Posted on 04/20/2014 12:50:38 PM PDT by Gamecock
The perennial question in the debate over sola Scriptura is whether the church is over the Bible or the Bible is over the church. If you take the latter position, then you are (generally speaking) a Protestant who believes the Scriptures, and the Scriptures alone, are the only infallible rule and therefore the supreme authority over the church. But, here is the irony: Roman Catholics also claim to be “under” the authority of the Bible.
The Roman Catholic church insists that the Scripture is always superior to the Magisterium. Dei Verbum declares, “This teaching office is not above the Word of God, but serves it” (2.10), and the Catholic Catechism declares: “Yet, this Magisterium is not superior to the word of God, but its servant” (86). However, despite these qualifications, one still wonders how Scripture can be deemed the ultimate authority if the Magisterium is able to define, determine, and interpret the Scripture in the first place. Moreover, the Magisterium seems to “discover” doctrines that are not consistent with the original meaning of Scripture itself—e.g,, the immaculate conception, purgatory, papal infallibility and the like. Thus, despite these declarations from Rome, residual concerns remain about whether the Magisterium functionally has authority over the Scriptures.
My friend and colleague James Anderson has written a helpful blog post that brings even further clarity to this issue. He begins by observing the judicial activism that happens all too often in the American political system. Judges go well beyond the original intent of the constitution and actually create new laws from the bench. He then argues:
What has happened in the US system of government almost exactly parallels what happened in the government of the Christian church over the course of many centuries, a development that finds its fullest expression in the Roman Catholic Church.
The Bible serves as the constitution of the Christian faith. It is the covenant documentation. It defines the Christian church: what constitutes the church, what is its mission, who runs the church and how it should be run, what are the responsibilities of the church, what is the scope of its authority, what laws govern the church and its members, and so forth. Once the constitution has been written, the task of the ‘judges’ (the elders/overseers of the church) is to interpret and apply it according to its original intent. Their task is not to create new laws or to come up with “interpretations” that cannot be found in the text of the constitution itself (interpreted according to original intent) and would never have crossed the minds of the “founding fathers” (Eph. 2:20).
Yet that’s just what happened over the course of time with the development of episcopacy, the rise of the papacy, and the increasing weight given to church tradition. To borrow Grudem’s phrasing: If the Bible didn’t say something something that the bishops wanted it to say, or thought it should say, they could claim to “discover” new doctrines in the Bible — purgatory, indulgences, apostolic succession, papal infallibility, etc. — and no one would have power to overrule them.
Adapting the candid statement of Chief Justice Hughes, today’s Roman Catholic might well put it thus: “We are under the Bible, but the Bible is what the Pope says it is.” In fact, that’s exactly how things stand in practice. Functionally the Pope has become the highest governing authority in his church: higher even than the Bible. The church has been derailed by “ecclesial activism”.
Thus, even though Rome claims that the Bible is its ultimate authority, practically speaking it is the church that is the ultimate authority. Rome is committed to sola ecclesia. And this clarifies the real difference between Protestants and Catholics. Something has to be the ultimate authority. It is either Scripture or the church.
To you; perhaps - blind heretic SCUM!!!
What TRUTHS are LEFT out of Scripture that are so VITALLY needed for man's salvation?
Always nice to see a CATHOLIC so lightly dismiss the gross SINS of the LEADERSHIP of the One True Church; the very vechicle the Holy Spirit is present in.
So you don't err and still claim to speak for the Holy Spirit?
When Christ established HIS CHURCH, it was ONE. Not 35,000.
The Bible is a Catholic document, handed on to the world By the inspiration of the Holy Ghost ON A CATHOLIC COUNCIL in 398. If the Church is wrong now, it was wrong then. The Church is the infallable Teacher, and the Perfect Body of Christ,(containing sinners) Christ established the Church, He IS God, God doesnt make mistakes.
There is one Catholic Faith, as God is One, there are tens of thousands of non catholics taking bits and peices of the bible to carve out whatever little niche helps them cope with who they are. If individuals can define the faith for them selves then Christ and his Word becomes babble.
Christ didn't need man to invent holy days...he had that covered.
I attend a Wesleyan congregation.
Now what??
13 “‘I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith[a] even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. 14 But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. 15 So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. 16 Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. 17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’
#3; again...
14 But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. 15 So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans.
MY 'church' is full of bad people...
We love 'em!
Romans 14:5
One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
Excellent question.
Yes, and there are plenty of wonderful text discover as in “ the lost Scriptures” which were not included in the canon by the powers that were back then. The real answer is that the inner holy spirit is the ultimate authority and if we are true Christians, that is obvious. The Bible is not God, nor is any church.
Rom 14:1 Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things.
Rom 14:2 For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables.
Rom 14:3 Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him.
Rom 14:4 Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.
If you want to esteem that you can eat vegetarian on certain days feel free. I won't stop you.
But if you think Paul is suggesting that he didn't give a rip about the 4th commandment or the holy days of Jesus Christ then you're embracing Roman heresy and tradition.
Nice that you are comforted by the illusion that the Holy Spirit would lead Protestants in a dozen different directions.
Your assertion has each individual as their own Pope.
sorry that you cannot see that Jesus came to save us from everything worldly, including and leaders or teachers. The spirit is the ultimate truth, just as it became that at Pentecost. Where is your faith? In the church, or the holy spirit?
How so and which ones?
Interesting essay.
Now what??
I go study George Bernard Shaw's theories on wrestling.
Go fish.
My faith is that the Holy Spirit has guided me to Scripture and the traditions of the Church.
Are you continuing to pretend that the Holy Spirit guides us each in a different direction?
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