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.
Yeah, question.
If, as you say, you are not a literalist, then why did you pick the argument that since Catholics aren’t either, we don’t consider the Bible the truth?
Only to disagree with your own argument later after taking up my time?
I should have known better and will, hopefully, in the future.
And this from someone who takes parts of John 6 LITERALLY, about eating the LITERAL body and blood of Christ???
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, why did Jesus say what He said in John 6?
I am a literalist. Unless it is a parable, a riddle or an obvious metaphor, then it is to be taken literally. Not at all like Catholics, who take the literal and turn them into metaphors, or vague interpretations, and take the metaphors and turn them into literal doctrines. Like the Eucharist, for one example. I know Jesus wasn’t a literal gate, but I also know He isn’t magically “changed” from a wafer into His body.
If you were paying attention, and attempted some understanding of the terms, you understand why your post is backwards or nonsensical.
Your perceived quandary there is only a one for a literalist.
http://ajewwithaview.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/scripture/
...The Septuagint refers to the Greek version of the Tanakh. But what many people don’t realise is that only the Torah part (five books of Moses) was actually translated by Jews.
All the rest was translated by non Jews. And if we compare, for example, Isaiah in the Tanakh, with Isaiah in the Septuagint, it is clear that the Septuagint does not reflect the original Hebrew at all.
Ultimately, the entire Septuagint was revised by the Church, and ceased to have any link to Judaism.
Here is a particularly interesting comment on the Septuagint, by Rabbi Tovia Singer, from the excellent website Outreach Judaism.
“… the Septuagint in our hands is not a Jewish document, but rather a Christian one. The original Septuagint, created 2,200 years ago by 72 Jewish translators, was a Greek translation of the Five Books of Moses alone.
It therefore did not contain prophetic Books of the Bible such as Isaiah. The Septuagint as we have it today, which includes the Prophets and Writings as well, is a product of the Church, not the Jewish people. In fact, the Septuagint remains the official Old Testament of the Greek Orthodox Church, and the manuscripts that consist of our Septuagint today date to the third century C.E. The fact that additional books known as the Apocrypha, which are uniquely sacred to the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Church, are found in the Septuagint should raise a red flag to those inquiring into the Jewishness of the Septuagint.
Christians such as Origin and Lucian (third and fourth century C.E.) had an enormous impact on creating and shaping the Septuagint that missionaries use to advance their untenable arguments against Judaism. In essence, the present Septuagint is largely a post-second century Christian translation of the Bible, used zealously by the Church throughout the centuries as an indispensable apologetic instrument to defend and sustain Christological alterations of the Jewish scriptures.
The fact that the original Septuagint translated by rabbis more than 22 centuries ago was only of the Pentateuch and not of prophetic books of the Bible such as Isaiah is confirmed by countless sources including the ancient Letter of Aristeas, which is the earliest attestation to the existence of the Septuagint. The Talmud also states this explicitly in Tractate Megillah (9a), and Josephus as well affirms that the Septuagint was a translation only of the Law of Moses in his preface to Antiquities of the Jews. Moreover, Jerome, a church father and Bible translator who could hardly be construed as friendly to Judaism, affirms Josephus’ statement regarding the authorship of the Septuagint in his preface to The Book of Hebrew Questions. Likewise, the Anchor Bible Dictionary reports precisely this point in the opening sentence of its article on the Septuagint which states, “The word ‘Septuagint,’ (from Lat septuaginta = 70; hence the abbreviation LXX) derives from a story that 72 elders translated the Pentateuch into Greek; the term therefore applied originally only to those five books.”
In fact, Dr. F.F. Bruce, the preeminent professor of Biblical exegesis, keenly points out that, strictly speaking, the Septuagint deals only with the Pentateuch and not the whole Old Testament. Bruce writes:
“The Jews might have gone on at a later time to authorize a standard text of the rest of the Septuagint, but . . . lost interest in the Septuagint altogether. With but few exceptions, every manuscript of the Septuagint which has come down to our day was copied and preserved in Christian, not Jewish, circles.”...
GMTA, mm! see post 3484...get the net, and reel it in. This one’s caught...
When a book claims something that is untrue it certainly isn’t infallibly inspired by God and is therefore unreliable.
Good grief.
Look, this really isn't worth all the work to go around in circles and end in a Wack - A - Mole - forgetting the original argument that you started with me.
You seem incapable of, or at least highly resistant to, even clarifying and agreeing on terms.
I ask that in the in the future, you please don't ping me to pick an argument unless you have one that you really really think is good and has been thoroughly throught through, at least enough to stick with to some conclusion.
I was thinking the same thing when I read that. Trying to trap smvoice aint’ workin!
If you get stuck in the mire of your own church's false doctrines, don't put the blame on me, telling ME I haven't thought it through. It's your Church that hasn't thought it through. And they've had 2000 years to get it together..
Yeah, the Church is too literal in one of your arguments and not literal at all in the other; and, ultimately and at the same time, the Church doesn't believe the Bible is true because it doesn't take it literally.
That's a real keeper of an argument there. You win a stuffed flounder for that one.
It was my contention that science and history do NOT trump Scripture. It was Cynicalbear who claimed otherwise, but thank you for your support.
There *was* no conclusion because you bailed out on your own argument (for good reason, you couldn't support it; but, apparently, just thought you'd throw it out there at me).
don't put the blame on me
I only blame you here for not being able to maintain coherency in a discussion. I blame myself for getting sucked into another excuse for random flame baiting.
