Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
If we use your methadology friend then why not apply it to every part of your life, like......
Roads and traffic rule book
Legislative rule book
Product disclosure statements for your health, house, contents and car insurance
Your house title deeds
Banking statements
All the above is adolatry according to your inference right?
We're talking about the highest authority.
You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me,
(John 5:39)
I replied to the thread topic in the following post....
http://www.christianforums.com/thre...ighest-authority.7961484/page-4#post-70010540
To put forth an argument that scripture isn't the highest authority is to deny that it is the inspired written word of God and thereby deny that God is the author through the lips of the prophets who have written down what was instructed of them.
For example Moses wrote the 10 commandments and since we don't have the original tablets before us, does that mean that the Ten Commandments are not the highest authority.
You see if God is the author of scripture, then what is written is the highest authority.
To argue that scripture isn't the highest authority is denying the highest authority who authored it.
Now that being said, if God speaks today to us through the Spirit of truth, then that also is the highest authority, that will not contradict the written word.
Now that being said, if God speaks today to us through the Son, then that also is the highest authority, that will not contradict the written word.
Do the words of Jesus ring a bell.......
All authorship of God whether it is written, revealed by ear or by sight is the highest authority. So who can make distinction that the written word has less authority?
Hmmmmmmmmm......
If what is written is the highest authority, this logically means that the person who wrote doesn't have highest authority. Either the author or the message have the highest authority.
As for the John passage, that's exactly the passage I use to point out that scripture doesn't have the highest authority. Jesus is stating very plainly that the scriptures don't provide eternal life, but he does. If scripture doesn't provide eternal life, how can it be a higher authority than the one who does?
That is a false supposition, because the person writing the message never claims to be the author. The prophet always claims that he is the messenger of the word. So God is the author of that message and this validates the assertion that what the messenger writes is not from him but from God who chose and sent him.
I knew that is what you use before you told me. This verse I pointed out to verify the authenticity of the written word's authorship and it certainly isn't by the messenger who wrote it.
Jesus stated that he is the highest authority doesn't in any way diminish the authority of scripture, but asserts that it can be misunderstood.
Just because it is misinterpreted and misunderstood by people even today, it doesn't by any means diminish its authority.
I'm not talking about the person who literally wrote the message. I'm talking about God. If what is written has the highest authority, then God can't have the highest authority.
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. (John 6:63)
For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. (John 12:49)
If Jesus is the highest authority, scripture isn't the highest authority. If scripture is the highest authority, Jesus isn't the highest authority. That simple.
God first, scripture second.
You and other Catholics have repeatedly defended your beliefs with scripture as if it was indisputable authority. In actuality you believe your church to be a higher authority.I fail to see how my comment is hypocritical.
Are you doubting that scripture is true? Do I really need to prove that to you? Since this is all I take to be incontrivertibly true, that is all I have to demonsrate to be true. You on the other hand claim another source of incontrivertibly truth. Multiple Catholics have been asked to prove this other source is inerrant, but have not. Can you?I asked you to show me in the Bible where it says it needs to be in the Bible, you failed to do so. If you could back up your concept of Sola Scriptura, then by all means. Sola Scriptura says "Scripture Alone", but how can you come to that conclusion if it does not state that in the Bible itself?
Like I pointed out many times already, correct or incorrect interpretation of scripture has nothing to do with the authority of God's word.Also, "all the churches that follow Sola Scriptura" all happen to disagree on major things in the Bible. Hence there being close to 40k different denominations of Christianity.
Case in point, there are denominations that believe Baptism is symbolic, while others view it as a sacrament. Some do not believe in the Trinity, while others do. Some believe Jesus had biological siblings, whiles others believe that He did not.
If you actually read scripture, you would find a way of testing what any person was teaching.By stating Sola Scriptura, you cannot tell me that I "do not understand that verse" because you have rejected all authority in terms of understanding scripture and place authority on the individual.
I quoted what you said and it was not PUT THE BIBLE TOGETHER. Why don't you read your own post.The mass is in the Bible, everything we Catholics believe is in the Bible. Would you go up to J R R Tolkien and say "hey, I read your books! I can totally understand what you are trying to say in this part.", and if he answered you are wrong go "No, you don't know your own book. I told you that you mean this."
I never said the Catholic Church WROTE the Bible, I said that it PUT THE BIBLE TOGETHER. Those are 2 very different statements.
