And it is lacking in integrity to portray someone’s comments in a sense in which they were not originally stated.
Posted on 10/27/2013 5:25:55 AM PDT by NYer
There are 38 questions + a few bonus questions. I have split them into two separate posts of 20 and 18 + bonus questions. In case you missed it, here is the link to Part 1. Are you ready?
21. Who in the Church had the authority to determine which books belonged in the New Testament canon and to make this decision binding on all Christians? If nobody has this authority, then can I remove or add books to the canon on my own authority?
22. Why do Protestant scholars recognize the early Church councils at Hippo and Carthage as the first instances in which the New Testament canon was officially ratified, but ignore the fact that those same councils ratified the Old Testament canon used by the Catholic Church today but abandoned by Protestants at the Reformation?
23. Why do Protestants follow postapostolic Jewish decisions on the boundaries of the Old Testament canon, rather than the decision of the Church founded by Jesus Christ?
24. How were the bishops at Hippo and Carthage able to determine the correct canon of Scripture, in spite of the fact that they believed all the distinctively Catholic doctrines such as the apostolic succession of bishops, the sacrifice of the Mass, Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, baptismal regeneration, etc?
25. If Christianity is a “book religion,” how did it flourish during the first 1500 years of Church history when the vast majority of people were illiterate?
26. How could the Apostle Thomas establish the church in India that survives to this day (and is now in communion with the Catholic Church) without leaving them with one word of New Testament Scripture?
27. If sola Scriptura is so solid and biblically based, why has there never been a full treatise written in its defense since the phrase was coined in the Reformation?
28. If Jesus intended for Christianity to be exclusively a “religion of the book,” why did He wait 1400 years before showing somebody how to build a printing press?
29. If the early Church believed in sola Scriptura, why do the creeds of the early Church always say “we believe in the Holy Catholic Church,” and not “we believe in Holy Scripture”?
30. If the Bible is as clear as Martin Luther claimed, why was he the first one to interpret it the way he did and why was he frustrated at the end of his life that “there are now as many doctrines as there are heads”?
31. The time interval between the Resurrection and the establishment of the New Testament canon in AD 382 is roughly the same as the interval between the arrival of the Mayflower in America and the present day. Therefore, since the early Christians had no defined New Testament for almost four hundred years, how did they practice sola Scriptura?
32. If the Bible is the only foundation and basis of Christian truth, why does the Bible itself say that the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Tim. 3:15)?
33. Jesus said that the unity of Christians would be objective evidence to the world that He had been sent by God (John 17:20-23). How can the world see an invisible "unity" that exists only in the hearts of believers?
34. If the unity of Christians was meant to convince the world that Jesus was sent by God, what does the ever-increasing fragmentation of Protestantism say to the world?
35. Hebrews 13:17 says, "Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you." What is the expiration date of this verse? When did it become okay not only to disobey the Church's leaders, but to rebel against them and set up rival churches?
36. The Koran explicitly claims divine inspiration, but the New Testament books do not. How do you know that the New Testament books are nevertheless inspired, but the Koran is not?
37. How does a Protestant know for sure what God thinks about moral issues such as abortion, masturbation, contraceptives, eugenics, euthanasia, etc.?
38. What is one to believe when one Protestant says infants should be baptized (e.g., Luther and Calvin) and another says it is wrong and unbiblical (e.g., Baptists and Evangelicals)?
Where does the Bible . . .
. . . say God created the world/universe out of nothing?
. . . say salvation is attainable through faith alone?
. . . tell us how we know that the revelation of Jesus Christ ended with the death of the last Apostle?
. . . provide a list of the canonical books of the Old Testament?
. . . provide a list of the canonical books of the New Testament?
. . . explain the doctrine of the Trinity, or even use the word “Trinity”?
. . . tell us the name of the “beloved disciple”?
. . . inform us of the names of the authors of the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John?
. . . who wrote the Book of Acts?
. . . tell us the Holy Spirit is one of the three Persons of the Trinity?
. . . .tell us Jesus Christ was both fully God and fully man from the moment of conception (e.g. how do we know His Divinity wasn't infused later in His life?) and/or tells us Jesus Christ is One Person with two complete natures, human and Divine and not some other combination of the two natures (i.e., one or both being less than complete)?
. . . that the church should, or someday would be divided into competing and disagreeing denominations?
. . . that Protestants can have an invisible unity when Jesus expected a visible unity to be seen by the world (see John 17)?
. . . tell us Jesus Christ is of the same substance of Divinity as God the Father?
Like a certain WHINER here that doesn’t want his WHINING made more public?
I believe there is a HIGHER rule about being a hypocrite.
Yep, by jiminy you are correct there verga. Neanderthals the whole bunch of em. It’s amazing they could even understand what Jesus and the apostles were saying. They sure did luck out getting some of those buildings to stand as long as they did though. Josephus probably knew that one day after they invented books his writings would finaly get read by somebody. And those apostles writing to the churches must have done it just the one or two people who had somehow learned to read could read them for the Neanderthals in the pews.
LOL I love truth!
Have you ever noticed that pillars and foundations don’t design or erect the building?
You know the masses didn’t have time to learn to read. They were too busy picking nits off each other. I just say thank you Catholic Church, for taking us off nit-picking and putting us into a stupor, waiting for our next instructions on how to live and what to believe. If not for them, we would have had to force ourselves into hunting and gathering truth for ourselves. Imagine, searching the scriptures daily, on our own, to see if those things were so! Dangerous grounds if you ask me..
Have you ever noticed that buildings constructed on sand, soon collapse?
What’s that got to do with this conversation? You wouldn’t be obfuscating would you?
If you give me a url and post number by Freepmail, I’ll be glad to remove it.
Abstention to prevent conception is. (A sin)Anyone want to help correct the odd belief that abstention from sex is sinful?
No babies are killed by barrier methods of contraception either. If preventing conception is so evil that the Catholic church teaches that Onan was killed by God for it, where does that leave those who practice NFP? The hypocrisy of the Catholic church is staggering in their use of double standards.More of the (odd) story.
Well, if you’re going to call in your posse to “correct” me, you might as well start by correctly stating what I said.
In my post 298, I stated such.....
“How is it any different than what Onan did?
Preventing conception is preventing conception.
If the act of preventing conception is the sin, then NFP is sin.”
The Catholic argument as presented is that contraception somehow diminishes or cheapens sex to being just a satisfaction of the flesh. If the big issue is *wasting seed* then having sex only when the woman is not fertile is also *wasting seed*.
But I seriously don’t expect any Catholic who has been brought up with a Catholic mindset to see the argument from a different POV.
And it is lacking in integrity to portray someone’s comments in a sense in which they were not originally stated.
“The Church” is not that abomination known as the Roman Catholic Church.
The church is that invisible mystic body of true believers, and it is not likely that many of its members are participants in that Roman abomination.
The RCC is the wide gate that leads to destruction.
And it is lacking in integrity to portray someone’s comments in a sense in which they were not originally stated.
Would E-s comment be considered a personal attack?
Protestants never let facts get in the way of their ignorance.
Maybe you should go cry to the mod.
Your gloating post was the attack, and false at that.
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