.jpg)
Posted on 07/03/2012 9:31:36 AM PDT by Teófilo
Another nail in the coffin of the foundational Protestant dogma
Sola scriptura is dead, or at least is undead, a zombie still stalking the darkened hallways of Protestantism. Many well-meaning Protestant Christians don’t see the zombie-dogma for what it is; instead, they choose to see it as a being of light. My friend Dave Armstrong has returned to blow the old decrepit sola scriptura monsters one at a time in his latest work, 100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura.
Let’s recall the definition of the sola scriptura dogma – yes, it is a dogma – as understood by Norman Geisler, a recognized Protestant authority Dave quotes in his work:
By sola scriptura orthodox Protestants mean that Scripture alone is the primary and absolute source of authority, the final court of appeal, for all doctrine and practice (faith and morals)… (p.16)Geisler, and other authorities Dave quotes, further explain that other authorities exist, but that these are of secondary importance. Geisler also defends what he calls the perspicuity of Holy Writ, which means that anyone can understand the basic truths of Scripture: the plain things are the main things and the main things are the plain things, Geisler states. (p.17). As a true analyst, Dave separated the sola scriptura dogma into its constituents claims, found out its contents, examined its individual parts, and studied the structure of sola scriptura as whole. He found them defective and insufficient to expound and explain the full spectrum of Christian claims.
Dave kills the sola scriptura zombie by selecting 100 verses from Scripture contradicting this central Protestant claim. I guess he selected 100 verses because the number “100” gives the reader a sense of exhaustive answer and completion, not because there are only 100 verses that should make all sincere Protestant Christian at least uncomfortable with the teaching. In fact, Dave is the author of another related work, 501 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura: Is the Bible the Only Infallible Authority?, which is useful if you need another 401 arguments to kill the sola scriptura zombie dead.
100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura. is a distillation of the 501 Biblical Arguments… in a more manageable, less overwhelming fashion for the beginning reader. It’s 133 pages in length and divided into two parts. In Part 1 Dave discusses the binding authority of Tradition, as substantiated in Scripture, and in Part 2 he discusses the binding authority of the Church, again from Scripture. The result must be uncontestable to the sincere Protestant Christian as well as eye opening to the full range of deeds and wonders the Incarnation of the Word of God brought to history.Will the sola scriptura zombie really die after Dave’s work? This is a senseless question because the zombie is already dead. It’s kept ambulating by strings pulled from the most diehard of its followers. Those strings must be cut by the individual, sincere Protestant Christian himself. Dave Armstrong’s work, 100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura. not only blows the zombie of sola scriptura away, he also provides the truth-searcher with the scissors to cut off the strings.
It is a job description. The word "Christ" is not Yah'shua's Last Name.
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
“You’re just tap dancing and flapping your arms. Come back when you’re ready for a conversation.”
You haven’t said anything worthy of discussion yet. Claiming my God is a book isn’t a exactly a lofty argument. It’s almost as if you bought a Jesuit Counter-Reformation starter kit off eBay.
Scripture and verse?
Here’s what I’m trying to clarify:
1) You don’t believe Jesus is God.
2) You adhere to, follow, agree with, practice sola scriptura (the topic of this thread).
Would you say “Yes, yes” to the above, or..
THANKS A LOT, D-fendr. Now we’re gonna have to take you out too. Can’t anybody shut up these days? Sheesh.
“Agreed. That’s a key, and oft overlooked, point. If “Purgatory” is true, then you can just chuck the whole book, crucifixion, etc. because Heaven is just a rinse cycle away.”
Purgatory also denies the sufficiency of Christ. Either his sacrifice was good enough, or it wasn’t. And Jesus said, “It is finished.”
I’ll stick with the known word of God, and let the RCC make it up as they go. But I will fight to convince people that the RCC is full of dogma. I’m not saying that there aren’t Catholics going to Heaven, but that is in spike of the RCC.
But we Protestants have our own dangers. The salvation prayer is sending people to Hell. We teach people to just recite these words and they are saved. But if you ask them what they just did, most have no idea. That is no different from the stuff the Catholics do.
No formula of words can do it. Not for Assembly of God, Pentecostal, Baptist, Lutheran, or Catholic. You must understand who He is and choose Him above all else. No formula can substitute for that.
Correction. Your response should read "I reject all of the paganism of the New Testament", which is the source of Trinitarian doctrine (Matthew 28:19).
And how do you know that the Testament is complete? It does not tell you how many books it has. The Church does.
Luke 16:31
Really, man, tell it to the eastern orthodox.
But maybe you’re just not familiar with Freerepublic.
On the political boards here I have heard guys from both Catholic and Evangelical churches say their priests/pastors have said from their pulpits in the last week that if Obama is re elected they’re going to jail.
Mary didn’t atone, Christ did!
You don’t understand the atonement. And apparently you don’t know what many popes and revered Catholics have taught.
Pope Leo 1 (440 a.d.) “The Lord Jesus Christ alone among the sons of men was born immaculate”(sermon 24 in Nativ. Dom.).
