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.
That IS the game, alright!
If speculation were to be prohibited then these threads would be pretty empty. Simply be satisfied with the knowledge that he doesn't have the right to be taken seriously.
Just keep telling the truth in the face of ignorance. The truth is not established in these threads, it existed since before the beginning of time. No amount of distortion, appeals, threats, insults, ping list dog-piles, links, quotes, gotcha questions or outright lies is going to affect the truth one iota.
"In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." - Matthew 5:16
Chill. I posted this comment before I saw the Moderator’s and only did so as a courtesy ping. The LAST thing I would want to do is drag you into a discussion.
►VEHEMENTER NOS, Encyclical of Pope Pius X promulgated on February 11, 1906:
It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of per sons, the Pastors and the flock, those who occupy a rank in the different degrees of the hierarchy and the multitude of the faithful. So distinct are these categories that with the pastoral body only rests the necessary right and authority for promoting the end of the society and directing all its members towards that end; the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastor
► http://baltimore-catechism.com/lesson12.htm:
Q. 554. Could a person who denies only one article of our faith be a Catholic?
A. A person who denies even one article of our faith could not be a Catholic; for truth is one and we must accept it whole and entire or not at all.
►“Once he does so (joins the Catholic church), he has no further use for his reason. He enters the Church, an edifice illumined by the superior light of revelation and faith. He can leave reason like a lantern at the door.” (John H. Stapleton, Explanation of Catholic Morals, Chapter XIX, XXIII. the consistent believer (1904); Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor Librorum. Imprimatur, John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York )
►“All that we do [as must be patent enough now] is to submit our judgment and conform our beliefs to the authority Almighty God has set up on earth to teach us; this, and nothing else.”
“...outside the pale of Rome there is not a scrap of additional truth of Revelation to be found.”
“He willingly submits his judgment on questions the most momentous that can occupy the mind of man-----questions of religion-----to an authority located in Rome.”
“Absolute, immediate, and unfaltering submission to the teaching of God's Church on matters of faith and morals-----this is what all must give..”
“The Vicar of Christ is the Vicar of God; to us the voice of the Pope is the voice of God. This, too, is why Catholics would never dream of calling in question the utterance of a priest in expounding Christian doctrine according to the teaching of the Church;”
“He is as sure of a truth when declared by the Catholic Church as he would be if he saw Jesus Christ standing before him and heard Him declaring it with His Own Divine lips.” - “Henry G. Graham, "What Faith Really Means", (Nihil Obstat:C. SCHUT, S. T.D., Censor Deputatus, Imprimatur: EDM. CANONICUS SURMONT, D.D.,Vicarius Generalis. WESTMONASTERII, Die 30 Septembris, 1914 )
Obey blindly , that is, without asking reasons. Be careful, then, never to examine the directions of your confessor....In a word, keep before your eyes this great rule, that in obeying your confessor you obey God. Force yourself then, to obey him in spite of all fears. And be persuaded that if you are not obedient to him it will be impossible for you to go on well; but if you obey him you are secure. But you say, if I am damned in consequence of obeying my confessor, who will rescue me from hell? What you say is impossible." St. Alphonsus De Liguori, True Spouse of Christ, p 352, Benziger Brothers, NY
►PRAECLARA GRATULATIONIS PUBLICAE, Apostolic Letter of Pope Leo XIII, June 20, 1894
But since We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty, Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth, and now that Our advanced age and the bitterness of anxious cares urge Us on towards the end common to every mortal, We feel drawn to follow the example of Our Redeemer and Master, Jesus Christ.. http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo13/l13praec.htm
The leadership of the Apostolic See has always been active, and therefore because of its preeminent authority , the whole Church must agree with it." (On Faith And Religion), Encyclical promulgated on November 9, 1846, #11. http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9quiplu.htm
►"These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." (Acts 17:11)
*Partial list of references to Divine written revelation being written (Scripture) and references to it, substantiating the claim that as they were written, the written word became the standard for obedience and in establishing truth claims
Okay, so are you making a connection between water baptism - the "right" way - and anointing with oil as if they MUST go together? If so, then you will have to show me Scriptural support for combining the two actions into one. In the Old Testament times, a boy child was circumcised at eight days old but anointing with oil could or could not happen in that boy's life depending upon what he was called to do in the service of God. Girl children did not have a comparable "covenant" act but could have occasion to be anointed for specific purposes. The point then would be that anointing with oil as a necessary addition to water baptism was not a tradition that came from Scripture. In fact, they were separate actions. There is also the "anointing of the Holy Spirit" as well as Jesus being called the Anointed One. When the woman who washed Jesus' feet with oil, she was "anointing" him with that special kind of oil - one that was very expensive and dear. Some people, as well, could receive anointing with oil as part of prayer for the sick, as part of the "laying on of hands" to designate a man as a minister of the gospel and also for other reasons. Some people could have had multiple anointings throughout their lives.
I found this site http://www.abbaoil.com/t-anointingoilteaching.aspx that gives a good overview of the place of anointing in Scripture along with the reference verses if you're interested in the subject.
