Posted on 12/26/2011 6:08:22 PM PST by rzman21
I could agree with you if there was any truth in the article...But, there isn't...
So we can make things up like however we want??? Cool. If Sola Scriptura is wrong we are FFFFRRRRREEEEEEE !!!! Yippee.
Re: “I am a Christian, and I know Jesus.”
Dear tired&retired,
I’m asking this in the sincerest way, not antagonistic, not judgmental at all, “What is a Christian and how does one become one?”
And, “Who is Jesus?”. I’m curious because I’m not sure yet what you are saying.
Correction: Rutherford:wrong; Charles Taze Russell.
Adios
Ahh, you summoned your comrades...
Protestant Bible reading is pure eisegesis, period.
You twist the scriptures to make it conform to your notion of Sola Scriptura. Not the other way around.
Everything you throw our way is man-made twisting of the scriptures.
Purgatory is a theological opinion rooted in scripture.
The bible doesn't say that to the born again Christian...You guys just make it up...
But if you really believed that, how do you justify your religion...Appears there's a world full of books of information that Jesus taught, if your are right, that never made it to your religion...
Your religion is just as ignorant as the rest of us...You guys don't think your illegitimate arguments thru at all...
Don't be so naive...
Catholics teach that works are a required element of faith to achieve salvation...
God rejects any kind of idea like that for the born again believer...That kind of teaching will ultimately set a person up to be his own advocate at the White Throne Judgment, doomed to failure...
As a Baptist, you should know better than that...
If we accept that God allows for the teaching of the Catholic religion, then he accepts the Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses as well...After all, they all use the name of Jesus...
The “voice in the head” may or may not be the Holy Spirit. If that voices gives ten people ten different interpretations of the same passage, it’s most probably not.
I strongly urge you to trust the Holy Spirit to guide all who have heard the Gospel to God’s bosom.
Perfect screen name.
I composed a very long reply, as I can see the gist of most of these arguments, but had some issues with some particulars. I may finish it later.
Meanwhile, a short observation that “Reformed” people have a valid issue with accepting tradition/’the spirit’/etc as the final arbiter of Godly truth, but often fail to acknowledge that they must a priori use some other standard in picking their canon and their interpretation of it.
“Catholics” on the other hand, can spend so much time pointing at these ignored presuppositions that they ignore weaknesses in their own position on the role of tradition in interpretation, overstate the monolithic nature of their history, and often fail to acknowledge the limits of reason (though in general those of this tradition have more practice in using it to its limits than modern protestants).
Both tend to fear an averred reliance on the Holy Spirit as teacher, comforter, interpreter to be “private interpretation,” and wholly unreliable.
I would submit that in actual practice, the criticisms of the opposite group are a more accurate picture of what each side is really doing than either would care to admit, and generally, the same logical constructions being used to assault the other position can be turned around if one were intellectually honest, to poke the same hole in one’s own position.
Much of what the author has written is based on things that should be self evident, once they are examined in any depth. However, I find that it makes more sense to appeal to the written word as the arbiter of tradition, than the other way around (all a priori reasons behind accepting *this* word and not that duly noted). I suspect that we are not quite arguing apples to apples in all this, much as the sort of foolishness we could get into when discussing issues that appear to pit God’s sovereignty against man’s responsibility.
so - that is my short thought... :)
No, Jesus established a church...
Jesus gave this Church AUTHORITY to teach.
Has nothing to do with AUTHORITY...Who would teach about Jesus except for the church...
This Church is the pillar of truth.
God is the pillar and ground of the truth...Ever diagram a sentence back in English class in grade school???
This Church is the Body of Christ on earth.
Not the one you are referring to...The real church is spiritual...The Body is spiritual...Definitely not physical...
The gates of hell can not prevail against this Church.
You don't even know what the verse is talking about...
Jesus unlocked the gates of Hell to let the OT saints out of Abraham's Bosom which was in the inner most parts of the Earth...They went up to heaven with Jesus when he was Resurrected...
Therefore, the gates of hell will not prevail against his church...Christians will go to heaven instead of Abraham's bosom...And that blows your purgatory right out of the water...
Christians look to the Church to determine the canon.
That's a big hook for you guys isn't it...So what does the World get by believing that the Catholic religion set the Canon of the bible with it's uninspired added books included???
Are there some great truths found in these extra books that are not found in the original canon??? Nope...Are there many proven errors in your extra books??? Yes...
So what does the World get by accepting the sales pitch from your religion??? Or what does your religion get by duping people into thinking that your religion finalized the canon???
The answer is AUTHORITY...That's it...No spiritual truth...Nothing that will lead a Christian to a deeper understanding of God...
Your religion has always been in the process of usurping the authority of the words of the Holy God for its own benefit...
pretty simple really.
I'll say...
No church, of any kind, will ever face God.
But you will.
Alone, and naked.
Just something to ponder when someone wants you to join something.
I don’t know know who created the Baptist faith, but the man who created the Catholic Church was also God Incarnate.
What are their opposing doctrines???
The bible is the words of the Trinity...We are saved by hearing and believing those words, with a little help from the Holy Spirit...You got anything better than that???
I have a well worn copy of The Kingdom of The Cults, and heard Walter Martin speak many many times, old timer.
That's for the 60’s comment, I'm older than dirt.
All my best to you, and no reply expected or needed.
