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.
God can do any thing he wants to do...God could have put Mary on a Rolls Royce space shuttle in business class if he wanted to...
Did God do that??? Maybe, eh???
Yes, we "have" God because HE gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit. To say that you "have God" can be construed as saying that you own or hold in an subordinate role, the entity of God.
In your dreams. That is only an opinion, a baseless assumption at best.
That is the arrogance of Protestant thought - that they own or somehow control God for their own benefit. That is not a Catholic thought and never has been.
BWAHAHAHA!!!!
Evidently for you there is none. Suffice it to say there certainly isn’t for the RCC and in fact the RCC has put the Pope on the same level as scripture. I will continue to insist that any doctrine I believe must be supported by scripture. The RCC on the other hand would have you believe one of the central tenants of their faith which is a doctrine based in Gnostic teachings of the 3rd or 4th century not based in scripture and which can be traced back to ancient pagan beliefs.
Whether you believe there is a difference or not matters not to me. Whether you believe all doctrine must be supported by scripture matters not to me. Each man must decide for himself what to believe in and have faith in. I will base my beliefs only by the divinely inspired writings of those who Christ chose as His disciples and made Apostles of. If the Apostles taught it, I believe it. If they didn’t, I will reject that teaching as anathema.
From what you have just said I’m sure for you it doesn’t.
Should a calling be based on a phone call from heaven? Maybe an email or text message? Should it be a certified letter or perhaps a currier dove?
Or to have an obligation to or have a relationship with. Do you have faith? Do you hold that in subordinate role? Did you say “to have and to hold” when you got married? Do you hold your wife in a subordinate role? Do you have faith in your church and is that subordinate to you? Or should I just take that you hadn’t thought that one through much other than to construe a contrary stance?
Metmom, we got another one to add to the list.
Romans 8:34 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
Do Catholics say “yeah but we have an even better way”? Do they say “those who are in heaven have a better line of communication” even though scripture say we have Christ in us?
John 15:5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
John 17:23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
Christ says He is within us yet you would deny that and claim to not have a close relationship? Do you deny His very words?
Hebrews 7:25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
We are to go before the Father in Jesus name.
Ephesians 5:20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
The New Testament teaching is clearly that we are to go to the Father through in Jesus name and Jesus intercedes for us.
The Bible would shut the sausage factory down real fast.
Do you not believe in the trinity?
» John 17:23: Christ Himself prays to His Father: "I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one."
» Romans 8:10: Paul tells us, "If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin."
» Galatians 2:20: Paul speaks of himself and all true Christians: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me."
Deny what scripture clearly states if you want. I will not.
LOL There ya go with dem word games agin!
Show me where I said man made churches were justified. Don’t twist my words like the RCC has twisted scripture.
Even if you belong to a church of one, it is still man made. Do you believe that yours is justified?
Yes, we "have" God because HE gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The connotation of your posts indicate possession as in ownership. It is as I have said many times; the legacy of the Reformation is the reversal of Creator and created in the minds of the children of the Reformation.
To say that you "have God" can be construed as saying that you own or hold in an subordinate role, the entity of God.
In your dreams. That is only an opinion, a baseless assumption at best.
I am not the one posting as if I own God.
That is the arrogance of Protestant thought - that they own or somehow control God for their own benefit. That is not a Catholic thought and never has been.
BWAHAHAHA!!!!
Once again, my point is proven.
The controlling entity is the Spirit.
The body is DEAD. It has no life. It cannot control.
We have passed from death unto life.
John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
We are free in Christ.
John 8:31-32 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
John 8:36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
It tells us what it tells us...That we and God have each other...We are in Him and He is in us...
Well, gee, now Scripture doesn't say that didn't happen so why can't we believe it if we want?
Or to have an obligation to or have a relationship with. Do you have faith? Do you hold that in subordinate role? Did you say “to have and to hold” when you got married? Do you hold your wife in a subordinate role? Do you have faith in your church and is that subordinate to you? Or should I just take that you hadn’t thought that one through much other than to construe a contrary stance?
Hardly. God is the Creator of All. I object to the seemingly casual presumption of possession or else the rather startling presumption of Buddy Christ. My relationship with my wife is not comparable on any level with my relationship with God.
We can now invoke Godwin’s Law that the first to compare someone to a Nazi has conceded the argument.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
ooooops....;)
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