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.
Catholics are so "free" they can leave the Church if they aren't willing to follow the demands of the Church. As long as they remember the first thing they were taught: there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church.
"Relax said the nightman, we are programmed to receive. You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave.." Hotel Catholicfornia.
Thanks for the laughs. It really is comical when the illiterati pretend to be Canon Lawyers. As my Grandfather used to say its kinda like watching a raccoon trying to hump a greased doorknob.
Perhaps in your zeal to slander the Church you failed to read anything else in the Canon. FYI - Canon 212 is addressing the liturgy. It is to ensure that the Mass is conducted properly.
Your Grandfather really used to say that? Thanksgiving must have been a HOOT at your house;)
A Protestant believes in no infallible authority; he is an authority unto himself, which authority he does not claim to be infallible, if he is sober and sane. He is after truth; and whatever he finds, and wherever he finds it, he subjects it to his own private judgment. He is free to accept or reject, as he pleases. He is not, cannot be, absolutely certain that what he holds is true; he thinks it is. He may discover to-day that yesterday's truths are not truths at all.
He really was a great old guy. Born in a sod hut in 1881 career soldier; joined up and fought in Cuba in the Spanish American War, was with Pershing in Mexico and in WWI. There is not a day goes by that I don't still miss him.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__PU.HTM
Can. 209 §1. The Christian faithful, even in their own manner of acting, are always obliged to maintain communion with the Church.
§2. With great diligence they are to fulfill the duties which they owe to the universal Church and the particular church to which they belong according to the prescripts of the law.
Can. 210 All the Christian faithful must direct their efforts to lead a holy life and to promote the growth of the Church and its continual sanctification, according to their own condition.
Can. 211 All the Christian faithful have the duty and right to work so that the divine message of salvation more and more reaches all people in every age and in every land.
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.
Can. 222 §1. The Christian faithful are obliged to assist with the needs of the Church so that the Church has what is necessary for divine worship, for the works of the apostolate and of charity, and for the decent support of ministers.
§2. They are also obliged to promote social justice and, mindful of the precept of the Lord, to assist the poor from their own resources.
If these are onerous to you, Christ’s ministry must really gall.
"One of the things the Catholic Church fears least in this country is Protestantism. She considers it harmless, moribund, in the throes of disintegration. It never has, cannot and never will thrive long where it has to depend on something other than wealth and political power. It has unchurched millions, is still unchurching at a tremendous rate, and will end by unchurching itself."
- Rev. John H. Stapleton, "Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals"
and will end by unchurching itself."
As is seen here on this thread: "I am the Church."
Christ’s ministry was NOT one of control. Control is a tactic of satan.
I got that quote from catholicfaithdefenders.com as I showed in that post. I’ll make a note that you consider that a dumpster site. I’m including some others in the ping so they know not to use catholicfaithdefenders.com because it’s a dumpster site.
We see the words in these threads which express a hatred of Catholicism accompanied by lies about the Church and Catholics by those who claim a monopoly on the intent of God.
With trembling fingers and spittle flecked lips they produce curses about those they find guilty only of imperfectly loving God by their standards while ignoring the 2/3 of the world mired in atheism and false worship. They cite verses of Scripture like magical incantations to try to change the truth, hide Scripture, and deceive God and man about their sins and motives. Pray for them.
"If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." 1 John 4:20
You got me. I just learned that catholicfaithdefenders.com is considered a “dumpster site”.
You have to have lawyers to interpret what the RCC teaches?
Some would rather be out of control, but this is not freedom, but slavery.
I think any site the exposes the Catholic Church to what the Catholic Church teaches that is contrary to truly infallible scripture is deemed a “dumpster site”. Even if those sites are Catholic sites that list what is true about the Catholic Church.
Any one ‘in Christ’ is not out of control.
Those in bondage to control tactics are slaves to their master.
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