And I wasn't being a know it all, I was being a smarta__
: > )
The organization of this is a little difficult to make references, but I’ll give it a shot.
Section 1 - not taught in the bible.
I will generally agree, however -
Point 2) under exposition on 2 Timothy passage does not follow from argument in point 1). That is, he has already shown that profitable and sufficient are separate categories. If we translate pasa to be “every” scripture is profitable, we are not anywhere close to saying every scripture is sufficient, an argument he points out to be incorrect, but is somewhat a straw man, as he is refuting a position that is not being posited.
From here we have a question of what he means when the author says all (each) scripture, as well. Every book? every passage? scroll? verse? word?
Point 3 - it is not clear that it is the old testament alone to which Paul is referring. Peter refers to Paul’s writings as scripture, so it is plain that there is an expanded view of scripture in the first century, contemporaneous with Paul’s own writing.
Further, his claim that we beg the question of how we can be sure of “all” of the correct writings is also a straw man. There are tomes written on the subject, showing how the Bible is self referencing, how Jesus referenced such and so many books in his words. These sorts of claims for including certain books in the canon do not rely on the general acceptance of church fathers (Tradition) criterion, though this is an important condition for acceptance of them.
The crux of this particular argument is valid, however, because both protestant and Catholic accept or reject canon based upon the choices, or tradition, of the church, a point that cannot logically be surmounted, and generally gets me raised eyebrows in the circles in which I tend to fellowship.
In point 5) one could also think of a soldier equipped with all the necessary equipment, but without practice being unable to defend himself, or assault the enemy.
I would generally tend to agree with his statements about reading into Revelation.
Section 2 - acceptance of oral tradition
I am not sure that it is clear that Paul refers to solely oral tradition. It would seem possible that he had written other things to them as well, especially given what seem to be internal references to a Corinthian letter that no longer is in existence.
The 2 Thessalonians passage is pretty plain, unfortunately, he gums it up in the following paragraphs. Further, one of the criteria of canonicity is whether a book was written by an Apostle (or close associate), realizing that the Catholic Church regards the Pope as an apostle, protestants might argue that the passage is referencing Apostolic tradition in a very limited sense.
Moreover, we now come full circle in the question begging - how are we (or the church) to differentiate between “Tradition” and “tradition”? I submit here that sola scriptura is an attempt on the part of Luther to say that tradition must be submitted to scripture for credibility. Otherwise we end up with a circle of robed men telling us the constitution means what they say it means [sorry for the digression, but you see my point, perhaps]. We would seem to be in agreement here, as he says that Sacred Tradition is not contrary to the Bible (though we disagree on some of the particulars of whether some of his list of Traditions are clearly found in scripture .
Section 3 – pillar and ground.
I’m going to have to look at this, in English, at least, the passage would easily appear to call God the pillar and ground of truth. When one considers that the Apocalypse has letters written to churches that are in error, and that there has been plain error throughout history, the claim that God will not allow the Church to definitively teach doctrinal or moral error seems to be reading into the passage a bit.
As he says, we define the church differently. The Copts may think they have a claim to an unbroken lineage, fwiw, or a few other groups as well. The claims of the monolithic nature of everything Church (in the west) prior to the Reformation are hard to take at face value, so I will leave it at that.
On Matthew 18: To what organization is the Lord referring when he say to go before the church? He did not seem to mean himself, he did not seem to mean every believer who existed (as absurdly proposed in this section) – perhaps the local synagogue? Practically, they would supposedly know or be able to establish everything about a situation – there would be little point in taking Brother Ed to the pastor or priest or rabbi in the next town over when everyone in the neighborhood knew that he had been pilfering Brother Joe’s grain and could speak directly to it.
There is a world of difference between the Word become flesh teaching the Word on a scroll and a human being or group of them doing so. Jesus had hard things to say about the traditions of the church leaders of His day, traditions which were buttressed by similar arguments to some that are being made here.
I have spent a while longer than I have on this, so I will gloss through a bit.
When Christ said he would not leave us orphans, to whom was he referring when he said “I” will come to you? The author has claimed the church to be already in existence at this time, so it most likely refers to someone else. The comforter, interpreter, teacher all are terms for the Spirit.
Generally, logically speaking, all of these arguments are damaging to the position of Sola Scriptura. But, as I said in my brief post, I am not sure that pointing out the limitations of the appeal to Scripture alone serves to buttress the position of the author in favor of the Catholic Church as the arbiter of truth. I suppose that is enough of that here, as it can become a “Catholics have done and said this or that” versus “ you don’t understand the idea of a Vicar...” kind of argument, though a long dialog on these things may be beneficial.
The post is about the limitations of the Reformed position, and as one steeped in it from infancy it is better for me to address those than to poke at yours.
Aside – most people who talk with me at length find themselves somewhat surprised (I am not sure why) at how “reformed” I am (again, I am not sure why). Then I begin to talk about how the Psalms are full of references to the works of God declaring His glory, how we are told that we are without excuse because of this, and because of our consciences which were given us to point us to the way, and how the poets and prophets of the pagans are referenced as pointing to or speaking the truth, or state that Homer and Plato pointed at a lot of things that were true, or could lead one to recognize Christ when introduced to him, and they get a little edgy. But Scripture plainly tells us that God has set eternity in the hearts of men.
It’s all vanity, also says the preacher – and he’s right. Have a good night.
Amen Brother, Bless His Holy Word and Bless His Holy Name!!!
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14 NIV
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