I wasn't the one who made the "absurd" statement. Your good buddy Steelfish did:
Did the early Christians have the Bible as we know it? No. The Bible as a whole was not compiled until the late 4th century and then it was compiled by a Catholic saint (St. Jerome) at the request of a Catholic pope (St. Damasus I).
I do agree with you. It was absurd to make such a claim.
Actually if you follow the thread back far enough you will see that I was quoting one of the prots. And yes it is an exact quote since I copied and pasted. I did not paraphrase.
Thank you for demonstrating the Knee Jerk reactions that prots are so good at.
What is striking from this coterie of Protestant folks is more of what they are unable to refute. Not one word about how the early Church Fathers believed that the risen Christ is in the consecrated bread and wine in the Catholic Mass. These are the same early theologians whose combined work for nearly three centuries examined and studied the hundreds of written textual fragments and cross-checked these against the received oral tradition and gave the world what they identified as the true Word of God. They cannot refute what St. Irenaeus wrote about 185 AD, about the Church’s realistic interpretation of the Eucharist as the risen body of Christ.
The historical timeline works against any possibility of refutation. Protestantism washed ashore with its cluster of heresies eleven centuries later. It cannot be said that we had to await the ONE truth of God for eleven centuries, and all those early followers of Christ including those who assembled the Bible were either misled or misinterpreted the Word of God.
So let’s begin by responding to the multiple posts of boatbums received at this eleventh hour of the night.
In one of his latest post, boatbums unreservedly asserts: (I kid you not: the caps are his)
“There IS a firm set of beliefs that identify genuine Christians. They are ALL Biblical, have been believed always, everywhere and by all and have never changed from the start.”
boatbums explains that his B.A. degree in divinity study was simply to show that Catholics did not have a monopoly on the “intellectual side.”
Of course the real issue was in connection with theologians who for four centuries leading up to the formal recognition of the canonical texts, and ever since.
These include the likes of Augustine, Aquinas, Newman, and Benedict (whose work form part of the theological curriculum of major colleges) AND eminent Lutheran and Protestant theologians who converted to Catholicism, to say nothing of the constellation of brilliant lay minds who converted to Catholicism have embraced the risen Christ in the consecrated host.
boatbums, a few questions for you:
During your degree study did anyone ask if Christ taught ONE truth? How do we know the ONE truth from Christ’s written and unwritten Word? Did Christ establish ONE Church to teach this truth? If so, was this Church in existence for the first fifteen centuries before Protestantism? If it was not the Catholic Church, what Church was it? Were all the saints, martyrs, and stigmatists, to say nothing of the theologians, in error by their recognition of the risen Christ in the Eucharist? How did Christ make sure that His one truth would last until the end of time?
If your instructors ducked these questions, I’d make a claim for spiritual false pretenses and ask my money back.
boatbums scours the internet to produce polling data that a high percentage of Catholics do not believe in the Eucharist. But this is more a reflection of the knowledge of how well one reads, learns, and knows the true Word of God or the teachings of the Catholic faith. It has nothing whatsoever to do with what is the true Word of God as taught by the Catholic Church.
boatbums cannot rebut the fact that eminent Protestant theologians who have studied, taught, and written on Christianity have upon further study and reflection converted to Catholicism while noting the inherent inconsistencies of Protestantism and its inherent contradictions. It might come as a shock to boatbums that Catholics don’t take a poll to validate its Credo and Catechism. No one can claim the Catholic label if they do not believe in the Eucharist. Catholicism has a Credo, a Magisterium, and Catechism.
Protestants on the other hand from Rev. Jeremiah Wright to Rev. Billy Graham feel free to dispute the Eucharist, and so does every other Tom, Dick, and Harry and the pastors of Foursquare neighborhood churches who believe they can crack open the pages of the Bible and offer us their “definitive” interpretation of Scripture. And we don’t need to go far. We see now several mainline denominations use a scriptural warrant to validate their ordination of married of gay and lesbians pastors. This explains why Protestantism today is a caricature.
Catholics too believe with Rides_A_Red_Horse that the “sole focus” of salvation is the risen Christ. But to Catholics, belief in the Eucharist is essential for salvation. The resurrection is not some historical belief in a dead man having come to life.
In John 6:35 “And Jesus said to them: I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall not hunger: and he that believeth in me shall never thirst.” ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day’ (John 6:53-54)
Rides_A_Red_Horse finds it hard to appreciate the distinction between scriptural interpretation and personal lives. It’s not a question of Protestants being “tied” to the likes of anyone. Rather, it is the inescapable fact that the Billy Grahams, Jim Jones’, Joel Osteens, David Koreshs,’ all believe that “their” view of scriptural interpretation is the authentic word of God.
The Church is not some nebulous “body of followers” each holding different and contradictory beliefs. It would be just as absurd and simplistic if all nations claim to believe in human dignity and march under the banner of UN flag as followers of one truth.
boatbums echoes this simplistic view as well confusing personal lives with scriptural interpretation and authenticity by offering this comment in his recent post that, David Koresh like the “bad popes” are all dead. And yet you would think that with his B.A. degree in Divinity he would be able to make the distinction between personal lives and authority to infallibly and authentically interpret scripture as one truth.
Surely we can agree Christ taught ONE truth. To Catholics this ONE truth- includes the risen Christ in the Eucharist, the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacraments. These beliefs did not dissolve into multiple “truths” some fifteen centuries later. Such a notion collapses under the weight of its own absurdity and explains why even brilliant lay minds from all varieties of non-Christian beliefs have converted to Catholicism.
Different scriptural interpretations is a necessary concomitant of Protestantism and why the renowned essayist Hillaire Belloc in his book, “The Great Heresies,” wrote that unlike other heresies, Protestantism “spawned a cluster of heresies.”
To refute the Eucharist, Ravenwolf offers this gem from Matthew 4:4 “But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
So true but this is exactly what Christ was elaborating in John 6:53 and what the early disciples and Church Fathers believed as the Eucharist, the “living bread of Christ Himself.” This is what the Resurrection is all about.
netmom insists that proof be shown how she and ealgeone have differing interpretations of Scripture.
The comment on different interpretations was based on the assumption they are not members of the same Episcopal or Protestant sect or sub-sect and do not attend the same local foursquare church or the same First Baptist, or First Presbyterian; or First Calvary; or First Emmanuel; or First Church of God. There are so many “Firsts” each differing from the other. We must know whether they are Baptists or Presbyterians.
For example some believe in Rapture others don’t. Neither sect believes in the Eucharist but both engage in the parody of serving communion with Baptists using only grape juice, while Presbyterians use either grape juice or wine. Southern Baptists hold to the “Baptist Faith & Message” as their doctrinal statement. Presbyterians hold to the Westminster Confession of Faith. You can see the tangled mess wrought in these clusters of heresies. Maybe netmom and ealgeone will explain.
I don’t think we need Protestants to inform us on the Eucharist when we have our own Theological Einstein of our times. Below is a link to his expostulation. But it comes with a warning. This is not material for kindergartners. It requires a minimum intellect to read, comprehend, and digest..
I wasn’t the one who made the “absurd” statement. Your good buddy Steelfish did:
The Catholics seem to do this a lot here...