Posted on 10/28/2011 6:59:29 AM PDT by markomalley
October 31 is only three days away. For Protestants, it is Reformation Day, the date in 1517 on which Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to that famous door in Wittenberg, Germany. Since I returned to the Catholic Church in April 2007, each year the commemoration has become a time of reflection about my own journey and the puzzles that led me back to the Church of my youth.
One of those puzzles was the relationship between the Church, Tradition, and the canon of Scripture. As a Protestant, I claimed to reject the normative role that Tradition plays in the development of Christian doctrine. But at times I seemed to rely on it. For example, on the content of the biblical canon – whether the Old Testament includes the deuterocanonical books (or “Apocrypha”), as the Catholic Church holds and Protestantism rejects. I would appeal to the exclusion of these books as canonical by the Jewish Council of Jamnia (A.D. 90-100) as well as doubts about those books raised by St. Jerome, translator of the Latin Vulgate, and a few other Church Fathers.
My reasoning, however, was extra-biblical. For it appealed to an authoritative leadership that has the power to recognize and certify books as canonical that were subsequently recognized as such by certain Fathers embedded in a tradition that, as a Protestant, I thought more authoritative than the tradition that certified what has come to be known as the Catholic canon. This latter tradition, rejected by Protestants, includes St. Augustine as well as the Council of Hippo (A.D. 393), the Third Council of Carthage (A.D. 397), the Fourth Council of Carthage (A.D. 419), and the Council of Florence (A.D. 1441).
But if, according to my Protestant self, a Jewish council and a few Church Fathers are the grounds on which I am justified in saying what is the proper scope of the Old Testament canon, then what of New Testament canonicity? So, ironically, given my Protestant understanding of ecclesiology, then the sort of authority and tradition that apparently provided me warrant to exclude the deuterocanonical books from Scripture – binding magisterial authority with historical continuity – is missing from the Church during the development of New Testament canonicity.
The Catholic Church, on the other hand, maintains that this magisterial authority was in fact present in the early Church and thus gave its leadership the power to recognize and fix the New Testament canon. So, ironically, the Protestant case for a deuterocanonical-absent Old Testament canon depends on Catholic intuitions about a tradition of magisterial authority.
This led to two other tensions. First, in defense of the Protestant Old Testament canon, I argued, as noted above, that although some of the Church’s leading theologians and several regional councils accepted what is known today as the Catholic canon, others disagreed and embraced what is known today as the Protestant canon. It soon became clear to me that this did not help my case, since by employing this argumentative strategy, I conceded the central point of Catholicism: the Church is logically prior to the Scriptures. That is, if the Church, until the Council of Florence’s ecumenical declaration in 1441, can live with a certain degree of ambiguity about the content of the Old Testament canon, that means that sola scriptura was never a fundamental principle of authentic Christianity.
After all, if Scripture alone applies to the Bible as a whole, then we cannot know to which particular collection of books this principle applies until the Bible’s content is settled. Thus, to concede an officially unsettled canon for Christianity’s first fifteen centuries seems to make the Catholic argument that sola scriptura was a sixteenth-century invention and, therefore, not an essential Christian doctrine.
Second, because the list of canonical books is itself not found in Scripture – as one can find the Ten Commandments or the names of Christ’s apostles – any such list, whether Protestant or Catholic, would be an item of extra-biblical theological knowledge. Take, for example, a portion of the revised and expanded Evangelical Theological Society statement of faith suggested (and eventually rejected by the membership) by two ETS members following my return to the Catholic Church. It states that, “this written word of God consists of the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments and is the supreme authority in all matters of belief and behavior.”
But the belief that the Bible consists only of sixty-six books is not a claim of Scripture, since one cannot find the list in it, but a claim about Scripture as a whole. That is, the whole has a property – i.e., “consisting of sixty-six books,” – that is not found in any of the parts. In other words, if the sixty-six books are the supreme authority on matters of belief, and the number of books is a belief, and one cannot find that belief in any of the books, then the belief that Scripture consists of sixty-six particular books is an extra-biblical belief, an item of theological knowledge that is prima facie non-biblical.
For the Catholic, this is not a problem, since the Bible is the book of the Church, and thus there is an organic unity between the fixing of the canon and the development of doctrine and Christian practice.
Although I am forever indebted to my Evangelical brethren for instilling and nurturing in me a deep love of Scripture, it was that love that eventually led me to the Church that had the authority to distinguish Scripture from other things.
Christianity is, if nothing else, the celebration of the gift of this life and the next by a loving God. To the extent that Scripture leads us to God and Salvation it is "profitable" (contributory), but Christianity is not a worship of Scripture. Scripture serves us, not we it.
Human languages, even inspired writings, fall short of the divine, and whatever can be said is only approximation bounded by the limits of language and our inability to comprehend the infinite. Even for the inspired rhetorician St. Augustine the limitations of human language were a paradox. This is further lost in the attempts to translate from his original Latin to English.
Quid es ergo, Deus meus?
summe, optime,
potentissime, omnipotentissime,
misericordissime et iustissime,
secretissime et praesentissime,
pulcherrime et fortissime,
stabilis et incomprehensibilis,
immutabilis mutans omnia,
numquam novus numquam vetus,
semper agens semper quietus,
conligens et non egens,
portans et implens et protegens,
creans et nutriens et perficiens,
quaerens cum nihil desit tibi.
et quid diximus, deus meus, vita mea, dulcedo mea sancta,
aut quid dicit aliquis cum de te dicit?
et vae tacentibus de te, quoniam loquaces muti sunt.
What art Thou then, my God?
