justinangel
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- Feb 19, 2011
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I simply pointed out that your Oral Traditions have no more, or less, validity than any Oral Traditions espoused by any other denomination. It becomes a matter of personal preference as to which Oral Traditions one chooses to believe. In a related matter, your own Magisterium has evolved your Oral Traditions over time so that what is considered to be Oral Tradition today in your denomination is certainly not the same as it was in the ninth century.
The Protestant denominations hold on to traditions that originated with Luther and Calvin in the 16th century (i.e., justification by faith alone). The Catholic Church, on the other hand, holds on to traditions that originated with Jesus and the Apostles. The holy traditions of the Church , i.e., the hypostatic union of two natures in Christ, original sin, and the Immaculate Conception of Mary, do in a sense evolve as the Church grows in deeper understanding of the divine mysteries under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Nothing changes but the terms we use to express that deeper understanding. The Church always taught that Mary was without sin ("full of grace and most highly favoured"), but what we are to understand by this has taken time to be fully grasped through much pondering. The same can be said for what Jesus, the Son of man, said: "I and the Father are one." Finally, there is a difference between the oral traditions and sacred Tradition. The former is the spoken word by Christ's ministers, while the latter is the unwritten word of God, that which is declared by the Holy Spirit, and belongs to the deposit of faith together with Scripture, the written word of God.
No individual Christian is at liberty to decide for themselves what should belong to the deposit of faith. That is for the Magisterium of the Church to decide. Christ founded a visible and hierarchical church on Peter and the Apostles so that the written and unwritten word of God should be faithfully preserved and transmitted from one generation to the next. The Catholic Church is one in faith because it is ruled and taught by a central teaching authority established by Christ through the guaranty of the Holy Spirit. All practicing Catholics believe in the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary. And they rightly understand that these teachings aren't a matter of personal preference. Protestantism has splintered into thousands of independent denominations, each with its own teaching and ruling authority, because it is heterogeneous by nature. It is diverse in practice and in doctrinal content because men have conferred authority upon themselves to teach what they privately judge has been handed down by Jesus and the Twelve according to their interpretations of Scripture. Right from the start, these religious leaders have rejected many holy ancient traditions and substituted them for their own, or they have relegated them to the status of being simply legitimate and worth considering, but not binding on all the faithful. By the way, there weren't any denominations in the 9th century, but only one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, as Christ intended (Mt. 16:16-18).
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