Easiest Defense of Sola Scriptura

[FireDragon76]

Who can really say the salvation of another Christian, especially one from a completely different tradition with different beliefs and practices?

Not everyone that says "Lord, Lord", shall be saved, after all.

BTW, that's the great thing about the intercession of saints, you have some potential proof that some Christian at least is in the "good place". I've always been curious about Luther, wheather he is in hell, heaven, or purgatory (most likely). So if he gets sprung out to heaven, then maybe I could pray to Dr. Luther and ask him to perform me a miracle, maybe pray a Novena to him, and wait and see what happens.

 

[Catherineanne]

If you don't believe Scripture to be God's word, and that God's word is true, you need to find a new religion.

I believe what the Bible says of itself. I do not plate it in gold, stick it on a pedestal and worship it, because first commandment.

 

[Catherineanne]

Christ was denied, put through a trumped up trial and crucified by your "holy men". They are just men like the politicians of governments, only they are the church government. Up to their eyeballs in child molestation and covering for other child molesters! They've been thieves, they've been in cahoots with Nazis! They've been scoundrels, back stabbing double crossers! And they had the gull to pronounce their councils inerrant! Not for a moment sister do I believe they were inerrant!

I commend your anger about child molestation, theft, backstabbing etc, but sadly these are features of our whole society; they are not limited to traditional church structures.

The church is full of sinners; that is nothing new.

 

[Catherineanne]

I do trust God, I just don't trust the kind of holy men who killed Jesus. Those men made your same argument to their followers in their religion. Judaism used the so called authority of the scripture to withstand the teachings of Jesus.

Do what you think is right, but I never have believed God wrote the Bible. As a child in Sunday school the other kids seemed content to make paper cutouts of Noah's ark, but I was thinking.

Congratulations on being superior to other children at Sunday School.

Good grief.

 

[Catherineanne]

The Trinity you are describing is a creation of theologians who were trying to explain how God is one and Jesus was also God. They made a real mess of things.

The Son is a Son because he came after his Father. As to when we can't say, but some time back in eternity the Son came into being. The Son is conscious of being ancestral to the Father.

I commend Arianism to your attention. It is a heresy, contradicted by the words of Christ himself (John 10:30) but I am sure you won't let that stop you, with your superior thinking and all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism

 

[Colter]

I commend your anger about child molestation, theft, backstabbing etc, but sadly these are features of our whole society; they are not limited to traditional church structures.

The church is full of sinners; that is nothing new.

That was my point to begin with, the men in church government never were infallible, they are like anyone else. The Hebrew priest who redacted the OT books that were authored by still other imperfect men, were not infallible.

 

[Colter]

Congratulations on being superior to other children at Sunday School.

Good grief.

Thanks, we have something in common, but I'm honest about it.

 

[Colter]

I commend Arianism to your attention. It is a heresy, contradicted by the words of Christ himself (John 10:30) but I am sure you won't let that stop you, with your superior thinking and all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism

In my theology Jesus isn't the second person of Triune deity, he is a creation of the Trinity.

Heresy is a term invented by the "brown shirts" of church government to maintain control of the people and the churches message.......for everyone's own good of coarse.

 

[JacksBratt]

We don't know.

Let me help here. If you believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior.
If you believe that you are a sinner and need salvation.
If you repent of your sins and confess them to Christ.
If you ask Him to come into your life and be your guide.
If you live your life with a desire for living with God's will in mind.
Then,,,,, it matters not what church you attend, what "denomination" you call yourself....
You are saved.

Christ does not care what church you go to, or if you even go to church... He just wants a relationship with you.

 

[PeaceByJesus]

Huh? Where does that verse say scripture is God's Word?

Where? The text referred to was part of the written word called scripture, and is called the word of God.

As was the case in Mt. 4:4, among other places.

 

[PeaceByJesus]

... even the RCatholic Church considered some of the books to be questionable for over a thousand years...Yet many Catholics think that it was set in stone during the 300s AD and never touched or questioned until Martin Luther.

You are bearing false witness. The Catholic canon has remained unchanged since the 4th century. It contains exactly the same 73 books now as it did in the 4th century.

No, it is you who is engaging in fabrication if you deny what I stated, for there was no indisputable canon, and scholarly doubts and debate over books continued down through the centuries and right into Trent, which provided the first "infallible" canon (which the tradition-based EOS slightly differ from) after the death of Luther.

