Posted on 06/08/2018 8:54:57 AM PDT by Salvation
There are a lot of “solos” sung by our Protestant brethren: sola fide (saved by faith alone), sola Scriptura (Scripture alone is the rule of faith), and sola gratia (grace alone). Generally, one ought to be leery of claims that things work “alone.” Typically, many things work together in harmony; things are interrelated. Very seldom is anyone or anything really “alone.”
The problem with “solos” emerges (it seems to me) in our mind, where it is possible to separate things out; but just because we can separate something out in our mind does not mean that we can do so in reality.
Consider, for a moment, a candle’s flame. In my mind, I can separate the heat of the flame from its light, but I could never put a knife into the flame and put the heat of the flame on one side of it and the light on the other. In reality, the heat and light are inseparable—so together as to be one.
I would like to argue that it is the same with things like faith and works, grace and transformation, Scripture and the Church. We can separate all these things out in our mind, but in reality, they are one. Attempting to separate them from what they belong to leads to grave distortions and to the thing in question no longer being what it is claimed to be. Rather, it becomes an abstraction that exists only on a blackboard or in the mind of a theologian.
Let’s look at the three main “solos” of Protestant theology. I am aware that there are non-Catholic readers of this blog, so please understand that my objections are made with respect. I am also aware that in a short blog I may oversimplify, and thus I welcome additions, clarifications, etc. in the comments section.
Solo 1: Faith alone (sola fide) – For 400 years, Catholics and Protestants have debated the question of faith and works. In this matter, we must each avoid caricaturing the other’s position. Catholics do not and never have taught that we are saved by works. For Heaven’s sake, we baptize infants! We fought off the Pelagians. But neither do Protestants mean by “faith” a purely intellectual acceptance of the existence of God, as many Catholics think that they do.
What concerns us here is the detachment of faith from works that the phrase “faith alone” implies. Let me ask, what is faith without works? Can you point to it? Is it visible? Introduce me to someone who has real faith but no works. I don’t think one can be found. About the only example I can think of is a baptized infant, but that’s a Catholic thing! Most Baptists and Evangelicals who sing the solos reject infant baptism.
Hence it seems that faith alone is something of an abstraction. Faith is something that can only be separated from works in our minds. If faith is a transformative relationship with Jesus Christ, we cannot enter into that relationship while remaining unchanged. This change affects our behavior, our works. Even in the case of infants, it is possible to argue that they are changed and do have “works”; it’s just that they are not easily observed.
Scripture affirms that faith is never alone, that such a concept is an abstraction. Faith without works is dead (James 2:26). Faith without works is not faith at all because faith does not exist by itself; it is always present with and causes works through love. Galatians 5:6 says, For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith working through love. Hence faith works not alone but through love. Further, as Paul states in 1 Corinthians 13:2, if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
Hence faith alone is the null set. True faith is never alone; it bears the fruit of love and the works of holiness. Faith ignites love and works through it. Beware of the solo “faith alone” and ask where faith, all by itself, can be found.
Solo 2: Grace alone (sola gratia) – By its very nature grace changes us. Again, show me grace apart from works. Grace without works is an abstraction. It cannot be found apart from its effects. In our mind it may exist as an idea, but in reality, grace is never alone.
Grace builds on nature and transforms it. It engages the person who responds to its urges and gifts. If grace is real, it will have its effects and cannot be found alone or apart from works. It cannot be found apart from a real flesh-and-blood human who is manifesting its effects.
Solo 3: Scripture alone (sola Scriptura) – Beware those who say, “sola Scriptura!” This is the claim that Scripture alone is the measure of faith and the sole authority for the Christian, that there is no need for a Church and no authority in the Church, that there is only authority in the Scripture.
There are several problems with this.
First, Scripture as we know it (with the full New Testament) was not fully assembled and agreed upon until the 4th century.
It was Catholic bishops, in union with the Pope, who made the decision as to which books belonged in the Bible. The early Christians could not possibly have lived by sola scriptura because the Scriptures were not even fully written in the earliest years. And although collected and largely completed in written form by 100 AD, the set of books and letters that actually made up the New Testament was not agreed upon until the 4th century.
Second, until recently most people could not read.
Given this, it seems strange that God would make, as the sole rule of faith, a book that people had to read on their own. Even today, large numbers of people in the world cannot read well. Hence, Scripture was not necessarily a read text, but rather one that most people heard and experienced in and with the Church through her preaching, liturgy, art, architecture, stained glass, passion plays, and so forth.
Third, and most important, if all you have is a book, then that book needs to be interpreted accurately.
Without a valid and recognized interpreter, the book can serve to divide more than to unite. Is this not the experience of Protestantism, which now has tens of thousands of denominations all claiming to read the same Bible but interpreting it in rather different manners?
The problem is, if no one is Pope then everyone is Pope! Protestant “soloists” claim that anyone, alone with a Bible and the Holy Spirit, can authentically interpret Scripture. Well then, why does the Holy Spirit tell some people that baptism is necessary for salvation and others that it is not necessary? Why does the Holy Spirit tell some that the Eucharist really is Christ’s Body and Blood and others that it is only a symbol? Why does the Holy Spirit say to some Protestants, “Once saved, always saved” and to others, “No”?
So, it seems clear that Scripture is not meant to be alone. Scripture itself says this in 2 Peter 3:16: our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, also wrote to you, Our Brother Paul speaking of these things [the Last things] as he does in all his letters. In them there are some things hard to understand that the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures. Hence Scripture itself warns that it is quite possible to misinterpret Scripture.
Where is the truth to be found? The Scriptures once again answer this: you should know how to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Tim 3:15).