Scripture Lesson: Test false teachings against scripture. The church followed scripture and did this. They threw out a bunch of trash. They retained the books of the N.T. that were written hundreds of years earlier. Nothing in the practice is the giving of a higher authority than God's word to the church.The NT of the Holy Bible was beginning to be wrote around 30 years after Christs death, however there was no telling the difference between divinely inspired books and false books. Did you know there was a Gospel of James? How about the Gospel of Peter? Acts of Pilot? Gospel of Barnabas?
There were roughly 25 different gospels going around all claiming to be divinely inspired. How was anyone to know which were and which were not?
It wasn't until the 4th century that the Catholic Church got together in councils and started to piece together which books were divinely inspired. This started in the year 325 at the Council of Nicaea, and later the Bible was out as 1 book, and the Church declared that these were the divinely inspired books.
You continually repeat it. Do you have any proof to support your statement?The Highest point of Authority on earth about God is His Church, the 1 Church that he started. The Catholic Church.
Already argued this same point with another Catholic. Jesus gave us his words. He did not start churches in any sense of what we now understand and use that word to mean.Jesus did not come down and give us a Bible, He gave us a Church. And that Church is His Bride and faithfully follows the teachings of her Husband.
You Catholics grab so much authority in this one verse of scripture. Tell me again what authority Jesus gave to Peter in 1 Tim 3:15. Because, we all know that all authority comes from God, and all Catholics know that all church authority comes through the apostle Peter. This will probably escape you because you search for ways to justify your beliefs, instead of searching scripture to formulate your beliefs.I will tell you this, search the Bible for the words "foundation/bulwark of truth" and see what the Bible itself says. Hint, it is in 1 Timothy 3:15 "if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth."
Why don't you just admit you can't formulate a rebuttal for my argument? If you really can't follow the logic of my argument, I will make it really simple.That last statement is mental gymnastics.
@Berean777, are you saying that the word of God is the word of God, whether in written form or direct communication?
Yes, it can even be a thought, a vision, a visitation like the acts of the apostles, a verbal instruction, a heart's conviction.
All in the same is the word which doesn't contradict the written word.
Highest authority is not limited to which ever mode it may be, it is the highest authority.
If you believe that the Holy Bible is the word of God, then you are agreeing that God is the author and if so then this is the highest authority as if God is speaking directly into your ears, heart, mind or which ever medium that we physical creatures can receive.
If the written word of God is a subset of the word of God, it doesn't follow to say that the written form has the highest authority. That's like saying a subset of the alphabet (e.g., letters l-x) has higher authority (the highest authority) than the entire alphabet.
Jesus is the Word... Where do you find God's authority outside of the bible? In Tradition? That's man's word.I disagree. If X is dependent on Y, then Y has more authority than X. The Bible is dependent on God, therefore God has more authority than the Bible. God isn't the Bible, just as God isn't his words.
I disagree. If X is dependent on Y, then Y has more authority than X. The Bible is dependent on God, therefore God has more authority than the Bible. God isn't the Bible, just as God isn't his words.
The Fallacy of the Double Standard: This fallacy consists in holding up one standard for a favored group or person and a totally different standard for an unfavored group or person. For example, according to the popular media (predominantly Democrat), Dan Quayle (a Republican) is not fit to be President of the United States because he misspelled potato (potatoe). But Bill Clinton (a Democrat) can commit perjury, adultery, and sexually abuse a woman young enough to be his daughter and lie about it under oath, and remain--in the eyes of the liberal media--a good president because “his private life has nothing to do with his public life.”
But this is where you confuse yourself through human reasoning.
Think of God as Spirit, the almighty consciousness. Now in which ever manner of delivery he chooses to impart his word, the authorship is the same. If God said 7000 years ago I Am that I Am, then this is the highest authority. God isn't going to say something differently 7000 years later.
The word of God transcends time, space and the mode of delivery. When we hold up the Holy Bible, we acknowledge that it is only a paper print, but the internalised meaning, purpose and authorship is what is revered and not the print itself.
If my earthly dad said I always loved you. Then that statement whether he said it to me directly when he lived or wrote it down is what is intrinsically important to me because I know it is from my dad. In the case of Holy scriptures it is our heavenly Father speaking to us as if it was yesturday. The same applies to the words of Jesus.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?