Sorry for not seeing your reply, yet i though i was a tome writer!
PeaceByJesus!
Of course, each writer or prophet in the Bible meant something when he wrote a passage. So in theory, I think each Protestant could read the Bible on his/her own and get the true meaning 100%.
But in real life, the opposite often happens where groups of people (including Reformed) read the Bible in sincerity and are convinced that it means opposite things.
But which not warrant rejecting SS, as meaning Scripture alone is the wholly inspired of God standard, and sufficient in its formal and material aspects, as you have affirmed it enables one to 100% understand it (which a common historical evangelical contention for basic Truths attests to), while also allowing for disagreements.
For which Scripture provides the magisterial office, which no less than the Westminster Confession affirms: "It belongeth to synods and councils, ministerially, to determine controversies of faith," (Westminster, XXXI)
For we see this in Scripture, (Dt. 17:8-13) and which certainly had authority, if not being infallible, but that is not enough for Rome, as she presumes that her magisterial office possesses perpetual ensured infallibility, and that even when not speaking accordingly then she will not err salvifically in her official (which class is subject to RC debate) teaching.
But which ensured infallibility is a novel and unScriptural premise, being unseen and unnecessary in Scripture. And in fact, God not only provided and preserved Truth and faith without a infallible magisterium, but in so doing He sometimes raised up men from without the magisterium to provide and preserve faith, and reprove thoswe who sat in leadership.
And thus the church began and has been preserved as the body of Christ, with the imperfect Reformation being part of that.
Since their views are mutually exclusive, it means that on their own they weren't able to discern the "real" meaning.
No, not actually, as it need only mean that only one is correct.
A good example is the debate over whether to baptize infants.
And since they are innocent and morally incognizant, they need not and cannot willful the stated requirements for baptism, that of repentant wholehearted faith. (Acts 2:38; 8:36,37) And the Holy Spirit conspicuously and uncharacteristically never mentions infants being baptized (leaving paedobaptist to extrapolate it out of bare mentions of whole household baptisms) yet requiring repentant wholehearted faith for it. Nor does the very limited correspondence to circumcision (for just males) warrant it either.
There are many less noticed debates though, like what Zechariah means by the "mourning of Hadadrimmon", where commentators give opposite views.
Which, and multitude more examples, your magisterium is not going to "infallibly" explain, and in fact one a few texts of Scripture have been. Thus this is not a valid objection even if your mag. possesses ensured conditional infallibility.
Moreover, you cannot claim that even the NT church realized comprehensive doctrinal unity, much less Rome in which variant interpretations can lawfully about, and do, even as to what requires assent. And thus by your reasoning your alternative means of determination of Truth and unity is also invalidated.
No, Scriptural substantiation can be allowed. The fact that there are such sharp divisions though shows that just by itself scripture is often not enough to show people what the right meaning is.
No, once again that is faulty reasoning, as simply because there are conflicting judgments does not invalidate the source from providing Truth in a way that souls find unity, which is also a reality.
And in if you demand comprehensive doctrinal unity then the closest thing to that will be found in a cults, which effectively operate under the unScriptural RC model, in which the leadership claims unique ensured veracity based on their teaching.
So people should consider what Christians who lived in 35-200 AD thought about what those verses mean. After all, that was the community that produced these works.
WRONG. Those who lived in 35-200 AD did NOT produce the NT, any more than the Scribes and Pharisees produced OT writings, though both had enough sense to substantially acknowledge what was of God.
But it is the transcendent, substantive wholly inspired of God writings that are the standard for what Truth is, not the post apostolic judgments of uninspired men who increasingly adopted or relied on traditions of men.
I understand your argument that this is a late development. But that does not show it is not the main Church (Christian community) even if it has some secondary wrong ideas but accepts the basics.
Certainly along with the progressive accretion of traditions of men the 2nd-3rd century church retained enough Truth whereby souls could be saved and morality upheld, but that did not make it the community that produced the Bible.
But more importantly, in the Bible we do have cases of believers addressing beings in heaven besides just God himself. John does this in Revelation. (Rev 22:8-9, 19:10)
No, you have ZERO cases of believers on earth seeking beings in heaven to intercede for them. Any two-way communication btwn created beings required both to somehow be in the same realm, and i have yet to see any case in which the the created being was asked to intercede for them before God.
