WHY SOLA SCRIPTURA MAKES SENSE - UPDATED.

[LoveGodsWord]

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Good morning sis have a nice rest

 

[JAL]

I agree with all you've said.

Just a thought regarding the conscience.
We can only use our conscience as a guide only when it has been properly formed. Some do not have a proper formation of the conscience and cannot make proper decisions. This is seen, for instance, in young persons ruining their lives for dumb reasons because they're conscience was giving them incorrect information or no information at all.

Most persons go to church on a given day because that is how they've been raised. If they study at all and come across this subject matter, then they have to give it a lot of thought and do as you've stated above. As I've said....God promises to forgive us if we repent or sin in ignorance.

I already commented on that. There are no exceptions to the rule of conscience. You'd have to show me at least one clear scenario where it is clearly appropriate for someone to depart from this rule:

"If I feel certain that action-A is evil, and B is good, I should do B".

No such scenarios exist - I don't care how "badly formed" the conscience might be.

 

[YouAreAwesome]

Obeying God is NOT a WORK OF THE LAW.

We are required to obey God.
John 3:36

Please don't frame my view as something that it isn't. I agree obeying God is not a work of the law. I agree we are required to obey God. So why do you frame an argument in a way that makes out that I don't agree with these things? This is called a "strawman". You build up a case that I am not making, then you tear it down. It is a dishonest debating technique. But my guess is you simply do not understand what I am saying.

Paul is speaking about THE WORKS OF THE LAW.
We are not under the Works of the Law.

What law is he speaking of when he talks of "Works of the Law"?

Paul NEVER said we are not to adhere to the Moral Law.

That's because walking the Spirit fulfills the spirit of the law. The law was God's best substitute for Himself. It was lesser, but the best He could do when the Israelites didn't want to come near Him themselves. So He put this veil between Him and them, the Law. Why would we ever want to go back under a veil? (2 Corinthians 3).

If we walk in the Spirit, we will love as He loves and we will rest in Him. This sums up the spirit of the law. But make no mistake, the Sabbath rest was a ceremony pointing to Jesus. Today there is no Sunday Sabbath, nor Saturday Sabbath, rather there is an eternal Sabbath rest in Christ.

 

[Swag365]

What makes you think I don't adhere to the promptings of the Holy Spirit? I'm not saying I do all the time...and it's not always a sin not to....but it would be wise. We can only do our best to listen ot Him at all times,,,even in neutral matters. And there are some.

I did not mean to suggest that you do not adhere to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. I am sorry if you understood it that way.

I wrote that as an an example of an authority other than Sacred Scripture, that we should adhere to. But Sola Scriptura holds that we should only hold to the Bible as an authority, does it not?

Why are the Sacred Scriptures an authority?
Because they were written by persons that spend years with Jesus...or persons that knew THEM.

Well that has not been proven as a matter of fact. For example, factually we do not know who wrote the letter to the Hebrews:
Authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews - Wikipedia

The Epistle to the Hebrews of the Christian Bible is one of the New Testament books whose canonicity was disputed. Traditionally, Paul the Apostle was thought to be the author. However, since the third century this has been questioned, and the consensus among most modern scholars is that the author is unknown.[1][2]​

Because I trust the Apostles and trust that they are telling us the truth through both themselves (John) and others.

Well factually, as noted above, we do not know that all of the books of the Bible were written by Apostles or those that knew them. Martin Luther famously disputed this with respect to several books of the New Testament, for example.

Because (sorry) the Pope could change some doctrine (which he's not supposed to) but the Word of God will never change. Although men to interpret it differently. Even the CC is not totally in agreement as to some doctrine, but I'd like not to get into this.

Sure, the Pope can change some doctrine, and the Pope can teach error. It is also true that the Word of God (whether spoken orally or written) will never change.

Just as it is possible for the Pope or someone else to alter the spoken Word of God and communicate something false, it is also possible for someone to alter the written word of God and communicate something false. Fraudulent written documents are created all the time. In fact, this is what many people allege with respect to the Christian Scriptures. The Muslims allege that the Christian Scriptures have been corrupted. And so do many atheist scholars such as Bart Erhman. To be frank, as a purely factual matter it is impossible to prove that the Christian Scriptures have not been corrupted, because all of the original manuscripts have been lost, and the earliest complete purported copies of the originals date several hundred years after the originals were written.