Most highest, most good,
most potent, most omnipotent;
most merciful and most just;
most hidden and most present;
most beautiful and most strong,
standing firm and elusive,
unchangeable and all-changing; never new, never old;
ever working, ever at rest;
gathering in and [yet] lacking nothing;
supporting, filling, and sheltering;
creating, nourishing, and maturing;
seeking and [yet] having all things.
And what have I now said, my God, my life, my holy joy?
or what says any man when he speaks of Thee?
And woe to him who keeps silent about you,
since many babble on and say nothing.
My point was that each of us has the Holy Spirit within us to protect us from charlatans such as organized the RCC.
Did the history of the Jews begin with Moses?
Scripture does more than just give us the Law.
It tells the Jewish people how they got there and why they are to keep the Law. Without it, without that belief that God is the Almighty Creator who chose them as His people, why would they follow the Law?
It is the same for us with Jesus. We learn from the OT, how we got here, why we believe and then once we believe we follow His commands so that we will remain in Him and He in us.
It is not the writing down of things that we are discussing.
It is whether or not each individual believer must READ Scripture to believe and be saved.
My point, to clarify, was that the Jewish people did not write all of their history as it happened and it was oral Tradition that even Moses depended on to know that Israel is the Chosen People of God. There was nothing written before Moses!
So, what Moses knew he knew from oral teaching. Do you see now why it would be of the utmost importance that what was passed orally was preserved as accurately as possible?
Then when God did first write the Ten Commandments and instructed Moses to write the first five books of the OT, we trust that what was written was inerrant by the working of God through Moses.
When he wrote those things which came before him, do you imagine he was knowing them for the first time? Or was he writing the history he had heard orally passed down to him by his ancestors.
It’s easy to see in the introduction of Luke also.
Holy fathers? “There is none holy as the LORD.”
1 Samuel 2:2 There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God.
All who belong to the true body of Christ have the assurance of the one true counselor.
And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you. John 14:16,17 "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression" (Isaiah 58:1).
Deny the indwelling fullness of the Holy Spirit by all true believers at your own peril.
And that sir, is just my point. No one is qualified to determine truth or untruth, but the Holy Catholic Church.
I will. Unless you have been chrismated and baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, you have no indwelling of anything, much less the Holy Spirit.
Are you denying that the Holy Spirit promised to each of us who truly believe does not determine truth?
John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
Also, it is believed that the Torah was created before the world was created: The Power of Words.
It seems to me the pre-existence belief is probably at the root of Isaac Newton's and various Rabbis' that the Scriptures are encoded. Equidistant Letter Sequencing (ELS or Bible Codes) was an attempt to decode serially (one dimension.)
And, thus, when we have many who believe ‘I am the Church’ we have a plethora of conflicting ‘truth.’
LOL Chrismated ey? Catholics may rely on the rituals of men but I was baptized in the name of the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit. Scripture tells us that all who truly believe will be indwelled by the Holy Spirit. That same Holy Spirit that the CC seems to deny those who are believers choosing rather to convince those who are gullible that only a special select few have the ability to determine the truth of scripture.
>>>>>I was baptized in the name of the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit.
Just a question: Do you think Catholics are NOT baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?
>>>>>Scripture tells us that all who truly believe will be indwelled by the Holy Spirit
Another query: Do you think that Catholics do NOT truly believe in Christ Jesus, Risen Son of Almighty God, as Lord and Savior?
>>>>>That same Holy Spirit that the CC seems to deny
And now: Where and when do you find that the CC denies the Holy Spirit?
Do you not know that Samuel anointed David? Chrismation is anointing with oil.
When you are in schism with Christ’s church, you do not receive that indwelling.
PS, in your baptism ritual, who baptized you? A man, a woman, a Zeta Reticulan?
Unless it was a space alien, it was a “ritual of man.”
Christ’s church as opposed to the apostate Roman Catholic Church of today. Scripture tells us about those who think to tell us they are in line of the apostles.
2 Corinthians 11:13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. 14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. 15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
They are those who preach another gospel than what the Apostles preached.
Galatians 1:6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: 7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
Did the apostles preach a “queen of heaven”? Did the apostles teach to venerate or pray to dead people? Did the apostles teach that Mary was to be venerated and even prayed to? That answer to all of those is no.
It’s the Catholic Church that preaches “another gospel”. The true church of Christ are those who are true believers in Him and the RCC can’t do anything about it.
No, it’s the Catholics who deny the Holy Spirit teaching of the Holy Spirit to anyone who is not a member of the RCC.
>>Another query: Do you think that Catholics do NOT truly believe in Christ Jesus, Risen Son of Almighty God, as Lord and Savior?<<
They deny Him is place by putting limits on His total saving sacrifice. They insist that His sacrifice needs added to by the works of men.
>>Where and when do you find that the CC denies the Holy Spirit?<<
It’s the same Holy Spirit that indwells all true believers. The CC says only it can tell people what is true. That’s denying the Holy Spirit that indwells all true believers.
>>>>>No, it’s the Catholics who deny the Holy Spirit teaching of the Holy Spirit to anyone who is not a member of the RCC.
No, they don’t. That is not true.
>>>>>They deny Him is place by putting limits on His total saving sacrifice. They insist that His sacrifice needs added to by the works of men.
Another clanging falsehood.
>>>>>>The CC says only it can tell people what is true. That’s denying the Holy Spirit that indwells all true
Where do you come up with this stuff? It’s all false. Completely and utterly false.
****The Bible IS truth.****
The Bible is the inerrant word ABOUT TRUTH.
Jesus IS Truth.
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