In the Transfiguration, the apostles meet the OT righteous Moses and Elijah.
Which again does not translate into praying to those in Heaven to interceded for them, as they were both in one place, and no intercession before God was sought.
You need to show created beings being addressed by those on earth, and being asked to interceded for them.
God does not forbid us to address His holy angels, in fact two of the Psalms which He Himself inspired contain invocations of angels:
"Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.
Bless ye the LORD, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure." (Ps 103:20-21)
"Praise ye the LORD. Praise ye the LORD from the heavens: praise him in the heights.
Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts." (Psalm 148:1-2)
If God wants us to pray these Psalms, then He has no problem with us addressing the angels. (SOURCE:
http://home.earthlink.net/~mysticalrose/col218.html)
This is not asking angels to intercede for them, or actually addressing them, for employing such poetic language we can also justify praying to the sun and moon and other material objects. For as Ps. 148 goes on to say in proceeding verses after your cut off,
Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord: for he commanded, and they were created. (Psalms 148:3-5)
Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps: Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word: Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars: (Psalms 148:7-9)
Thus these are forms of worship addressed to God, extolling His worthiness of universal worship by all creation.
PeaceByJesus, my goal in this thread is not actually to prove that Tradition is perfect or infallible,
Then you are left with fallible, uninspired traditions being made equal with thewholly inspired word of God!
as I said. Rather, it seems to me that if we put Tradition in the trashcan and forget about it totally, then whether we are Roman Catholic or not (I'm not), we can go way off course on some issues.
Rather, we are not referring to such things as historical writings being a help, or traditions like wedding ceremonies being used, but making into binding doctrine that which is not in Scripture, and even contrary to it, but with the veracity of which being based on the tradition of an infallible church.
A church which can decree something over 1700 years after it allegedly occurred to be binding Truth, despite such critical lack of evidence for it from tradition that the very scholars of the church opposed it.
And I think that when we add in a modern, "scientific" mindset, we can better understand how some modern groups coming out of the Reformed movement think that the Bible miracles are all just so called "true" "allegories" that didn't "literally" happen.
Which means they departed from the faith, and your argument is less valid than arguing that your church is wrong because Catholic scholars, with the sanction of the American body of bishops, have
taught such for decades in the RC Bibles!
It's only natural that in the early church the presbyters who were responsible for managing their churches would also normally play a leading role in different rituals like the Eucharist.
What kind of response is that to "We can also look in vain to even one instance of a NT presbuteros being titled "priest" and having a unique sacerdotal function." The Holy Spirit is not simply scribbling a few notes but provides extensive description an doctrine on the church and contrasts with the Jewish and other faiths. And in so doing speaks of priests/high priests about 300 times, always using hiereus/archiereus, and not once giving that title to NT presbyters, except as part of the general priesthood of all believers, and nowhere ascribes to NT presbyters any unique sacerdotal function. But Caths insist on ignoring the manifest distinction, and imposing a unique sacerdotal function on prelates.
The NT wasn't a complete ritual instruction booklet, or else the Reformed wouldn't be divided over infant baptism either.
It provides what is needed and its silence can be as weighty as its statements, and does not teach infant baptism, but which is held due to tradition by more Catholic Prot churches.
If there are many more writings though then it gets easier to get a better picture, I think you will agree: The Jehovah's Witnesses claim that The Bible doesn't teach Trinity and Reformed get in big arguments with them.
And the
so-called Jehovah's Witnesses effectively operate more according to the RC model of authority and unity, with leadership presuming assured veracity and requiring implicit assent.
But if we care about Church Fathers, then we remember that they had the Council of Nicea, and Reformed, Orthodox, and other mainstream Christians could openly agree on this as a solid, common, clear basis to solve the confusion of JWs.
But which is a poor foundation, for as JWs argue, such also held false doctrine, and the increasing reliance upon tradition, "we always believed this" (even if the NT did not) may have been seen as an easier recourse, but it also fostered the perpetuation of traditions of men that came along with Biblical Truth.
