Posted on 05/03/2008 4:38:34 PM PDT by NYer
Scripture, our Evangelical friends tell us, is the inerrant Word of God. Quite right, the Catholic replies; but how do you know this to be true?
It's not an easy question for Protestants, because, having jettisoned Tradition and the Church, they have no objective authority for the claims they make for Scripture. There is no list of canonical books anywhere in the Bible, nor does any book (with the exception of St. John's Apocalypse) claim to be inspired. So, how does a "Bible Christian" know the Bible is the Word of God?
If he wants to avoid a train of thought that will lead him into the Catholic Church, he has just one way of responding: With circular arguments pointing to himself (or Luther or the Jimmy Swaggart Ministries or some other party not mentioned in the Bible) as an infallible authority telling him that it is so. Such arguments would have perplexed a first or second century Christian, most of whom never saw a Bible.
Christ founded a teaching Church. So far as we know, he himself never wrote a word (except on sand). Nor did he commission the Apostles to write anything. In due course, some Apostles (and non-Apostles) composed the twenty-seven books which comprise the New Testament. Most of these documents are ad hoc; they are addressed to specific problems that arose in the early Church, and none claim to present the whole of Christian revelation. It's doubtful that St. Paul even suspected that his short letter to Philemon begging pardon for a renegade slave would some day be read as Holy Scripture.
Who, then, decided that it was Scripture? The Catholic Church. And it took several centuries to do so. It was not until the Council of Carthage (397) and a subsequent decree by Pope Innocent I that Christendom had a fixed New Testament canon. Prior to that date, scores of spurious gospels and "apostolic" writings were floating around the Mediterranean basin: the Gospel of Thomas, the "Shepherd" of Hermas, St. Paul's Letter to the Laodiceans, and so forth. Moreover, some texts later judged to be inspired, such as the Letter to the Hebrews, were controverted. It was the Magisterium, guided by the Holy Spirit, which separated the wheat from the chaff.
But, according to Protestants, the Catholic Church was corrupt and idolatrous by the fourth century and so had lost whatever authority it originally had. On what basis, then, do they accept the canon of the New Testament? Luther and Calvin were both fuzzy on the subject. Luther dropped seven books from the Old Testament, the so-called Apocrypha in the Protestant Bible; his pretext for doing so was that orthodox Jews had done it at the synod of Jamnia around 100 A. D.; but that synod was explicitly anti-Christian, and so its decisions about Scripture make an odd benchmark for Christians.
Luther's real motive was to get rid of Second Maccabees, which teaches the doctrine of Purgatory. He also wanted to drop the Letter of James, which he called "an epistle of straw," because it flatly contradicts the idea of salvation by "faith alone" apart from good works. He was restrained by more cautious Reformers. Instead, he mistranslated numerous New Testament passages, most notoriously Romans 3:28, to buttress his polemical position.
The Protestant teaching that the Bible is the sole spiritual authority--sola scriptura --is nowhere to be found in the Bible. St. Paul wrote to Timothy that Scripture is "useful" (which is an understatemtn), but neither he nor anyone else in the early Church taught sola scriptura. And, in fact, nobody believed it until the Reformation. Newman called the idea that God would let fifteen hundred years pass before revealing that the bible was the sole teaching authority for Christians an "intolerable paradox."
Newman also wrote: "It is antecedently unreasonable to Bsuppose that a book so complex, so unsystematic, in parts so obscure, the outcome of so many minds, times, and places, should be given us from above without the safeguard of some authority; as if it could possibly, from the nature of the case, interpret itself...." And, indeed, once they had set aside the teaching authority of the Church, the Reformers began to argue about key Scriptural passages. Luther and Zwingli, for example, disagreed vehemently about what Christ meant by the words, "This is my Body."
St. Augustine, usually Luther's guide and mentor, ought to have the last word about sola scriptura: "But for the authority of the Church, I would not believe the Gospel."
Sooooo, if one doesn’t pray to Mary they are ANTI Jesus???