As even the Catholic Encyclopedia states as regards the Middle Ages

In the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages [5th century to the 15th century] we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. There is a current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavourable to their authority and sacredness, while wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing, and among those we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity. The prevailing attitude of Western medieval authors is substantially that of the Greek Fathers. The chief cause of this phenomenon in the West is to be sought in the influence, direct and indirect, of St. Jerome's depreciating Prologus (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm)


And among others,

St. Cyril of that see, while vindicating for the Church the right to fix the Canon, places them among the apocrypha and forbids all books to be read privately which are not read in the churches. In Antioch and Syria the attitude was more favourable. St. Epiphanius shows hesitation about the rank of the deuteros; he esteemed them, but they had not the same place as the Hebrew books in his regard. The historian Eusebius attests the widespread doubts in his time; he classes them as antilegomena, or disputed writings, and, like Athanasius, places them in a class intermediate between the books received by all and the apocrypha. The 59th (or 60th) canon of the provincial Council of Laodicea (the authenticity of which however is contested) gives a catalogue of the Scriptures entirely in accord with the ideas of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. On the other hand, the Oriental versions and Greek manuscripts of the period are more liberal; the extant ones have all the deuterocanonicals and, in some cases, certain apocrypha. (Catholic Encyclopedia, Canon of the Old Testament)

As for the unanimity of your few, and non-infallible councils,

The seventh Ecumenical Council officially accepted the Trullan Canons as part of the sixth Ecumenical Council. The importance of this is underscored by canon II of Trullo which officially authorized the decrees of Carthage, thereby elevating them to a place of ecumenical authority. However, the Council also sanctioned were the canons of Athanasius and Amphilochius that had to do with the canon and both of these fathers rejected the major books of the Apocrypha. In addition, the Council sanctioned the Apostolical canons which, in canon eighty-five, gave a list of canonical books which included 3 Maccabees, a book never accepted as canonical in the West.101 Furthermore, the Apostolical canons were condemned and rejected as apocryphal in the decrees of Popes Gelasius and Hormisdas.102 Thus indicating that the approval given was not specific but general.” (http://www.christiantruth.com/articles/Apocrypha3.html) [/FONT]

 

[PeaceByJesus]

I rely on the church because Jesus promised the gates of hell won't prevail against it.

He did indeed, and which is likely refers to offensive assault by the church, however this is not referring to one particular organic church, but to all who make up the body of Christ. Which is the only one true church, since it alone only and always consists 100% of true believers, while the visible organic churches inevitably are or become an admixture of wheat and tares.

"I recognize false doctrine by comparing it to the ancient Christian faith. If it's an innovation that conflicts with what Christians have always believed because the church taught it from the beginning then I know it is false."

Then you are as an evangelical in essence, for rather than obeying the papal admonition "that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of per sons, the Pastors and the flock...the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors. - VEHEMENTER NOS, an Encyclical of Pope Pius X promulgated on February 11, 1906. instead you ascertain the veracity of teaching by examination of the evidence for it.

And what the church taught it from the beginning means the NT church as revealed in Scripture.

 

[PeaceByJesus]

The authority to "forgive" sins is from God and given to the Church.

But contrary to Catholic contrivance, this is only rightly understood in the light of all Scripture, in which no one is told to confess to Catholic "priests," and the binding and loosing power refers to both judicial judgments as seen in Dt. 17:8-13, and which Mt. 18:15-18 corresponds to, as well as spiritual power which is provided for all believers as Mt. 18:19-20 expands it to, and as taught in James 5:16-20.

"And again, you won't answer where Jesus said the specific authorities given could be transferred."

That is the burden of RCs to show from the NT, since it never manifest any apostolic successors being voted for, only that Matthias was chosen for Judas (even though James was martyred: Acts 12:1,2), which was in order to maintain the foundational number of apostles (cf. Rv. 21:14) and which was by the non-political Scriptural means of casting lots. (cf. Prov. 16:33)

 

[PeaceByJesus]

.

BTW, that's the great thing about the intercession of saints,

Is that Catholics believe in praying to created beings in Heaven, despite prayer being a most basic common practice, yet with absolutely zero examples of anyone but pagans praying to anyone else in Heaven but the Lord, even though there were plenty of angels to pray to in the OT era, as well as ascended OT saints in the New.