In contrast, it is evangelical Bible believing Christians that JWs want to avoid (they must have our house marked, but we have gone after them to reprove when seen), as they are defeated by recourse to Scripture, not tradition with its admixture of truth and traditions of men.
This of course is a massive exaggeration if we are going to talk about the Reformed approach. Just look at Calvin's long writing on Infant Baptism:
http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/calvin-baptism.html
He only mentions St. Augustine one time.
The Church Fathers are not a central focus of their approach to teaching doctrines when the Reformed disagree with each other.
For as with me, the recourse to ECFs is in dealing with Caths, in condescension to them, not because they are determinitive of Truth.
Cardinal Manning takes a very "powerful" view. I think you could use appeal to antiquity or the Bible to show that Church teachings were wrong.
Good to see that you agree.
However, Cardinal Manning is not all wrong either. If the Christian community (Church) has arrived at a belief across the board (like in Trinity), then that should be a major consideration too. It doesn't mean that it's infallible, but it should count for a lot.
Such affirmation can be of weight if those who provide attestation have Biblical credentials, with the veracity of their claims being based on the weight of Scriptural substantiation. Which i think Nicea much did.
But the RC argument is not simply that an authoritative magisterium is needed, to which we concur, but that an infallible one is, which premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility is novel, unseen and unnecessary in Scripture.
I understand the appeal, as thus there can be no valid dissent, but the church began in dissent from those who sat in the authentic authoritative historical magisterial seat. (Mt. 23:2; Mk. 11:27-33)
Scripture can be a supreme written authority. But that doesn't mean that what some people are convinced the Scripture says is Supreme either. JWs are convinced that Scripture doesn't teach Trinity. But we don't submit the teachings on Trinity to the "authority" of what the JWs believe Scripture says. We need to evaluate the meanings with the major help of what Christians have been thinking about this for the last 1900 years.
No, as that relies on the same presumption of the Jews, that the historical church, via its magisterium, is correct or most trustworthy in any conflict. Thus faced with one that reproved them by Scripture, they rejected him and his followers. (Mk. 7:2-16)
Yes, I am not teaching "absence of errors". I am saying that if surviving persecution is one of the main proofs of Christianity, and as you are saying these 1st-3rd century Christians are pious of great faith, then don't you agree that their explanations should be a key resource for deciding what the books of the Bible from their own era that they chose mean?
That is not a problem, as far as historical research goes, but the RC argument is that what these selectively say, as in what Rome chooses from them and interprets them as saying or supporting, are the determinitive basis for doctrine, though in the case of the Assumption, that is quite the stretch.
Of course, Rome interprets them as supporting her premise of ensured magisterial infallibility, under which her interpretation of them can be said to be infallible.
This is a touching personal story. I am glad that you found some happiness.
For me, things went in a different direction - I grew up Reformed and went to an Evangelical school. They occasionally dropped negative commentary about Catholic people, like blaming Catholic people for not listening to Evangelical sermons in a train station. I told my relatives about these stories, and they said: "Maybe the Catholics had some place to go to."
No, as even as a newly born again yet Catholic who was trying to share the exciting things i was finding then i found little interest. So i went to RC charismatic Bible study, led by a lay RC women who was somewhat discipled by evangelicals, and to a charismatic meetings, which i found some life in. But the hierarchy made them join with a social gospel nun's group (to legitimize the former), and instesd of going forward they went backwards. They could sense it, and even thought that maybe it was bcz the lights were too bright. God will work where He can, but souls must keep pace with the light they are getting if they will go forward.
And after that, having lived in a predominately RC area for over 60 years, and witnessed, or attempted to, to thousands of RCs with the basic non-denominational gospel, i can attest that they are about the most ambivalent or antagonistic group (Jews, God love them, take first place in the latter aspect, followed by some Muslims). Which is due to a dead gospel and dead souls, and faith in their merit and that of a church.
Which is in stark contrast to when i have met so many born again evangelical types from different countries church, in which their a spontaneous kinship, based on a common transformative conversion and profound life changing relationship with Christ. Not that all are like that, or that i have always kept pace with the light i have, or do not need to regularly repent of something in heart or in deed, omission of commission. Thank God for the sinless shed blood of Jesus.