Hence Scripture is not to be read alone. It is a document of the Lord through the Church and must be read in the context of the Church and with the Church’s authoritative interpretation and Tradition. As this passage from Timothy says, the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth. The Bible is a Church book and thus is not meant to be read apart from the Church that received the authority to publish it from God Himself. Scripture is the most authoritative and precious document of the Church, but it emanates from the Church’s Tradition and must be understood in the light of it.
Thus, the problems of “singing solo” seem to boil down to the fact that if we separate what God has joined we end up with an abstraction, something that exists only in the mind but in reality, cannot be found alone.
Here is a brief video in which Fr. Robert Barron ponders the Protestant point of view that every baptized Christian has the right to authoritatively interpret the Word of God.sss
“It’s not recorded anywhere where Jesus told His disciples to write with the clear exception of John on Patmos.”
A point of correction here.
You might learn to read a bit closer:
“sending his angel to his servant John”
1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants[a] what must soon take place; he made[b] it known by sending his angel to his servant[c] John, 2 who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.
True and there are plenty of commands in the OT by God to write things down.
Writing down the words of God is the perfect way to keep an accurate record of what was said.
You can ALWAYS go back tot he original and see what it says. It’s far more reliable than word of mouth.
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.
Jesus is speaking here.
The first and the last, the one who died and alive evermore.
That is NO angel.
You might want to read a bit further on.
10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet 11 saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”
12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.
17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.”
Yep, it’s Jesus speaking who ordered John to write, unless you think that some angel did all that.
Well now if Christ were speaking here then the Book of Revelation would be the Gospel of Revelation wouldn’t it?
The Angel told John what to write, and so he spoke the words given by Christ.
Christ never told his disciples to write Scripture, he told them to teach and preach all that I have taught you.
Works show living faith.
this is pretty much what Msgr Pope said pages ago and everyone here has been arguing about.
***
The argument boils down to: Do works save, or are works the result of being saved?
And it’s a very important question; enough that entire books of the New Testament were written to answer it.
At a different time in Revelation and angel did command John to write some things down.
But here in chapter 1, it's Jesus Himself.
It's there in plain clear words and if you have an issue with that, then therer's really nothing anyone can say to convince you.
If the word of God doesn't do it, nothing else will.
Admitting you were wrong is not the and of the world. It's the end of pride and self-deception.
Christ never told his disciples to write Scripture, he told them to teach and preach all that I have taught you.
***
Which words in Scripture are contrary to what the Apostles taught?
“Christ never told his disciples to write Scripture...”
Considering most of what went on between Christ and His disciples wasn’t recorded, how do you figure you can say that you know that to be true?
And quite interesting that for that claim, you’re relying on what was recorded in the very Scripture that you say that you know Christ didn’t tell them to write.
And what is the point to your claim about New Testament Scripture? Are you saying you don’t believe it’s legitimately God’s Word?
well....that’s what happens when you’re late to the party, you don’t know the basis of the discussion and then jump to ridiculous charges.
In post #24 I wrote:
Scripture was defined and compiled via tradition.
Christ never told his disciples to write anything, he told them to preach.
What concerns us here is the detachment of faith from works that the phrase “faith alone” implies. Let me ask, what is faith without works?
Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. (Romans 4:4-8)
Beware the "we gotta help Godists".
Seriously, you wrote that?
Scripture was defined and compiled via tradition.
Christ never told his disciples to write anything, he told them to preach.
***
Now that’s funny.
The word ‘canon’ comes from a measure, or a rule with which to measure against something else.
If you say that Scripture was compiled according to ‘tradition,’ that means that they only put things into it that matched what they had been taught: IE, canon.
And now you’re getting upset at us that we’re using this measure to test Rome’s theology, and Rome’s theology is coming up so painfully short that you have to argue AGAINST the Scripture that YOU claimed that they assembled.
You have to see it to believe it, don't you?
And lemmee tell you, that title made me cringe. The condescending attitude just drips off of it.
Are you presuming that because it was a "Catholic" Bible that got printed on a printing press in the mid 1500's, it negated that Scripture is the word of God and is our rule of faith? You DO know, I hope, that the word of God really did exist long before that event, right??? What would be hysterically funny is if Catholics think the Gutenberg Bible is a different Bible! Sorry, honey, that doesn't disprove sola Scriptura.
Very good points. Here’s another. The believers knew from the time they received the letters which ones were from Paul, which from Peter, which from John, etc. The Councils did not *establish* which letters and Gospels were authentic. Rather, they codified/officialized what was *already* known and accepted among the believers.
Now iirc, there was a genuine debate re James. However, the Holy Spirit oversaw that debate and ensured that it concluded with the right decision.
My Church History class was a long time ago. :)
It was Catholic bishops, in union with the Pope, who made the decision as to which books belonged in the Bible. The early Christians could not possibly have lived by sola scriptura because the Scriptures were not even fully written in the earliest years. And although collected and largely completed in written form by 100 AD, the set of books and letters that actually made up the New Testament was not agreed upon until the 4th century.
The Roman Catholic church did not formalize their canon until Trent.
For 1500 years Rome did not have a definitive set of books they could call their canon.
And, because so much bad theology around Mary, purgatory, etc had been established well after the original Apostles had died, they elevated man-made "Tradition" to be equal to that of Scripture.
What is very telling about Trent is Rome did not incorporate so many of the books they pulled their false doctrines from into the canon when they had the chance. That they didn't is telling and should concern a Roman Catholic.
Mormonism would copy this formula some 300 or so years later when they included their "sacred books" as being equal to that of inspired Scripture.
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