I wonder how many will come on and deny that the RCC doesn’t claim to “stand in place of God” now?
Chill yourself. The last thing I want is to engage in a discussion with you.
Please *ping* me if there’s a rush to deny this...I would LOVE to see this discounted and denied.
True, but what does this say?
2 Tim.3:16,17. Paul declares through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that Scripture was given for "doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, AND that the Bible itself makes that man of God "perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."
In short, all Scripture is excellent, but nowhere does it say that it is all that there is. For instance, you guys disdain the Deuterocanonicals and call them Apocrypha (which they are not).
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=30920 says that:
Jesus and the Gospel writers referenced the Deuterocanonicals in the following instances:
Matthew 6:12, 14-15---"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; if you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your heavenly father forgive your transgressions."
Sirach 28:2---"Forgive your neighbor's injustice; then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven."
Luke 1:17 (describing John the Baptist)---"He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of fathers towards children and the disobediant to the understanding of the righteous, to prepare a people fit for the Lord."
Sirach 48:10---"You are destined, it is written, in time to come, to put an end to wrath before the day of the Lord, to turn back the hearts of fathers towards their sons, and to re-establish the tribes of Jacob."
Luke 1:28, 1:42---"And coming to her, he said, 'Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you!'.....Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb." Judith 13:18---"Then Uzziah said to her: 'Blessed are you, daughter, by the Most High God, above all the women of the earth; and blessed be the Lord God, the Creator of heaven and earth.
Luke 1:52---"He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones, but lifted up the lowly." Sirach 10:14---"The thrones of the arrogant God overturns, and establishes the lowly in their stead."
Luke 12:19-20---"I shall say to myself, 'Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!' But God said to him, 'You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?'"
Sirach 11:19---"When he says: 'I have found rest, now I will feast on my possessions,' he does not know how long it will be till he dies and leaves them to others."
Luke 18:22---"When Jesus heard this, he said to him, 'There is still one thing left for you: sell all that you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.'"
Sirach 29:11---"Dispose of your treasure as the Most High commands, for that will profit you more than the gold." John 3:12---"If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?"
Wisdom 9:16---"Scarce do we guess the things on earth, and what is within our grasp we find with difficulty; but when things are in heaven, who can search them out?"
John 5:18---"For this reason the Jews tried all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but he also called God his own Father, making himself equal to God."
Wisdom 2:16---"He judges us debased; he holds aloof from our paths as from things impure. He calls blest the destiny of the just and boasts that God is his Father."
John 10:29---"My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father's hand."
Wisdom 3:1---"But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them."
If Jesus referenced the Deuterocanonicals, then they must mean something, no?
This means that Scripture gives us ALL we need to be ALL that God desires us to be. The Bible needs no supplementation from tradition, doctrines of men, or any other sourse. According to the Holy Spirit, Who inspired Paul to write these words to Timothy.
Paul goes on to say that the man of God is, by the Scriptures THEMSELVES, "THOROUGHLY PREPARED UNTO EVERY GOOD WORK."
Notice that it says good work. Not salvation. It does not hint at it, mean it or infer it. Good work.
Sola Scriptura in all its GLORY. The Reformation did not invent Sola Scriptura, they derived it from Scripture. 2 Tim. 3:16,17. Unless you want to argue with what the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write, I'd say the subject of Sola Scriptura is sufficiently proven in Scripture.
I am not Abraham or Moses. I dare not argue with God. It is your interpretation of plain Scripture that I contest.
Of course he was talking about those who will always believe. True faith and receiving him as the only God and savior WILL mean he indwells us and we will NOT want to, nor, need to stop believing. Why would we, how could we? To speak about a "passing whim" is not the kind of faith I'm talking about nor is it the kind that saves us. True faith endures TO THE END.
He was talking about truly believing until the end, sure. But He also was talking about belief in the True God, not some sort of knockoff belief which attempts to supersede Christianity. Look at how the bishops in the NT treated those who did not believe as they were taught; novelties such as the Reformation were proscribed.
Reread the parable of the talents and you may re-evaluate this paragraph. Jesus will cast aside nobody. It is the ones who reject Him, who do not do as He commands, who believe that they can make it all up as they go along that lose their salvation. Does the parable of the wise and foolish virgins not make any sense?
If God inspired the writers of Holy Scripture to speak about the doctrine of eternal security of the believer, how or why would he then contradict himself by saying the opposite? Again, God knows if our faith is genuine and it is that faith that saves us through the grace of God. Rather than "interpret" parables with a preconceived idea of what they are saying, why not follow the correct method of interpretation and try to understand what exactly he was saying and why. Look at other Scriptures and judge it by them. The parables of the talents, the sower and the seed, the ten virgins all have a context and they would NOT destroy whatever Jesus said before. These parables have been discussed on this forum many times. But they do NOT contradict Jesus' own teachings.
God does not contradict Himself. It is the interpretation of man that is fallible. Remember who gets thrown into the fire made for the devil and all his servants?