Even though I generally agreed with Reformed beliefs and not Catholic beliefs, the negativity I felt there toward Catholics pushed me away. I went to Catholic school and felt like I was in a less judgmental environment and was happier about that.
Sure, just a little while ago were debating a RC here that thought Abraham and David were myths. I asked why he was a RC and he said that his beliefs were not considered radical in Catholicism. And they hardly are.
America is a mainly Protestant country (or else doesn't care about religion), and Reformed are a HUGE part of the Protestants. I think that in practice someone usually risks more ostracization from society if they are Catholic than if they don't care about religion or are Reformed. At least, this is my experience.
Hardly, at least if Reformed are conservative evangelicals, which counted as the greatest threat by liberals, Muslims and many RCs.
Offhand I am not sure which Catholic martyrs you mean.
Joan of Arc, Savonarola, even if not orthodox RCs.
Anyway, one of Luther's 95 Theses said that it was wrong to kill heretics. That's a wonderful teaching by Luther, right?
So you disagree that it is it wrong to kill heretics (because of that), though i actually think you meant to charge Luther with supporting such, which is another of your historical errors. For where you see this in the
95 theses know not, but likely you are referring to
Exsurge Domine condemning errors of Luther, which you mistake as Luther supporting killing heretics, but one of which the pope condemns is "That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit."
And Emperor Charles V permitted anyone to kill Luther without legal consequence. For the Canons of the Ecumenical Fourth Lateran Council (canon 3), 1215, decreed of RC rulers:
Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability
to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church ; so that whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath.
Pope Pius IX also condemned the proposition that "Every man is free to embrace and to profess that religion which, led by the light of reason, he shall consider to true," (Pope Pius IX, “Syllabus of Modern Errors,”December 8, 1864;
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09)
Calvin agreed. But then in 1553 Calvin announced that as religious doctrine heretics should get killed, like in the Old Testament. That same year Calvin was the main religious leader in Geneva and promoted killing Michael Servetus for heresy. Then other people got killed or severely punished for heresy in Calvin's Geneva. Considering Calvin's main importance in Calvinism, and considering that after 1553 Protestants began a long trend of killing heretics, Calvin is somewhat responsible indirectly for any killing of heretics by Protestants ever since, because he changed the teaching on that topic.
No, Calvin disagreed with not killing heretics but followed Rome in using the state to do so, as she changed the NT teaching on this issue, and again you are making historical errors. See
here for Roman Catholic use of the sword of men.
Reformed in practice don't care about them a ton, do they?
Actually, aside from most all of all the writings of the Church Fathers on the internet being from a late 19th century work (Oxford/Edinburgh "Ante-Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers") of Anglican (if not reformed) prelates, and Salem Communications (Protestant)
providing writings of these, Reformed sources often provide and invoke such as historical testimony to truth or error, but we should not "care about them a ton" such as Caths do as their works are vastly inferior to Scripture, nor always consistent with it or uniform with each other. RCs and EO even disagree on what they support.
And as Rome herself judges them more than they judge her, and for a faithful RC history is what Rome says it means, then it is her authority that is the issue, which we will judge in the light of the most authoritative source, the wholly inspired written word of God.
Jerome and Augustine, among others and other things, held perverse views regarding marital relations, with Jerome even abusing Scripture to support his erroneous conclusion.
Offhand I don't know what you are talking about, but by default I am OK with disagreeing with them on whatever it is.
Then you agree with us that we can as well, but our basis is what Scripture manifestly teaches. Which certainly was not the RC distinctives as
these.
I have a pretty hard time agreeing with the bold, considering how many Catholic and EO commentaries and writings there are about the Bible. I think if they didn't care about figuring out the Bible's real meaning they wouldn't talk about it so much.
That is no argument against Catholics caring more about their church and its accretion of traditions of men over what Scripture actually teaches, as surveys show that Caths come in almost last in personal Bible reading, and evangelical commentaries have been far more popular, while the devil himself is quite interested in what the Bible says, and the notes the sanctioned Catholic NAB Bible and its helps section for the study version are quite
liberal, though sometimes refreshing correct, both of which have a relative-few conservative RCs upset.
