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?
“Yet, man “does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” and I don’t think Christ was contradicting himself when he called him self “living bread”. Christ gave his body once, we take the bread and cup in remembrance of that fact. But the word of God pours forth continuously via the Holy Spirit that resides in every believer’s heart. By repentance and confession of faith do we eat of that “living bread that came down from heaven”; Christ gave his body once, by conversion, we eat of his body once ....the periodic taking of the cup and bread is in remembrance of that fact. Christ is also known as the “word made flesh”, and it is the Spirit of God that writes this “word” in our inward parts and continuously renews our inner man daily, not a “consecrated” wafer and cup!!!
I won’t argue over ‘living presence’ or ‘transubstantiation” with you, other than what I’ve just said.
Lots of typical catholic erroneous comments spewing uncontrollably from your keyboard.
>> “Both this and the Protestant position appear to be that God was either unwilling or too weak to prevent the Church he founded from teaching sin and error” <<
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The Whore and her daughters is not just catholic in nature; it does include many protestants too. Yehova did protect his word by preserving sufficient copies of the Hebrew original of Matthew’s gospel for the time that it really matters.
The deliberate corruption that the RCC fostered is very much a part of Yehova’s plan, as he so clearly states in the Revelation.
He does not claim to be saving the masses, but a small remnant to enjoy his rest.
The “passover” in John 6 was a false addition by an obvious non-Jew translator, as can be seen by the lack of understanding shown. John would never have called Passover “a feast of the Jews” since he clearly knew that it was a required feast for all the nations. The time setting is clarified by comparison with the other gospels, thus proving beyond any doubt that the impending feast was Yom Teruah, and that the elapsed time was exactly correct to match the Sukkot mentioned in chapter 7.
Finally, Yeshua could not miss any required feast, since a violation of Torah would have disqualified him from the sinlessness needed to be the perfect sacrifice. He fulfilled every requirement, including those that trouble the false doctrines of the Whore and her daughters.
Isaiah 45:7 says: “Forming light and creating darkness..I am the LORD that does all these.
Again we see the inconsistency of Catholic teaching and thought in that the very Scripture Catholics deny as authoritative is being used in an authoritative way to give their church its authority.
That's pulling themselves up by their boot straps.
Preach it, brother.
On the contrary, the scripture you 'worship' supports the existence of the Catholic Church before it was written and compiled into the New Testament.
"Let us note that the very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning, which the Lord gave, was preached by the Apostles, and was preserved by the Fathers. On this was the Church founded; and if anyone departs from this, he neither is nor any longer ought to be called a Christian."
St. Athanasius ("Four Letters to Serapion of Thmuisc," c. 360 A.D.
>> “not a “consecrated” wafer and cup!” <<
.
This “consecrated” drivel is pure Nicolaitanism.
When Yeshua broke the loaf at his last supper, what he “blessed” was the Father, Yehova Elohim, who brings forth bread and wine from the Earth.
Only a nicolaitan can “consecrate” an inanimate object, and he needs Satan’s help to do it.
So we kinda agree?
>> “St. Athanasius (”Four Letters to Serapion of Thmuisc,” c. 360 A.D.” <<
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The time that the anti-scriptural Roman catholic church was founded on persecution of the real followers of The Way.
There was a real church for almost 300 years before the fiction called the Roman catholic church was created.
The two are opposites.
I’d say so.
For something to be ADDED TO, it must already EXIST.
Narcissistic much?
Pardon my cynicism but 100% men fight their own fights and don’t run to the teacher all the time. Just sayin.
>> “For something to be ADDED TO, it must already EXIST.” <<
Definitely, and so did most if not all of the congregations that Paul and Peter ministered to exist prior to their visits. Many of them also had their Torah scrolls that had been brought to those locations well before The Way had been preached to them.
These were established congregations of believers that needed the full message.
>> “I love living in the heads of prots rent free” <<
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Perhaps you live in your own imagination.
Athanasius who???
oops! ;o)
It is disingenuous playing with words. When RCs say the "Bible" they don't mean sacred Scripture, but the compiled volume containing all the books that make up the Bible canon. The one THEY claim they created as well as wrote - since they can, at will, go back in time and label all Christians, including the Apostles (and even the Jewish Patriarchs), as "Catholics". That's why they say the Bible didn't exist until the first council occurred three to four hundred years after the last Apostle died and which identified all the books that make up the Bible canon.
Conveniently, they ignore the lists some of the early church fathers wrote (i.e., Ireneaus, Tertullian, Origen) that DO usually identify the books accepted by the early Christians and recognized as well as read and studied by them. That these books had Apostolic sanction was the major reason why they were received as God-breathed Scripture. The Christians didn't need to wait for some "official" church council to believe the doctrines espoused within these epistles. Their divine origin was intrinsically understood and was why the doctrines they communicated were obeyed and why they had a "rule of faith" long before a formal canon was recognized.
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