Even if you read the footnotes of your Bible sometimes, you will notice that there are passages where the text of the Bible is disputed, or where it is unknown whether the text should be part of the Bible at all (this is one of the reasons why the ending of the "Our Father" prayer is different among Catholics and Protestants).

So I do not think you have really given a solid reason to adhere to the Bible as an authority. You seem to reject Tradition because it cannot be proven factually certain, but the same can be said of the Bible, from a purely scientific perspective.

But let me give you a good reason to adhere to the Bible as an authority.
You can adhere to the Bible as an authority because you have faith in God and that is what he prompts you to believe.

So it is with Tradition.

I attend a CC now and have a couple of priests that are friends of ours (my husband and myself). I've taught catechism for 6 years for one of those priests but had to stop. It's a long story.

It sounds like an interesting one.

 

[Swag365]

The church survived at the beginning because the men that knew the Apostles were so convinced in their faith in Jesus. They travelled the world to witness, convert and baptize, as Jesus requested in Matthew 28:19-20

People were different...they believed in gods,,,but at least they believed. Our world today in inundated with agnostics and atheists.

The church had already begun being built up when Jesus died...the letters were circulated; there was written documentation even though the bible had not been put together yet.

Mostly all scientists were theistic....even till about the 1800's.
look at our scientists now...

True, but you have many people throughout history who exhibited an equally strong (if not stronger) faith in our Lord. In some sense I would say stronger because the people back then witnessed our Lord and saw or heard directly about the miracles that he performed. But many people sacrificed their lives their lives for the faith hundreds and thousands of years later, having not seen or heard any of that personally. As our Lord says, blessed is he who has not seen and believed. Of course, this faith of the martyrs both then and now is not attributable to man himself - that faith is the gift of God.

As for the state of the world, I would say that it was much worse morally then than it is now. I think during that time the Romans were doing things like enslaving people, feeding them to lions, making them kill each other in the coliseum, etc. I am fairly certain that infanticide was also common during that time. I wouldn't say that it was an environment that was conducive for the gospel to spread. I think we can say that it spread by the grace and action of God. At least from my perspective, even if writing were impossible, I have faith that God would have found a way to spread the message to the world that he wanted.

 

[JAL]

1 was about hearing God's voice.
It was too much to read anyway....

And...we all hear God saying something different it seems.

Maybe we hear a PERSONAL revelation; not meant to share.

We ALL hear God's voice in one way or another.
What does this have to do with Sola Scriptura?
God uses the bible to speak to us.

Sola Scriptura is the claim that every voice must be exegetically tested. That's not even a clear assertion, and furthermore the biblical evidence militates against the idea that the divine Voice is to be tested. It is rather to be obeyed.

And that's because it convicts our conscience, thereby triggering the rule of conscience, for which there are no exceptions.

 

[iamlamad]

Jesus said "By their fruits shall ye know them". The fruit of sola scriptura is the fragmentation of Protestantism into thousands of conflicting denominations that can't agree with one another about the meaning of a single biblical passage. Total doctrinal chaos - exactly the opposite of the clearly stated will of Jesus Christ concerning His followers - "that they all may be ONE, even as I and My heavenly Father are ONE".

This is an amazing truth. The many denominations come from people using human reasoning to understand scripture and NOT being taught by the Holy Spirit.

 

[iamlamad]

I agree with all you've said.

Just a thought regarding the conscience.
We can only use our conscience as a guide only when it has been properly formed. Some do not have a proper formation of the conscience and cannot make proper decisions. This is seen, for instance, in young persons ruining their lives for dumb reasons because they're conscience was giving them incorrect information or no information at all.

Most persons go to church on a given day because that is how they've been raised. If they study at all and come across this subject matter, then they have to give it a lot of thought and do as you've stated above. As I've said....God promises to forgive us if we repent or sin in ignorance.

Our "Conscience" is the voice of the spirit man (or woman) inside. Before one is born again, the conscience follows how the child was brought up. It could be a sin generator or it could be a fair guide.

On the other hand, once someone is born again, with a NEW regenerated spirit inside, our conscience IS our Guide: it is how we walk by the Spirit. It is very dangerous for a believer to ignore their conscience. Most of the time, if not all of the time, when someone is disobeying their conscience, it is the Holy spirit, in the Human spirit, trying to get a believer to stop sinning. That is why it is dangerous to disobey the conscience when one is born again.