The NAB you cited complained that "Then there are ultra-liberal scholars who qualify the whole Bible as another book of fairly tales."
Yes, as even the devil knows not to go too extreme - at first, but relegating such things as the Flood, Jonah and the fish, Balaam and the donkey, the tower of Babel to being fables, and Joshua's conquests (which are treated as literal historical accounts in the NT) and other demonic revisionism is what is included under being led into all Truth via what Rome provides.
That type of things, plus treating such men as Teddy Kennedy as members in life and in death, and besides even the doctrinal errors, requires us to seperate from her or similar liberal Prot denoms.
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. (2 Corinthians 6:17-18)
So the Catholic Church, whatever its faults, is still Christian, because it still accepts the basics of Jesus being God and the Messiah and the other many things in the Nicene Creed (See CF Forums rules for what counts as Christian).
But when you relegate stories such as Jonah and the fish to being a folk tale, which the Lord invoked as analogous to His death and resurrection, then it is a slippery slope leading to a speculative view of the latter.
Moreover, the CF Forums statement (which allows for rejecting baptism as a regenerating ordinance) for what counts as Christian (yet the rules say we cannot even imply someone is not!) does not include the very thing that makes one a Christian, that of coming to God as a damned and destitute sinner but with hearfelt repentance and faith in the risen Lord Jesus to save one on His account, not our merits or that of the church.
I, along with multitude other damned souls, professed such a creed, but never really repented and received the Lord Jesus to save me until i was really convicted by God of my lost condition, and heading for judgment. And even then i put it off. Thanks be to God for His long-suffering and mercy and grace in Christ!
However, when you get each sect not caring about Tradition and just going by the Bible as each sect imagines that it means and not caring about whether they break up into groups or not, it is only natural that you get groups that the NAB is complaining about who just see the whole Bible as "stories", or you get groups like the JWs.
Yet is was against such liberal revisionism that the modern evangelical movement basically arose, as Scripture does not change, while the NAB scholar's alternative is liberal revision light. And which examples the problem with looking to men as supreme, to simply "follow the pastors," as Pius X enjoined, as when they go South, so does their followers. Now you have Francis writing an encyclical treating Climate Change as a dire threat, leading some RCs to reject it as not requiring any assent.
If someone imagines the Catholic Church going outside of Tradition and start debunking basic Christianity, then it will mean that the RCC is starting to follow the modern "Reformed" approach that does not treat Tradition as a key way to decide what Christianity means, and instead just decides what the Bible "really" means by itself.
Non-sense, as such Bible believing Prots rejected tradition as the standard since it is inferior to Scripture, and oppose traditions as binding doctrine what are not taught in Scripture, but owe their veracity to Rome's decree, and instead they looked to unchanging Scripture as the standard, with its self-evident literal understanding on historical accounts, etc.
In contrast, just as Catholics looked to men who deviated from Scripture in the past, so they easily can follow modern traditions of men which militate against Scripture.
Also, you will have to admit that revisionism is common among even conservative Reformed, when they debate over Christian Zionism, Replacement Theology, Dispensationalism, End Times chronologies and propositions, Infant Baptism, etc. etc.
That is not revisionism at all, but differences in interpretation, much of which sees debate among RCs as well, whose interpretation as to treatment of Jews and their homeland can hardly been consistent and pure, while leaving room for debate in eschatology, and RCs also have a great deal of liberty to interpret Scripture to support Rome as they interpret her.
They did a far better job keeping their Churches together though than breaking up into dozens or hundreds of totally independent groups with their own very different teachings, even though the Bible says not to do that as we have been discussing. (eg. 1 Cor 10-11)
Unity in error and having churches together does not translate into Biblical unity, and what real unity they have is very limited, while apart from pseudoProts, if evangelicals were not so
unified despite differences then they would not be seen as the most distinctive religious threat by liberals and many Caths alike. Yet all major religious groups are in declension. As prophesied. (2Ths. 2:1-4)
The limited unity of the NT was under powerfully manifest men of God, with strong Scriptural substantiation in word and in power, and lacking that today is our fault, and thus the lack of unity is a judgment against the church of God. But Rome is the most manifest example of the
deformation of the NT church.