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.
Show that paracletos means representative.
(2)Show that apostolos doesn't.
“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.”
Around these parts, we call that an argument from silence. You are arguing that because Scripture doesn’t mention it that it didn’t happen.
“The first mention of the assumption was not until the 6 th century:”
Wrong. Juvenal, then Bishop and later Patriarch of Jerusalem, brought the evidence forth at the Council of Chalcedon. He stated that Mary had passed on in front of all the Church and was buried and that three days later, they returned and found that her tomb was empty, and there were no remains of her.
They took her shroud that she had been wrapped in to the council for display. Chalcedon was in the mid 5th century. This is the earliest evidence that we at present possess. There is evidence that this was known long before in Jerusalem, and that her tomb, which is located near the mount of Olives, dates back even earlier. The crypt has been preserved by the Church all the way to today, despite the fact that the church built near to it has been destroyed several times.
“none of those directly taught by the apostles or those that immediately following mentioned anything on this ‘miracle’ “.
That we currently possess, no. But we do not possess any Gospels that date back to the early church at present either. It is unreasonable to expect that if the Gospels were not preserved, that we would possess evidence of the assumption of Mary dating back to the early church.
But you seem to have moved the conversation over to who is the proper REPRESENTATIVE of the head, which is a different thing from charging the Pope with thinking he is the head. It's one thing if I think I'm Bill Gates. It's quite another if I think I'm his proper representative -- even if I'm wrong.
Are you dropping the charge that the Pope claims to be head (in any but a representative sense) and substituting the charge that he falsely represents the head? Only a bad argument needs obscurity. A good one welcomes clarity.
Ephesians 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
Christ is head of the church, He sends the Holy Spirit which is pretty much one and the same unless you think the three in one is really three separate.
If someone asks for evidence of a claim I make, what am I supposed to do then, if not provide links?
What hypocrisy. Extra-biblical clues and sources are OK when they are used to connect the dots to solve Protestant doctrinal difficulties but not when they solve Catholic ones. Doctrinal issues are not the only issues you guys have.
The early church identified the Paraclete as the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5,1:8,2:4,2:38) and Christians continue to use Paraclete as a title for the Spirit of God. In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5 v. 4 Jesus Christ uses the verb παρακληθήσονται, paraclethesontai, traditionally interpreted to signify "to be refreshed, encouraged, or comforted". The text may also be translated as vocative as well as the traditional nominative.[ The Orthodox Jewish Brit Chadasha Bible Translation] Then the meaning of 'paraclethesontai', also informative of the meaning of the name, or noun Paraclete, implicates 'are going to summon' or 'will be breaking off'... The Paraclete may thus mean 'the summoner' or 'the one, who, or that which makes free'[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=paraklhqh%2Fsontai&la=greek&prior=au%29toi\&d=Perseus:text:1999.01.0155:book=Matthew:chapter=5&i=1]
In 1 John 2:1 "Paraclete" is used to describe the intercessory role of Jesus Christ who pleads to The Father on our behalf. And in John 14:16 Jesus says "another Paraclete" will come to help his disciples, implying Jesus is the first and primary Paraclete. [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Paracletos]
Apostolos: a delegate, messenger, one sent forth with orders. [http://www.searchgodsword.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=652]
Would you say that all believers are told to be a messenger or one sent forth to spread the gospel?
Werent’ all the books of the New Testament written by those who Christ personally chose? Then didn’t He tell them to wait for the Holy Spirit who would bring all to their remembrance. And do they not all agree with each other. Then the references to Old Testament works and do they not all agree with all the other 66 books? Seems good start to me.
Find the bodily assumption of Mary in scripture and perhaps we can agree.
But that’s not sola scriptura. That’s tradition. See, this isn’t an argument between sola scriptura and tradition, but rather an argument between Tradition and tradition.
You are relying on the tradition as established by Luther, while I, and the other Catholics here are relying on the tradition as established by the magisterium in the late 4th century. The Canon was established as we see in the Vulgate including books like Maccabess et al.
You would ask us to throw away that canon as handed down then, in favour of a much later canon as established by Luther.
Prior to the establishment of the Canon, yes, not all the books that we have today were considered to be Canon. Including Hebrews which is a problem for your definition as authorship is unknown. In the end, what counts is not whether we consider the work to be inspired, but rather, what the Church has decided.
Oh bull! Nice try but that dog ain’t gonna hunt. I refer to the original Apostles and you rely on 4th century and try to play the length of time game? Give me a break.
>> You would ask us to throw away that canon as handed down then, in favour of a much later canon as established by Luther.<<
I know Catholics are rather stuck on the Catholic canon meme but again, that dog don’t hunt. The Apostles came before the RCC.
Where are the Gospels of the Apostles Thomas, Philip and Judas in your Bible and why are books not authored by Apostles included?
“I refer to the original Apostles.”
Then why is it that the first time that the list of books that you regard as your canon appeared with Luther?
Did the original Apostles give the Church a canon? Did they give them a bible that they could use as we have now?
Anything in them we don’t already have?
Because the RCC had been lying to people for so long?
BTW How about that scriptural proof for the bodily assumption of Mary?
There are even contradictions within Catholic traditions themselvs, it would seem.
So you admit then that there is no evidence to support your claim that the Apostles used Luther’s canon?
So the Church fathers are falliable but Luther is infalliable? Strange claim to be staking your tent.
If you must provide links to answer a question, ping me so I know that you are aware of the guidelines and then I will follow-up and make sure the argument doesn’t follow from the previous thread.
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