 

[iamlamad]

Sola Scriptura is the claim that every voice must be exegetically tested. That's not even a clear assertion, and furthermore the biblical evidence militates against the idea that the divine Voice is to be tested. It is rather to be obeyed.

And that's because it convicts our conscience, thereby triggering the rule of conscience, for which there are no exceptions.

You are correct: all through Acts they HEARD - KNEW it was God - and obeyed.

 

[LoveGodsWord]

Goodgrief no wonder there is 40,000 different denominations of Christianity today in fulfillment of MATTHEW 24:24 being taught by BABYLON the great mother of harlots *REVELATION 18:1-5. Time to come out dear friends. JESUS is calling us back to the pure Word of God.

 

[packermann]

I agree that we can read those verses to say what you did--that what is written there, in John, is given so that we may know that Jesus is the Savior, etc.

However, what these verses are saying is that this IS sufficient.

That information is the heart of the Gospel's message. That is what leads to salvation. Since revealing that is the purpose of Scripture, it is not simply one more commandment, one more assurance of God's love, one more description of Jesus' doings on Earth, etc. etc., as valuable as those other revelations may be.

I think we are changing the topic from sola scriptura to sola fidei - whether or no faith is sufficient for our salvation.

But this verse does not teach that we are saved soley by faith.

But these are written that you may believe[a] that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
John 20:31 NIV

This verse does not say "you will have life in his name". It says "you may have life in his name". All this verse says is that the possibility of eternal life is now open to us believers. But it does not promise that this will be actualized.

I would not doubt that there are translations that have the more promising "you will have". That is why I think that I must appeal to the Greek. The Greek word for "you may have" is ἔχητε. Go to this link for the verse in question in Greek (John 20:31 Interlinear: and these have been written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye may have life in his name.') and click on this phrase to see how this Greek word is used. It is not used to mean "you will have" but to mean "you might have" or "you may have".

I am only dealing with sola fidei pertaining to this verse. I strongly believe that sola fide is not taught in the Bible, but in deference to the OP I think we stay on sola scriptura. If you want, you could create a thread on sola fidei and I will be happy to join you there. Or I could create a thread if you want me to.

 

[iamlamad]

Goodgrief no wonder there is 40,000 different denominations of Christianity today in fulfillment of MATTHEW 24:24 being taught by BABYLON the great mother of harlots *REVELATION 18:1-5. Time to come out dear friends. JESUS is calling us back to the pure Word of God.

It is really not as bad as it might look. Have you ever seen the denominational family tree websight?
Where Did The Denominations Come From?

 

[packermann]

You didn't have to read all 10. One would have been a good start.

I can give you one simple reason sola scriptura is false.

There is not one verse in the Bible that says that the Bible is our only authority for spiritual truth. Since there is not a single verse, then that means that the belief that the Bible is our only authority for spiritual truth is false because that is not in the Bible.

 

[Albion]

It is really not as bad as it might look.

That's correct. There are more than a thousand, but that particular study which came up with the tens of thousands of different denominations which people keep referring to greatly exaggerated the number by counting in a way that none of us would consider accurate. I'd love to see it never cited again here, but I'm sure it will be.

 

[Albion]

I can give you one simple reason sola scriptura is false.

There is not one verse in the Bible that says that the Bible is our only authority for spiritual truth.

This is a silly argument IMO. It is asking, as if it were meaningful, what it means if something that needs not be said at all...isn't included.

If Noah is described as building the arc, for example, are we on good grounds to say "there might be two of them. It doesn't say in a single verse that this was his only arc, therefore we're going to teach that there were more."

Or, "Jesus ascended into heaven, but he might have come back down again and then started all over. The Bible does not say he didn't!" (Oh wait, that one HAS been used. We don't believe it, either, do we? )

 

[iamlamad]

I am quite sure that somewhere in the bible Jesus said He would Build His church on the ROCK of revealed knowledge. That would be scripture NOT written (until maybe later). The book of Acts has many examples.

 

[Albion]

I can give you one simple reason sola scriptura is false.

There is not one verse in the Bible that says that the Bible is our only authority for spiritual truth.

But if there are no verses that inform us of other ones, how can we then conclude that they exist? We cannot. And that is exactly what is wrong with "Sacred Tradition," the alternative to Sola Scriptura that some denominations promote.