“And therefore in the general ruin of the entire human race there was but one remedy in the secret of the Divine plan which could succour the fallen, and that was that one of the sons of Adam should be born free and innocent of original transgression, to prevail for the rest both by His example and His merits. Still further, because this was not permitted by natural generation, and because there could be no offspring from our faulty stock without seed, of which the Scripture saith, ‘’Who can make a clean thing conceived of an unclean seed? is it not Thou who art alone?’” (Sermon 28:3) The unclean seed includes Mary. The one being from Adam who is sinless is Jesus - Pope Gelasius (492 a.d.)
“ It belongs alone to the immaculate lamb to have no sin at all.” (Gellasii papae dicta, vol. 4, col 1241, Paris, 1671)
Pope innocent the third (1216 a.d.) “She (Eve) was produced without sin, but she brought forth in sin, she (Mary) was produced in sin, but she brought forth without sin.” ( De festo Assump., sermon 2) When the immaculate conception was first presented in the year 1140 it was opposed by Bernard of Clairvaux also Thomas Aquinas adamantly taught Mary was a sinner. This is something the Catholics need to deal with.
In fact this whole doctrine is fairly new not an apostolic tradition. It was in 1547, at the council of Trent that the Catholic Church announced the sinlessness of Mary enabling her to avoid venial sins. In 1620 Pope Paul the 5th forbade anything contrary to the teaching of Mary’s immaculate conception to be said publicly under threat of excommunication. In 1622 Pope Gregory the 15th forbade any contradictory statements of her immaculate conception to be made in private. And so began the official elevation of this servant woman the mother of the humanity of the Lord. Until Pope Pius IX in 1854 “Let all the children of the Catholic Church ... Proceed to worship, invoke, and pray to the most blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God, conceived without original sin”), but that the reason she never sinned at any time during her life was because she was unable to sin.” Then in 1950 Pius the 12th said, “Mary the immaculate perpetual virgin mother of God after the completion of her earthly life was assumed body and soul into the glory of heaven.”
I’m not going to bother looking up the quotes, but Thomas Aquinas also rejected the immaculate conception.
Psalm 14:3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Proverbs 20:9 Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
There isn’t a single verse on the sinfulness of men which contains a Marian exception.
“”We’re not claiming anything not in scripture is wrong. That’s absurd.”
Sola Scriptura? Scripture Alone?
Which by the way, isn’t contained in the Bible.”
If it runs counter to scripture, it is wrong or the bible is invalid. It is either the infallible word of God, or it isn’t. Anything else is like being slightly pregnant.
If you are talking about something scripture doesn’t reference, like Pentecostals opposition to TV technology, then I’ll listen and decide. But I won’t follow a Pope because the RCC says something has changed and this is now how to believe.
Purgatory actually affirms the sufficiency of Christ. Most Protestants, and many Catholics argue tirelessly about Purgatory without ever having an understanding as to what it actually is. It is not a place. It is not a time. Unless you are claiming that we all die in a state of perfect Grace we leave this world imperfect, with the stain of sin. Purgatory is a process (purgation) not bounded by space or time. It is nothing more than the process or act of final purification of sinners, paid for by Jesus, so that they may enter the glory and infinite perfection of heaven.
Peace be with you
“Show me a promise or show me a command.
“He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”
Nothing about writing there.”
If all I’m rejecting is one man’s opinion that he can’t back up within scripture, I’m rejecting a man who may or may not have insight. But I won’t simply take anything ANYONE says and run with it. Not even from my own pastor. But them my pastor would tell me not to follow him, but God.
I’ve been issued the spiritual equivalent of a triple dog dare...but I’m not going to stick my tongue onto that spiritually frozen flag pole!
This is the topic and content of the book reviewed on the thread. There are also other compilations.
But then, if one practices sola scriptura, one can interpret these scriptures contradicting sola scriptura contrarily. One individual can say they support it, another say they disprove it.
There is a wide breadth of beliefs possible using sola scriptura. I think this is another argument for its fallacy. If we are to select a guide, it's value as a guide would be in helping everyone arrive at the same destination. Sola scriptura fails here.
“You seem not to get the unintentional irony of condemning tradition while extolling preaching — but thanks for the laughs all the same.”
Do you even know what the Bible has to say on the matter of preaching? If you don’t like preaching, take it up with the Lord. He ordained the foolishness of preaching.
“For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE.” Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.” (1 Corinthians 1:18-21)
“How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “ How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!” (Romans 10:14-15)
What I said is that if Mary ever knew sin, the atonement [of her son -- satisfied?] is a hoax. Why don't you just chew on that for a decade or two.
“”Then how do you explains relics?”
Veneration. It can be explained by those Protestants I have seen openly weeping at The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and the site of Jesus’ trial and scourging at the location believed to be Pilate’s Praetorium in Jerusalem.
Peace be with you”
For some it may simply be veneration. But even that comes dangerously close to worship. I don’t challenge the inclusion of art or crosses in a church, but many churches don’t have them simply to avoid anything even close to idol worship.
As for other protestants, some will fall into idol worship. I don’t call the emotional experience of weeping at the Church of Nativity idol worship, but God will judge their intent.
Symbols are powerful and useful. That is why the Nativity Scene is so popular, as is the image of Christ on the cross. But symbols are also dangerous when misused.
Hmmm... I wonder what standard Catholic bible you're referring to. I am looking at my standard Catholic Bible right now and it has the book of Revelation in it. Perhaps you're confused because in the Catholic Bible, it is called The Apocalypse of St. John the Apostle.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.