Adios.
Show me where I claimed anything about science. And show me where I said history trumps scripture. I simply said that if a book or writing contradicts what we know as scripture it can’t be trusted. Now either show where I said something different than that.
a stuffed flounder? It's much better than sour grapes, D-...
Well you might pretend that my take on this is due to not being properly "catechized" when I was still a Roman Catholic, but there is no mistaking what your own church's documents have stated repeatedly. Let me bring back up those statements posted earlier. Read them again, and tell me that it is a misunderstanding of the Church who only "asks for an eyes open acceptance of the Truth":
►“Once he does so (joins the Catholic church), he has no further use for his reason. He enters the Church, an edifice illumined by the superior light of revelation and faith. He can leave reason like a lantern at the door.” (John H. Stapleton, Explanation of Catholic Morals, Chapter XIX, XXIII. the consistent believer (1904); Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor Librorum. Imprimatur, John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York )
►“All that we do [as must be patent enough now] is to submit our judgment and conform our beliefs to the authority Almighty God has set up on earth to teach us; this, and nothing else.”
“...outside the pale of Rome there is not a scrap of additional truth of Revelation to be found.”
“He willingly submits his judgment on questions the most momentous that can occupy the mind of man-----questions of religion-----to an authority located in Rome.”
“Absolute, immediate, and unfaltering submission to the teaching of God's Church on matters of faith and morals-----this is what all must give..”
“The Vicar of Christ is the Vicar of God; to us the voice of the Pope is the voice of God. This, too, is why Catholics would never dream of calling in question the utterance of a priest in expounding Christian doctrine according to the teaching of the Church;”
“He is as sure of a truth when declared by the Catholic Church as he would be if he saw Jesus Christ standing before him and heard Him declaring it with His Own Divine lips.” - “Henry G. Graham, "What Faith Really Means", (Nihil Obstat:C. SCHUT, S. T.D., Censor Deputatus, Imprimatur: EDM. CANONICUS SURMONT, D.D.,Vicarius Generalis. WESTMONASTERII, Die 30 Septembris, 1914 )
Obey blindly , that is, without asking reasons. Be careful, then, never to examine the directions of your confessor....In a word, keep before your eyes this great rule, that in obeying your confessor you obey God. Force yourself then, to obey him in spite of all fears. And be persuaded that if you are not obedient to him it will be impossible for you to go on well; but if you obey him you are secure. But you say, if I am damned in consequence of obeying my confessor, who will rescue me from hell? What you say is impossible." St. Alphonsus De Liguori, True Spouse of Christ, p 352, Benziger Brothers, NY
The irony is that it is you and much of Protestantism that demands blind obedience under the threat of hell, fire and brimstone and it is the Church that teaches that love conquers all.
I certainly know that I have never stated such. In fact, I have said on numerous occasions that I believe there are Roman Catholics that are saved and who understand the Gospel of the Grace of God. Nor have I ever insisted that anyone LEAVE a fellowship where they believe God has led them. Scripture, however, certainly clearly says numerous times that unless we believe and trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior we will not be saved. Jesus speaks about the reality of hell many times and God desires that all be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. God is a just and holy God and he cannot allow sin to exist in Heaven. That is why Jesus came to die in our place so that, through him, we can be saved, redeemed and rescued from hell, fire and brimstone.
You ended with the words, "it is the Church that teaches that love conquers all". If that is so, then first of all, they received that from Scripture because God desires that all the world be saved because he SO loved us all. His love DID conquer sin, death, satan and all evil but it will only benefit those who receive it. It does no good for any who reject the love of God. Lastly, the Roman Catholic Church does not have the corner on the love of God nor do they have sole control over all who would come to faith in Christ. It is God the Holy Spirit who draws all to Christ and as Christians we have the responsibility to shine forth the love of God so that he alone is glorified. God knows those that are his. Jesus said, All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37) The Body of Christ is ALL that are Jesus' and he will never cast us out.
My apologies to caww, I just now saw your earlier post to me, thanks to the link to it via boatbums. You are correct, perhaps I would be more comfortable somewhere else.
As for following all along, let me reassure you, boatbums, that I have newly rejoined the community here at FR in the last week, didn’t get approval from JimRob for several days, and am now in the process of re-familiarizing myself to how things work here. I have forgotten how to do the html tags somewhat, but I’ll get there. I used to post frequently probably 4 or 5 years ago, but life interrupted, so I went on “sabbatical”, so to speak.
I found this thread when it showed up repeatedly on the “recent posts” section from the Homepage. I willingly admit I skipped a large portion of the 2500+ posts after I read the first few pages, so my bad for jumping in on a conversation. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t like seeing either Protestants or Catholics bashed, and it’s been going in both directions the last several pages, at least in my opinion. So perhaps the love “suddenly” showed up because of the Holy Spirit, as I felt moved by Him to post. I pray that the discourse remain congenial for future partakers in this discussion, as that (again, IMHO) is when we will all learn the most from each other and each of our different perspectives.
May our Heavenly Father bless each one of us, and let us give Him thanks for all of our blessings, big and small.
And that post just fits nowhere in either of your previous discussion, except as yet another assertion and accusation. Were I to respond on any point, no doubt more confusion, deflection and rote accusations would result. Not a good use of my time, much as you might enjoy the opportunity.
I enjoy a good argument well argued, coherent, honestly and passionately engaged.
You don’t offer that.
Adios.
I, for one, appreciated your post, and this one.
May God bless you as well.
Take care...
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