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.
That’s exactly what I was saying. Love one another as Christ loved us. How many times did Jesus warn us? Here are some of Jesus words of “love”.
Matthew 23:14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. 15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.
27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
Looks to me like He knew what would happen and loved them enough to warn them.
It is not love to help someone to go comfortably on their way to hell in error while quoting Bible verses to them as platitudes.
We are to speak the truth in love, yes, but that does not mean telling people what their itching ears want to hear.
The gospel of the cross IS an offense to those who are perishing. There’s no way to change that. If someone is going to take offense, then oh well.
But we will not be manipulated into backing down from telling the truth just because someone quotes Bible verses out of context at us. There’s some kind of weird mentality out there among unbelievers that if they quote the Bible at a Christian that the Christians is going to roll over and play dead and say *Oh Noes, it’s from the Bible. I have to capitulate to this person’s demands*.
Wrong. Using Scripture to manipulate others into backing off thinking that they will cave simply because it’s Scripture is despicable. And also ineffective with someone who really knows Scripture.
Nice work! Thank you for posting that.
I can just imagine how angry He came across. It wasn't like He was just asking everybody to leave, please.
John 2:13-16 13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 16And he told those who sold the pigeons, "Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade."
Luke 19:45-48 45 And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, 46saying to them,"It is written, 'My house shall be a house of prayer,' but you have made it a den of robbers."
What evil lurks. Using obviously erroneous writings to deceive the masses is especially heinous. For those who purposefully deceive there is a special punishment.
That surely disrupts the passivism image some would have us believe.
Boatbums post 3356 has a link that has some interesting stuff at the bottom of the web page:
It looks like it’s part of the anti-Catholic industry, and lookie, you can buy the entire book! Check out the chapter titles:
Biblical Studies Foundation has received so many questions concerning the number of books in the Bible that we are delighted to have been given permission to use chapter 8 in Erwin Lutzer’s book, The Doctrines That Divide: A Fresh Look at the Historic Doctrines That Separate Christians (Kregel Publications: Grand Rapids, 1998).
Other chapters in this excellent book cover questions such as:
Is Christ Truly God?
Is Christ Truly Man?
Was Mary the Mother of God?
Was Peter the First Pope?
Justification: By Faith, Sacraments, or Both?
Why Can’t We Agree about the Lord’s Supper?
Why Can’t We Agree about Baptism?
Predestination or Free Will?
Can a Saved Person Ever Be Lost?
Doctrines That Divide may be purchased at any Christian bookstore, on-line bookseller, or from:
Kregel Publications
P.O. Box 2607
Grand Rapids, MI 49501
800-733-2607
www.kregel.com
I wonder how much money they make, teaching against the Catholic Church? Pretty soon they’ll be offering certificates in Catholic bashing. Maybe even a “doctorate.”
Since Scripture does not contradict itself, that leaves us with 'history'.
Whose history? What history? Who is the judge?
Yup. The modern view is that Christians are a bunch of wusses.
Our God is a warrior.....
New International Version (©1984)
The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name.
New Living Translation (©2007)
The LORD is a warrior; Yahweh is his name!
English Standard Version (©2001)
The LORD is a man of war; the LORD is his name.
New American Standard Bible (©1995)
“The LORD is a warrior; The LORD is His name.
King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.
GOD’S WORD® Translation (©1995)
The LORD is a warrior! The LORD is his name.
King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.
American King James Version
The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.
American Standard Version
Jehovah is a man of war: Jehovah is his name.
Reminds me of the song:
I want it all;
I want it all;
I want it all;
And I want it now.
Henry Tudor and the German princes and Jean Cauvin didn't care about being right; they only cared about power.
Attacking the messenger again rather then addressing the message? How about addressing the message and refuting that? This is getting very, very old. You still haven’t addressed the proof shown that the CC demands adherence to its doctrines and rules. Can you refute the proof that those books contain error or is this another dodge?
How about the history contained in books of the Bible that have been proven to be correct? There is ample Biblical evidence that those books contain historical error and much of it has already been posted.
Yes, I attack anti-Catholic messengers. What is your problem with that? There are a couple of articles today about Obama attacking freedom of religion in the Catholic Church, I suppose that’s okay with you?
Obama objects to Catholic hospitals being pro-life, and not providing abortion services by their employees. Is that your problem too?
Sounds like you need maybe to visit the 'other' religious threads rather than here in the "town square" where passionate debates occur.
Since you state you're newly back this certainly indicates you are familiar enough to make the choice of where you determine the 'atmosphere' suites you best....obvious not here.
The problem is the inability to refute the message. Regardless of the messenger if the message cannot be refuted attacking the messenger only reveals the probability that the message is correct.
>>Obama objects to Catholic hospitals being pro-life, and not providing abortion services by their employees. Is that your problem too?<<
LOL Trying to change the subject again? Totally unconnected to the discussion of this thread.
Proof that those books contain error. THAT should be the rule. If you want to level an accusation, you should have to show PROOF that your accusation is valid. If not, then SHUT UP. PROVE the books contain error. Compare it with the CC teachings and you SHOULD be able to PROVE if a book is in error or not. But guess what, the books will be proven RIGHT, and I think the would-be book burners KNOW it. What they’re looking for is a big bonfire of books they reject, so they can have a weinie roast and s’mores. There must be some kind of saint for campfires day coming up soon.
And while there does exist a few chapters of Deuteronomy written in Greek, there is no other evidence, anywhere as far as I know, that there actually was an Old Testament written in Greek before Jesus showed up...
Oh, please. No such probability. The fact that I do not pretend, as some here do, to be a scholar, does not mean that the internet doctorates are correct. Plenty of evidence has been offered on both sides. I notice that the usual suspects simply either 1, ignore other viewpoints, or 2, quote anti-Catholic sources as authoritative, which they are not. Consensus does not equal accuracy. Look at the Global warming idiots.
So who pretends to be a scholar?
Got some proof to back up that assertion?
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