It is speculation, a theory no more proven by Scripture to be what is claimed for it than if the Church had decided to say instead that someone had met up with a visiting Martian and was told X and Y, "so you know it has to be as good as the Bible!"

That, in fact, is what gets some movements/churches labelled as "cults, i.e. for basing their claims upon alleged information not known by the mainline churches.

 

[packermann]

Catholics are not so bad.
They just have some doctrine wrong...IMHO.
And it's too bad,,,because many of their teachings are
right on.

So like what, for instance?
What rebuttals to sola scriptura that you hadn't thought of?

You gonna send me to a previous post???

Sola scriptura is self-defeating. It is like an atheist saying that there is no absolute truth, not realizing that he just gave an absolute truth.

Sola Scriptura states that we should only believe what is in the Bible. There is not one single verse in the Bible that teaches sola scriptura. So, according to sola scriptura, sola scriptura must be rejected.

Not only that, but sola scriptura lacks common sense. The whole New Testament could have easily been written in a month at most. What did apostles and their friends do the rest of the time? Did they sit on the beach of the Red Sea sipping Mai Tais? Absolutely not! They obeyed Christ's command and made disciples! The Apostle Paul's oral teaching was more thorough than his writings. His writings to churches were motivated by dealing with certain problems in the churches. So if Paul was silent in his writings on a certain dogma it was not because he did not believe in it - it was because there was no controversy over it. But when he was at the church teaching them orally, he gave them the ABC's of Christianity. And that was passed from generation to generation. This is what we call oral tradition.

This does not mean that tradition is the inspired Word of God. But if you want to know what a person actually teaches you would go to ones who were closest to them. And those closest to the apostles would be their disciples. This is what we call the early church fathers. You can read their writings at Early Church Fathers - Christian Classics Ethereal Library. This is a non-Catholic, Christian web site! So it has not Catholic bias. But in reading what the early church fathers say that the apostles taught, we would see that the apostles taught Christ in the Eucharist, Mary as the new Eve, apostolic succession, Confession, that one can fall from grace, and salvation by faith AND obedience to God. This shows that the early church, from its inception, was Catholic!

IMHO, the only reason that you reject some of the Catholic doctrine is because you do not see them in the Bible - but that is an invalid reason because that is based on sola scriptura, a self-defeating belief.

 

[Albion]

Sola scriptura is self-defeating. It is like an atheist saying that there is no absolute truth, not realizing that he just gave an absolute truth.

You know, the mental gymnastics that opponents go through to deny this concept is painful to watch, and pointless. There comes a time when it is useless to debate if "is" really means "is."

Sola Scriptura could hardly be more direct and credible than it is. But not what it is made out to be by opponents, of course!

When you come up with something that really and truly beats the revealed word of God Almighty, then get back to me.

 

[packermann]

This is a silly argument IMO. It is asking, as if it were meaningful, what it means if something that needs not be said at all...isn't included.

If Noah is described as building the arc, for example, are we on good grounds to say "there might be two of them. It doesn't say in a single verse that this was his only arc, therefore we're going to teach that there were more."

I think you meant "we are not on good grounds..."

Assuming you meant this, I am not advocating that since sola scriptura is false that anything is open to speculation. I am advocating the Bible, tradition, and the teaching of the magisterium as our sources for authority. Since none of these sources teach that Noah built two arks I do not believe in them.

But the same cannot be said of Protestants. Not that they believe in two arks, but Protestant scholars speculate that the first five books in the Bible, traditionally attributed to Moses, were actually written by at least four different human authors. Not only that, but Protestant scholars also teach that the Book of Isaiah was written by two authors. True, there are some Catholic scholars who now follow this speculation as opposed to following the traditional belief that the Book of Isaiah was completely written by Isaiah.

So if anyone would depart from the traditional teaching of one ark, it would be started more likely from Protestant scholars than from Catholic scholars.

Or, "Jesus ascended into heaven, but he might have come back down again and then started all over. The Bible does not say he didn't!" (Oh wait, that one HAS been used. We don't believe it, either, do we? )

Actually, the Bible does specifically teach that He would not.

If they tell you, ‘There He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.Immediately after the tribulation of those days:

‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;the stars will fall from the sky,
and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ’At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven,c and all the tribes of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
Matthew 24:26-30

So unless Jesus returns out of the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory, with a loud trumpet call, then we should not believe anyone who says that Christ has had already come back. As far I know, none of that has happened yet, so Jesus has not yet come.