easily fooled.
Now I think to continue this further would be making it too personal.
"PRESCRIPTION FOR PEACE. A Voice Cries Out in the Wilderness....a woman's. This event has been reported in the New York Times, 20/20, Life, Time Magazine and The Wall Street Journal, etc. Millions of people have visited this site and most have returned home with a renewed faith in God, peace in their hearts, and a desire to live the Gospel message...we're talking about the appearance of the Virgin Mary in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as dozens of locations around the world. WHY THE VIRGIN MARY? The Blessed Virgin Mary was the vessel that brought Jesus into the world the first time. Could it be that SHE IS HERALDING HIS SECOND COMING?..."Begin by first creating peace within your own hearts," she says,"then in your families and in the world." - The Dallas Morning News, June 25, 1993.
Wonderful news, thanks for posting.
That’s already a job assigned to the prophets, Enoch and Elijah to name two.
Well, I couldn’t have done it without it first being printed in the Dallas Morning News, June 25, 1993, and acknowledging the source...
Precisely. But never let the truth get in the way of thousands of years of deceit. It’s too upsetting you know, having to read the TRUTH about what IS GOING TO HAPPEN. Not may, but IS.
Well, I’m off to work.
You can continue to share the positive message of your faith in peace and harmony without my disruption for a while.
;0)
may God bless...
My cousin told me all about it. Poor guy, he went there and came back with no healing. He didn’t see any of the promised healings. Actually, a very rich guy but money can’t heal. However, he would be fortunate if he wanted an annulment.
Gee, do I need the date he told me, his name and burial plot location to post this? He didn’t use the computer so I know he didn’t log it anywhere. However, his wife was there when he told me. Should I post her unlisted number? Their church backs up to their backyard. His wife goes back there to feed the birds - she’s a fan of St. Francis. Does any of that count?
But it terrible news to the poor of spirit who wish for the demise of the Church. How empty are the lives defined not for what they are for but by what they are against, those "who jealously desire the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us".
Finally, a Catholic who admits they are filled up with fallible mans teachings.
Ahh! The old “peace in the world” mantra. Those who hold that man needs to establish peace on earth before the second coming can happen. Now there is a concept that some Protestants, Catholics, and Muslims can all agree on! Isn’t it wonderful?
If all were to embrace and live the Gospels peace would be but one of many consequences. It need not be our objective.
CB: Ahh! The old “peace in the world” mantra. Those who hold that man needs to establish peace on earth before the second coming can happen. Now there is a concept that some Protestants, Catholics, and Muslims can all agree on! Isn’t it wonderful?
Nobody can *create* peace in their own hearts. That's a lie of the devil.
Peace is a fruit of the Spirit.
Philippians 4:6-7 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
"He didn't use the computer so I know he didn't log it anywhere"
BWHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Make? Create? Do you know the actual word spoken by the Blessed Virgin at Medjugorje, or even which language it was spoken in and how it was translated for the article? Is your heart so filled with hatred that you would willingly pervert a message from God? If you look for Satan he will certainly find you.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." - Matthew 5:9
Catholics do not WORSHIP Mary. To make a blanket statement like you just did is an insult, and I believe, a violation of the rules of this forum.
You have no right to speculate on something that you obviously do not understand.
..which is exactly what I do. Thank you for your answer to this “problem”.
Regards,
smvoice
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