An inheritance and a seal and an earnest is a promise by God to us. It is fickle man who chooses otherwise. Paul tells us of running the race and walking the Via of Christ. If you refuse to run the race and sit down beside the Via, you do not get to enter into the narrow gate. You do not get saved unless you do as Jesus commands, and that is not simply the verses that you choose to comply with and ugnire the rest.
I agree, God does make a promise, a guarantee, to us that requires something of us in order to put that promise into effect. That is faith. The "works" of God, Jesus said, are to believe in him. It's not a "fickle" man, but a foolish man who refuses the gift of God. Sadly, there will be more people who are foolish than those who are wise and believe God. The road is narrow and few there be that find it. Whereas the road to hell is wide and many there be that go along it blithely believing in false gods or relying on their own merit or chucking it all in favor of the go it themselves route thinking there is no such thing as God and no hell to worry about. Quite sad.
We have the mathematical operand "and" operating here. Faith is required. Absolutely. But when Jesus says one thing here (in context) and another thing elsewhere, He is not contradicting Himself. He is saying "and". The Beatitudes are an example. They do not contradict. They are part of the same message.
John writes in chapter 1:11-13, "He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
Notice the terminology: After they received Him!!! He gave them power!!!! To become the sons of God!!!!
This is not guarantee. This is the granting of the ability. The Via of Christ is a road, a journey.
There are too many verses of Scripture that prove repeatedly that to "get" saved you must believe, receive him and trust that what God has promised he WILL do. Running the race, walking the way of Christ, are all ways of talking about the life we live as new creations in the family of God. Some walk, some run, some rest awhile, but all those who are his own ARE living in Christ.
You must do that too.
Matthew 25: 31f “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, 32g and all the nations* will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35h For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, 36naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ 37Then the righteous* will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ 40i And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’
41* j Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42k For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ 44* Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ 45He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ 46l And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Notice that the entire chapter 25 of Matthew concentrates on works? There is nothing about faith here, only faithfulness and works. Eternal hell is the reward for bad works.
But the judgment for our sins has been pronounced already and when god looks upon us, he sees the righteousness of Christ - we are clothed in HIS and not our own.
Negative. Our Judgement occurs after our death, not before.
We are acquitted of the penalty of death for our sin because Jesus made the payment with his own blood. I agree, though, that anyone who bypasses that kind of grace, is a fool and I thank God every day that he opened my eyes to the truth of the Gospel.
We thrown ourselves on His mercy, we do not pronounce it. We plead for our salvation, we not claim it. He Judges, we await His Judgement. Otherwise He is not Judge.
Overall I agree. I am just making the point that the Bibliolaters who worship the book over God are wrong. The book is fallible. It is the interpretation of the Church, going back to the Apostles that is not.
God's word will never pass away. His truth endures forever and he has given us a great gift whereby we can be assured of the authority of the revealed truths that uphold us.
I'm good with that.
God DOES! That's why He gave His children the Holy Spirit for their Teacher. As you know - the natural man without the spirit cannot understand His WORD. Now you would know that if you understood His Word.
I think that you might be mixing up Creator and created.
I never said "a church". I said The Church. Imitations get some things right and some things wrong.
Sure. The Judge would like you to have the correct interpretation - that is one mission of the Holy Spirit. But you do not get to impose your interpretation on Him. He imposes His Judgement on you.
I've never seen a good study which indicates that literacy extended much beyond the priest class and certain upper class types, and those of their servants who needed to be literate.
Not all. Nicea came almost 300 years later. And Timothy was instructed by Paul in these and other matters (in which either orally or in other letters that do not show up the NT) still contain his instructions and his tradition. Don't forget that the Didache and Hermas et al were used as Scripture by many Christians and it wasn't until Nicea that the canon was declared. We're still not sure how the Apocalypse of John made it into the Bible and certain others like Enoch did not.
Do you think that Paul, a learned upper class and literate Jew only wrote what is now in the NT?
Not all. Nicea came almost 300 years later. And Timothy was instructed by Paul in these and other matters (in which either orally or in other letters that do not show up the NT) still contain his instructions and his tradition. Don't forget that the Didache and Hermas et al were used as Scripture by many Christians and it wasn't until Nicea that the canon was declared. We're still not sure how the Apocalypse of John made it into the Bible and certain others like Enoch did not.
Do you think that Paul, a learned upper class and literate Jew only wrote what is now in the NT?
Well, CB, do you listen to Art Bell?
Unless it was a space alien, it was a “ritual of man.”
Commanded by God, but a ritual of man.
****”In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” - Matthew 5:16 ****
Please don’t post the words of Jesus saying they are to do good deeds, it will make Paul mad.
That's some admission, D-fendr, especially since one of the sources was your own Vatican II Canon Law excerpts. Maybe you need to express your view to your local bishop and he could relay it to his Archbishop and then he may relay it to ..... Eventually, maybe they might get around to changing the wording so that it doesn't actually say what some of you find so objectionable. You DO have that right, don't you?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.