Posted on 02/09/2014 7:51:42 AM PST by daniel1212
Are you asserting that the New Testament is a summa of the doctrines of the primitive church?
At least I know that there is one Catholic church teaching that was defined hundreds of years after Christ’s death that you accept. Your faith in Catholic Church’s canon of the New Testament is to be commended. If you are a papist in one respect why not be a papist in all respects?
By the way the canon of the NT was defined by the Church around the same time writings concerning the Assumption of Mary began to appear extensively in various writings.
I am saying that the Lord and His apostles established their Truth claims upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, (Mt. 22:23-45; Lk. 24:27,44; Jn. 5:36,39; Acts 2:14-35; 4:33; 5:12; 15:6-21;17:2,11; 18:28; 28:23; Rm. 15:19; 2Cor. 12:12, etc.) not on the premise of a perpetually infallible (if conditional) magisterium.
For Scripture, even the OT (which provided for recognition of both men and writings as being of God, and thus for a canon) was the standard for obedience and establishing Truth claims, as is abundantly evidenced.
However, based on your statements, the unanswered questions for you are:
Is your argument that an infallible (conditionally) magisterium is necessary as being the steward of Scripture which assuredly establishes what is of God, so that its judgment on what it rejects or affirms must be submitted to. And that thus the veracity of which magisterium is the ordained means by which one has assurance of Truth?
And that Rome is that infallible steward of Scripture, based on historical descent, etc.?
M.M. O’hare
Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620.
Protestcat!
You failed to consider the implications of the logic behind this often parroted polemic. Consistent with this, since those who sat in the seat of Moses over Israel, "unto whom were committed the oracles of God, " "to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen," (Romans 9:4-5) rejected Christ, therefore you are to conform to their judgments.
The point is that concurring with the conclusions of a source does not infer or require they warrant veracity in everything (even a broken clock is correct twice a day), while the reason we do concur on many things with Rome is not due to Rome warranting trust, but because they are Scripturally substantiated.
By the way the canon of the NT was defined by the Church around the same time writings concerning the Assumption of Mary began to appear extensively in various writings.
Actually, as has often been shown here, Rome had no infallible, indisputable canon until after Luther died, over 1400 years after the last book was written, while the Council of Rome (382) depends on the Decretum Gelasianum the authority of of which is disputed , based upon evidence that it was pseudepigraphical, being a sixth century compilation put together in northern Italy or southern France at the beginning of the 6th cent.
Moreover, the Council of Rome found opponents in Africa, while doubts and dissent about books now held as canonical continued among Catholic scholars right into Trent . And which may not be identical with earlier canons. See here .
Meanwhile, both men and writings of God were recognized and established as being so long before a church of Rome would presume she is uniquely necessary to do so as being infallible.
In addition, the difference btwn writings concerning the Assumption of Mary suddenly beginning to appear and the NT canon being defined, if not by an ecumenical council, is that the NT writings appeared soon after the fact, and were recognized as infallible Scripture, (2Pt. 3:16) if not universally, long before 382AD, while many non-infallible things began to appear later on, not all of which Rome holds to.
And oral tradition is precisely that. Besides the disputes about tradition Rome has with the EOs who reject universal papal jurisdiction, papal infallibility, purgatory, and the Immaculate Conception, etc. because they seem them as untraditional.
Thus the fact remains that your assurance rests upon Rome's say so, under the premise of her assured infallibility. For Rome has presumed to infallibly declare she is and will be perpetually infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares.
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