Reformation Day – and What Led Me To Back to Catholicism

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.

“You can take whatever it is you want. I don’t tell you what you can and can’t accept. If it disagrees with the 66 books I accept I won’t.”

So then you really aren’t arguing that the books are inspired. You are arguing that people should accept the books that the want to accept.

This doesn’t sound like a very strong defense of scripture...

>>Do the word "vicar" mean anything to you?<<

I most certainly do. Jesus promised to send a “vicar” and did.

John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. 8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

John 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. 14 He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. 15 All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

You have your vicar and I will have mine.

II Corinthians 3:16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. 17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

I won’t turn to the RCC vicar because has a designated vicar for us.

As "pious" as this all sounds, I challenge you to actually walk the walk you've just declared. I shall read your posts with due diligence from this point on, making certain that you've evidenced correct research for accuracy and truth before quoting matters.

such as...the conversation that is happening right now, in the most current post. The bodily assumption of Mary. since you are Catholic, I assume you believe this. Can you show me from correct research for accuracy and truth PROOF that she was bodily assumed? Scriptures? No? Just give me your sources that truthfully and accurately prove this doctrinal belief. Thank you.

In Biblical times there was no word for father-in-law, just as there was no word for grandfather. Joseph can’t be the son of both Jacob and Heli. According to the Jerusalem Talmud (Chag. 77,4), Heli was actually Mary’s father making him Joseph’s father-in-law. The reason the two genealogies are different is that Joseph was descended from Solomon while Mary was a descendant of Solomon’s older brother Nathan.

So Joseph and Mary were actually cousins although many times removed. Since Heli had no sons, Mary had to find a husband from the tribe of Judah like herself to protect her father’s estate.(See Numbers 36) She also needed a direct descendant of Solomon to perfect her son’s claim to the throne of David, since Nathan’s descendants weren’t of the Royal line.

Joseph fit the bill on both accounts but like every other descendant of Solomon’s carried a blood curse disqualifying any biological son of his from ever being King of Israel.(Jeremiah 22:28-30) Since Joseph was not the Lord’s biological father, he could adopt Him, qualifying Him to be King without passing Him the curse.

Thus, because of the virgin birth, Jesus became the only one in Israel qualified to sit on David’s throne, and remains so to this day.

http://gracethrufaith.com/ask-a-bible-teacher/are-josephs-and-marys-lineage-incorrect/

I have never encountered the assertion that paraclete andvicar were remotely similar in meaning.

And in any event that is a red herring. You implied that to have a Pope as head was to displace Christ. So now are you dropping thatc or are you just changing the subject?

>> So then you really aren’t arguing that the books are inspired. You are arguing that people should accept the books that the want to accept.<<

I’m “arguing” that if a book or writing contains information or concepts that disagrees with or is in opposition to the 66 books it can’t be considered inspired. Sola Scriptura simply states that all doctrine or practices agree with and can be justified by scripture.

>>You implied that to have a Pope as head was to displace Christ. So now are you dropping thatc or are you just changing the subject?<<

Nope, I say that there is no need for a “representative” other then who Christ says He sent and that is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit trumps the Pope and we have the Holy Spirit. The Pope trying to usurp the position of the Holy Spirit is an abomination.

Nope, I say [emphasis added] that there is no need for a “representative” other then who Christ says He sent and that is the Holy Spirit

But what you SAID was, the thing I was arguing with was:
And He was very clear that He was the head of that church and not some guy in Rome.

Hereabouts we call that changing the subject.

If you all had the confidence you profess you wouldn't need to shuck and jive like that.

"Jerusalem Talmud"

That the two accounts do not harmonize presents difficulties to strict Biblical literalists and Sola Scriptura proponents is well understood. Some apologists conclude that the two genealogies for Jesus trace both his royal and his human lineage. Others find a way to show Mary's lineage. I personally have wrestled with it for years because, as Jesus did not have a human father, I am not settled on the context or relevance to the theories proposed.

The conundrum you are faced with, however, is that I, and Catholics in general, do not have a problem utilizing Tradition and other non-Biblical sources to assist in the interpretation of Scripture. Relying on the Jerusalem Talmud, which is nothing more than a collection of oral traditions, is doing the very thing that you condemn and belittle Catholics for doing.

So what I am really asking you is why you think you are better than any Catholic in Scriptural integrity and why you think http://gracethrufaith.com/ is better than a Magisterium?

If you can show me where Scipture says that Mary died I’ll be happy to admit that you are right.

The fact we never hear anything about Mary after she received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost tells us that Mary was a non participant in the development of the NT church.. BUT if Mary was assumed into heaven that would have been a miracle of such magnitude that it would have encouraged all those being persecuted for the name of Christ..

The first mention of the assumption was not until the 6 th century ..none of those directly taught by the apostles or those that immediately following mentioned anything on this "miracle "...

>>So what I am really asking you is why you think you are better than any Catholic in Scriptural integrity and why you think http://gracethrufaith.com/ is better than a Magisterium?<<

Once again a misunderstanding, whether intentional or inadvertently I don’t know, of what Sola Scriptura means. Let me try this one more time.

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. [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sola_scriptura]

By using the gracethrufaith site to explain what is in scripture in no way threatens the concept of Sola Scriptura. Prophesy states that Jesus would literally come from the line of David. The accounts in Matthew and Luke indeed show that Mary came through Nathan and Joseph came through Solomon but many fail to see it for some reason. Mary’s lineage through Nathan fulfills prophesy and agrees with scripture.

The Catholic doctrine of the assumption of Mary, purgatory, and others do not conform to scripture thus the difference.

But they pale in comparison to the invectives hurled at those who leave Protestantism to join the Catholic Church.

There is a difference between someone that is culturally a protestant or protestant by birth, or education or someone that just determines to attend a protestant church and someone who is saved.. being protestant and being saved are not seen by evangelicals as synonymous . Catholics do not seem to understand that .

So when I see a post of a 'protestant" that became a Catholic.. I shrug my shoulders.. this is an unsaved person looking for their god somewhere else.

I do not think they are stupid or angry or untaught ..or many of the other things said about protestants here that left the Catholic church..

So why should your list of 66 books be considered “scripture”? That’s my point. There has to be an objective standard. It can’t just be, “use whichever books you like.

Now if you are arguing that it is self-evident that scripture is the 66 books, I want to hear why.

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