Show us:

1.Even one example where anyone prayed to anyone in Heaven but the Lord, amid the approx. 200 prayers the Holy Spirit recorded for us in Scripture.
2. Any instruction on prayer to Heaven in which the addressee is anyone God, versus a created being in Heaven.
3. Even one example in which anyone in Heaven but God regularly hear and respond to prayers addressed to them, (elders and angels offering prayers in memorial as a preclude to judgment will not do), versus the Lord Jesus being the only unceasing Heavenly intercessor. (1 Tim. 2:5)
4. One example in which anyone from Heaven but God communicated with those on earth without both being personally present in the same realm.
5. One example in which earthly relations on earth have complete correspondence to those btwn created beings, in contrast to that not being the case.
6. Even one example of a common, necessary, fundamental doctrinal Christian practice for which the Holy Spirit does not provide even one single example, except by pagans in which it is condemned.
7. Even one example in which believers even sought the intercession of Mary on earth.
8. Even one example in which faithful believers kneel before other believers on earth in obeisance in sanctioned.
9. Why Catholics are exempt from the admonition not to think of mortals "above that which is written." (1Co. 4:6)
10. Even one example in which believers kneel before a statue and praise the entity it represented in the unseen world, beseeching such for Heavenly help, and making offerings to them, and giving glory and titles and ascribing attributes to such which are never given in Scripture to created beings (except to false gods), including having the uniquely Divine power and glory to hear and respond to virtually infinite numbers of prayers individually addressed to them

Which manner of adulation would constitute worship in Scripture, yet Catholics imagine that by playing word games then they can avoid crossing the invisible line between mere "veneration" and worship.

Moses, put down those rocks! I was only engaging in hyper dulia, not adoring her. Can't you tell the difference?

 

[PeaceByJesus]

I do not rely on non-inspired men for doctrine. That's what Protestants do.

You mean that when popes and councils teach binding doctrine (the supreme law for RCs) - whom you are to follow as docile sheep - then they are speaking as wholly inspired of God as Scripture is?

 

[chilehed]

Your argument is as simple minded as:
I read God's word. I approved God's word. I am inerrant.

It proves nothing.
There is no great inspiration in that argument; it has been tried and refuted multiple times.

The three things that can go wrong with a logical argument are false premises, ambiguous terms and logical fallacies. A sound argument that contains no false premises, no ambiguous terms and no logical fallacies necessarily arrives at a true conclusion, even though the conclusion might be disliked.

I showed that the OP contained a false premise, using a sound argument that contained no false premises, no ambiguous terms and no logical fallacies. If you wish to show that my argument is flawed you need to show that it contains one of the three things that can go wrong with an argument. So far all you've done is dismiss my reasoning out of hand, which isn't a rational rebuttal at all because it's one big logical fallacy (and completely misrepresents my argument as well, and so is also based on false premises).

Your type of response to this topic is exactly the kind of thing that convinced me to abandon the incoherence of Reformation theology and become Catholic.

And you, don't even attempt an illogical rebuttal to my response.

I never attempt illogical rebuttals, only logical ones. And I just made another successful one, but I have little hope that you'll admit it. If you decide to say something rational then I might reply, otherwise I'm going to get ready to go camping this weekend.

 

[Norbert L]

So those that attend RCC are not saved then?

If it depended on SS that directly speaks to the topic of being saved, looking at Acts 16:31, Romans 10:9 and 1 John 4:2. Also add the conditions spoken by James in Acts 15:20. To the best of my understanding those that attend the RCC will be judged just like any other Christian sect, be it of a huge or tiny community. Matthew 25:31-46

 

[Alonso_Castillo]

No, the RCC isn't the the Church Christ established.

On the contrary, You know well that the See of Rome is the only see regarded as Apostolic see since it never fell into heresy. While all the other Eastern churches all of them fell into Arianism, Monophitism, Nestorianism, Iconoclasticism, And in our days, Phyletism.

 

[FireDragon76]

On the contrary, You know well that the See of Rome is the only see regarded as Apostolic see since it never fell into heresy.

Rome just abandoned it's see for a foreign city in France (Avignon) and later, split into three factions in civil war.

 

[Alonso_Castillo]

Rome just abandoned it's see for a foreign city in France (Avignon) and later, split into three factions in civil war.

Antioch Is not any longer the see of the Patriarchate of Antioch, Rome never had any other bishop than the pope in exile in Avignon. Antipopes are everywhere even in USA, ¿have you heard of "pope Michael"?