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.
...which explains why you are still in the RCC, defending the indefensible while being “outraged” that the deceit and lies can be printed, and sourced.
That’s a powerful verse. One person caused all the problems and one person paid for it all. That verse basically says it all.
Perhaps, for a few, it is enough to have something you are vehemently, absolutely, strongly against – even if you get it wrong. :)
Those books were NEVER accepted into the Jewish canon. The Upanishads were written way before Jesus came to earth, too, do they count? Show me where Jesus ever quoted any Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical using the words "It is written".
It seems you are learning non sequiturs as well.
That is rather telling isn’t it? Obviously they cannot refute the proofs that have been posted.
Then there is a dry martini that needs NO vermouth. Y'all seemed have to missed this yet again, but NO ONE said that the Bible is "all that there is" nor that it "contains all truth" or that "nothing is needed but the Bible". In fact, within this thread the definition was given that pretty much sums up what the doctrine of sola scriptura is. Here, I'll post it again all for you:
Sola scriptura (Latin ablative, "by scripture alone") is the doctrine that the Bible contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness. Consequently, sola scriptura demands that only those doctrines are to be admitted or confessed that are found directly within or indirectly by using valid logical deduction or valid deductive reasoning from scripture. However, sola scriptura is not a denial of other authorities governing Christian life and devotion. Rather, it simply demands that all other authorities are subordinate to, and are to be corrected by, the written word of God. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_scriptura)
You're welcome.
So what are you studying in the Bible in your Catholic Church Bible Study?
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I am newly back to joining in the community here at FR after a lengthy time away. However, upon my return, I came to this thread to learn, and what I have been reading the last few days is causing me to grieve greatly. There is much bashing back and forth.
Did not our Lord beckon to us to love our enemies?
Matthew 5:43-48 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbors and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
So I urge you, fellow brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, to allow there to be some time now for loving our enemies.
1 John 2:9-11 Whoever says he is in the light, yet hates his brother, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother remains in the light, and there is nothing in him to cause a fall. Whoever hates his brother is in darkness; he walks in darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
I pray that those here will not walk in darkness.
Galatians 5:16-26 I say then: live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh. For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want. But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I warned before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ [Jesus] have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit. Let us not be conceited, provoking one another, envious of one another.
I pray that we are all filled with the Spirit and that the fruits of the Spirit be evident.
This begs the question as to which canon is being discussed or if there is a suggestion that there was only a single Jewish canon. There were at least four; the Pharisee Canon, the Sadducee Canon, the Essene Canon and the Septuagint Canon embraced by the Jews living outside of Palestine. Note: There were more Jews living outside of Palestine in the first century than in it.
I’d be embarrassed to even admit that it’s part of the teaching of an organization I admitted being associated with. I found there are some very good reason those books were not included in scripture. The CC only includes them because they also talk about praying to dead, dead praying for them and other doctrines the CC uses to control the masses. Then there are all the historical errors.
Indeed, the focus has all been on smvoice and the accusations against her, and NOT the content of the quotes, which is abominable and ought to be an embarrassment to Catholics an Catholicism.
Right now about half are on Genesis and half St. Mark’s Gospel. Individually and then a seminar with cross–discussion.
Ah, I thought you seemed like a familiar face.
:)
Excellent post and counsel, and welcome back.
But unfortunately the focus is almost always turned. Like magicians.”Look over here. At what THIS hand is doing.” They’re going to reach into that hat one day to pull out a rabbit and it’s going to be a scarlet coloured beast. Carrying a woman with Mystery Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth written on her forehead.
I agree with you. Good job with those scripture passages.
Interesting. Doesn’t the Catholic Church teach that the Book of Genesis is not to be taken literally?
Numbers 23:19
God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
It would be cruel to see error and not say anything.
2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
How did Christ treat the Pharisees? Did the Apostles just overlook error in churches? What does Christ say to the seven churches in Revelation? Does He just overlook their error and treat them nicely?
Mark 11:15-18 15 And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 16And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17And he was teaching them and saying to them, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers." 18And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.
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