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.
Acts 17:11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. I Corinthians 4:6 And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another.
That there is NO recorded support for something that has been handed down orally should be a ginormous clue that its veracity is in question.
To promulgate something as truth to the point of requiring adherence to that teaching under the threat of damnation without having anything but hearsay or say so to back it up is just wrong.
I keep seeing that thought pattern coming from the RCC. If it doesn’t say it didn’t happen we can say it did and that makes it so. Pardon me if I don’t take doctrine based on “it doesn’t say it didn’t happen” seriously.
What were the specific things being confirmed by the scriptures in your first quote?
Where are the writings Paul was referring to in your second quote specifically identified?
And you marvel at why you guys are called "liars?"
Matthew 15:9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
I can see this thread has become too bitter for rational discourse.
You alleged “secret” and “orally” not on positive evidence but on the absence of refuting evidence.
When I point that out, you respond by saying that the Catholic Church affirms things not on positive evidence but on the absence of refuting evidence!
You gotta love it.
Fortunately I am not yet well enough to spend time beating my head against such a wall.
So if your doctrines came 1600 years after my doctrines, and Christ promised the gates of hell would not prevail over his Church, it seems pretty obvious whose doctrines are "of men."
....Particularly when you consider all the non-scriptural doctrines you have to impose to maintain and interpret in a sola scriptura framework.
Do I really have to go back and show how many times I have been asked, when I ask about the bodily assumption of Mary, to show where it says it didn’t happen? The lack of Biblical refutation of a doctrine is often used as evidence that the doctrine “could well have been true” and am told “tradition” trumps scripture in those instances.
Problem is, MD, I have seen that very argument used on these various threads. It is especially prevalent when ti comes to discussion of the bodily assumption of Mary.
I cannot recall the specific threads on which I've seen that otherwise I WOULD provide the link, but I can let you know next time I see it.
An honest question here because I am honestly confused by your post.
Where does Scripture say that Mary is of the house of David?
Where is her lineage cataloged?
Neither Matthew, who lists the lineage to Jesus, nor Luke who lists it from Jesus, list Mary. Rather, both make note of Joseph’s connection.
In the story of the dream of Joseph, it specifically says that Joseph is the descendent of David and nowhere that I can find does it say that Mary is.
If I am missing something, please direct me to it.
I'm not even going to try to straighten out that paragraph to make it comprehensible, but I will show what you have to "go back and show" to NOT be a liar.
You have to show where you were told Biblical silence constitutes a positive evidence (as opposed to a negative evidence) for the Assumption of Mary.
You have to show where the Bible states anything that isn't expressly permitted by the Bible is expressly forbidden by the Bible.
You have to show where anything not expressly validated by the Bible is expressly INvalidated by the Bible.
An finally, you have to show where the Bible defines the contents of the Bible and makes it the supreme authoriry for faith and practice of the Chistian religion.
Logical fallacies abound but the one that is most prevalent among the anti-Catholics is the one in which a party argues that something must be true because of their inability to perceive and unwillingness to consider anything other than that presumed prescribed truth. It is a form of arguement that appeals to and rewards ignorance and intellectual laziness.
Also prevalent are the classic "argumentum ad ignorantiam" in which something is assumed true simply because it hasn't been proven false, "argumentum ad logicam" that one poorly articulated defense of a proposition nullifies all other defenses and the "Tu quoque" that defends an error by pointing out errors in the opponents statements.
The old saying is “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” A fallacy (as distinct from a falsehood) does not become more or less fallacious by repetition.
(I seem to be in ‘Confucius Say’ mode today.)
I was commenting more on the structure of the argument (to which “Fallacious” can be applied — or not) than on the thesis.
You can't recall them because they do not exist
At worst, you've been told "Biblical silence is not denial."
So what's your problem with that?
My “doctrines” are strictly found in scripture which that last, Revelation, was written around 96AD. One of the doctrines of the RCC wasn’t “codified” until the 1950s. My doctrines are all contained in inspired scripture. Some of RCC doctrines are supposedly contained in “oral tradition” of fallible mortal man. Now, I can’t assume what your doctrines are but if you meant the RCC doctrines it would appear that my “doctrines” can be traced back much farther.
>>and Christ promised the gates of hell would not prevail over his Church,<<
Yes He did. And He was very clear that He was the head of that church and not some guy in Rome.
>>it seems pretty obvious whose doctrines are "of men."<<
It certainly does. It’s also very clear that the doctrines of men include such things as special cups, what not to eat on certain days etc.
Colossians 2:20 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, 21 (Touch not; taste not; handle not; 22 Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
Doctrines of men would include claiming something that goes in the belly means something.
Matthew 15:17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?
Non of my doctrines contain any of those rules or “doctrines of men”.
I’ll stay with Sola Scriptura thank you very much. I would hope you know the difference between Sola Scriptura and Solo Scriptura.
I apologize for thinking there was a certain standard to be met when one posts such things, i.e. that the statement is duly and credibly referenced to the original source.
I apologize for thinking that when one posts something, one should be responsible for proving that what was posted was indeed truthful and accurate.
Sorry, I have higher standards for myself than that. If I post something, I do not expect others to have to prove it one way or the other.
Knowing now that any specious statement can be made as long as the original purveyor of the statement is duly noted will be of great use to me in the future here on the RF.
I will waste less time treating such things as honest debate and see it for what it is.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
-Romans 1:22 (KJV)
My bad, thinking that if one posts something one should be prepared to show an original source for it.
I now know better. The ends justify the means I guess.
I have no problem with the anti Catholic writings. This is an open thread with debate from both sides and if I am afraid of it, I shouldn’t be here.
My problem is in the fact that the author excerpted does not give a source for the “quote” from Pelagius, nor can that quote be found anywhere else.
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