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.
If thou sayeth the subset - "All Catholics are liars" - panty wadiness wouldest be much in evidence.
No one else who knows her through her writings can either.
So why did you build up such accusatory, pathetic little strawman representation of what you just confessed you yourself do not believe of her?
I'd bet you confuse a lot of mind readers.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean...but I don’t mean to be singling out only those of one ecclesiastical community for the inclusive above commentary.
On whom is the sword used? Read carefully what I said again.
Christ by nature brings love, peace, forgiveness, and salvation to those who believe in Him and follow Him.
IOW those who reject Him will find no peace, forgiveness, nor salvation. The peace He offered was not and will not be accepted by the world as a whole. It was reject then and is being rejected still today.
Earthly trials and tribulations will be with us till either Christ returns or our own physical death. Yet in those trials and tribulations He is with us.
For a second grader mentality, perhaps.....
Just wanted to point out that ALL means EXACTLY what it says: All men are liars.
(Although someone will point out that WOMEN are not mentioned, therefore Mary is sinless and now in Heaven.)
Ah...
I see.
So qualifiers DO means something after all!
Amen, Brother!
(Taxes; too!)
Nice QUALIFIER you guys have here!
I just HAD to go back and see what these two are spending so much time on:
It appears the if got lost just before these inflammatory words:
You believe:
If you recite some words on a tract handed to you back in high school, you can sin willingly and wantonly and love doing it without regret for the rest of your life and get to heaven.
You believe that as long as you said some magic words once, drunk or sober, you get a free ticket. You said the magic words, that’s all it takes. You’re forgiven; heaven-bound. If you don’t, off to hell with you.
WOW! I can’t believe you believe that!
That actually sounds a lot like Catholicism.
The attitude I saw among them was that if they sinned, they’d just go to confession and they were good to go.
And considering that the likes of Kennedy and Chavez got Catholic funerals and the blessing of the church when they died, it certainly is obvious that Catholicism cares little how one lives as long as they *repent* at the end.
The church hasn’t denied communion yet to the likes of Kerry and Pelosi, so no Catholics is in any position to condemn others over a allegedly flippant attitude towards sin.
If some man were to say "all men are liars" -would that make it impossible for the saying itself to be true?
The correct corollary would be "all statements are lies." Then you'd have the same self-refuting problem.
To illustrate the tactic in response to it being used in my direction. That should be obvious, but I think some folks don't read the full discussion before posting.
I was going to rearrange the wording and toss it back at them!
It’s the level of discourse that they understand.
Says you.....
Says you....
Says you.....
Prove it isn't.
The parallel is this:
doctrine = statement
not
men=doctrine
>>”If no doctrine or dogma is perfect then this doctrine too is flawed.
If some man were to say “all men are liars” -would that make it impossible for the saying itself to be true?
Good lay down of the facts.
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