Quite the opposite! I pray DIRECTLY TOO Jesus. Protestants have a direct line!
You just built a straw man argument and then tore it down. There is an extremely important distinction between deferring to scripture and blindly ignoring every other source of revelation. If you wish to argue against a traditional understanding of revelation, you should first make the effort to fully understand the position that you wish to argue against.
Yes, it proves my point that you were wrong. You claimed that unanimously all the Church Father believed the Scriptures to be solely authoritative. Augustine believed the Catholic Church also had authority.
Even in this well-worn quote, Augustine admits that his faith was "in the Gospel" not the Catholic Church.
We were talking about authority, not faith. Augustine clearly states that the Catholic Church has aurhority, not solely the Scriptures.
Do you receive the Body and Blood of Jesus like He told you to??
Hmmmmm...guess? That's a good word to use. Your guess is as good as mine. :-) If the Apostles were chosen by the Savior and they were inspired men, and they felt inspired to ensure there were 12 Apostles to lead the church, and they felt inspired to choose Matthias to replace Judas, then succession makes sense.
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Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.
My apologies.
George Sim Johnston is an evolutionist who rejects the inerrancy of Scripture.
How long do you intend to attack this straw man of "sola scriptura," NYer? I don't believe in "sola scriptura" but that doesn't make me a Catholic. Catholicism is not the only alternative to "sola scriptura."
There is a much older oral interpretive tradition that isn't embarrassed by the stories of the Hebrew Bible. You're very good at demanding that Protestants be open-minded enough to consider your tradition. Maybe you should be open minded enough to consider the Jewish one.
Protestants don't talk to dead people. Only the occult does that.
Since Jesus is alive, we pray to Him and His Father. That's all we need, and that's all He wants. Contrary to what Catholics believe, Jesus (and His Father) is not too busy to be listening to us, and He listens to our prayers. We don't need another intercessor.
So you don’t pray to the Holy Spirit....hmmmmm....OK.
I didn’t catch Manfred’s thread.
However, we know that our beloved RM cannot be on 24/7. Even if he could—in terms of sleep—he’d need to stay sane and need some breaks!
We know that not all mods share the same sensibilities.
We know that mods do not countermand one another.
Life is not fair.
Thankfully, ultimately, God is more than fair.
This comment of yours should be directed to those who argue against Sola Scriptura.
BTW can you name something other than the holy scriptures that Paul said were "able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus, given by inspiration of God, and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness"??? [II Timothy 3]
What other source of revelation could you be referring to that is "inspired by God" and accomplishes these things. Inquiring minds would like to know --
That's okay!!! Sometimes they are one and the same.
As to the Book of Maccabees, I have no objection to its inclusion. Such a problem is small potatoes. My only desire is that the Old Testament should mirror the text used by Jews. After all, the Old Testament is a record of their revelation and relationship to God.
Famous last words. Anyone who's uttered them was shortly thereafter set adrift like a helium baloon.
Logic is the tool of truth.
Please tell us you're joking.
you know how too much troweling can ruin a good plaster job?
Sophistry alert.
I have news fo you: us Catholics pray to the Lord God Almighty. I pray to Him every day.
According to the Catholic Cathechism, the Lord’s Prayer, given to us by Jesus Christ, is the foundation and starting point for all prayer.
In practice, when praying my own personal prayers, I start with the Our Father prayer. That is the KEY prayer in all of Christendom, because Christ Himself gave it as an example of proper prayer.
The Communion of Saints is a doctrine that all of God’s people are still with each other, although some of them are passed on to God’s Kingdom. The Catholic (and Orthodox, and Coptic and some Protestant Churches) feel it is just fine to ask them to pray with you, to join in your prayers. The Church feels that their prayers, added to your own, can help you.
The Church never teaches that they are substitutes for The Most Holy Trinity. They are servants and messengers of God who can assist you with your needs.
Petrosius already pointed out the article you supplied was denominated in Lire - not a huge amount.
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