Is scripture the highest authority?

[AnticipateHisComing]

Addressing the OP

God is the highest authority, and God chooses to speak through His Church. YES HIS CHURCH. "The church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth." Now the Church speaks through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition (such as the Ecumenical Councils, etc.)

So which church do you believe today carries the truth and is the so called pillar and foundation of it? There are so many that disagree. Personally, I have left one church and been visiting many different ones. None has impressed me as being the highest authority of incontrovertible truth.

If you can't answer my question, than your position fails as you offer no alternative source of incontrovertible truth than scripture.

 

[Thursday]

How many Ecclesias did Jesus start?

Silly semantics games don't change the reality that Jesus started a single Church. Which one was it?

 

[Landon Caeli]

Seriously?!?

Definition of irony: person who claims to belong to the Catholic church-- the church that slaughtered thousands of people (or more) over the centuries because they refused to accept that only the Catholic church, not laypeople, could interpret Scripture-- claiming that individual laypeople are the highest authority of deciding what Scripture means.

Not trying to be mean, Vicomte13... just wondering if you really understand what the Catholic church teaches on the matter. Judging by your statements above, you are a hardcore protestant in what you believe.

No, it's Catholic.

CCC 1782
Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. "He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters."53

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a6.htm

 

[AnticipateHisComing]

To quote your own words back at you, scripture needs interpreting. For what ought to be obvious reasons, there was no word meaning "church" circa 30 AD, when Jesus would have been speaking. Εκκλησια means no more than a community, or assembly of believers.

Most excellent piece of knowledge. Thank you.

I would further say the same applies to when 1 Timothy 3:15 was written.

 

[lesliedellow]

That's a fair counterpoint, assuming that Jesus' words were accurately recalled by John writing 60 years after Jesus left, but I don't see those words about faith in spiritual leadership validating the perfection of all scripture. Moses was himself a reformer of previous beliefs and practices of those under his command. There is NO surviving scripture which predated Moses.

Jesus didn't come to earth to reform the errors of his children's pre-school years, he came to broaden our understanding of the Father manifested in his life; making the way of salvation more clear. Jesus respected the faith of the children of Israel no matter how primitive or inaccurate those histories may have been as preserved in the scripture.

John 5.46-47
46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.

47 But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?

You are no great fan of St Paul then.

 

[FireDragon76]

Jesus condemns the religious leaders of his day for the words of scripture not dwelling/working in them. He then says this is why they do not believe him. This is in no way a teaching to discourage the study of scripture. Can you really be so shortsighted to think that God does not want us to study his words?

What is Christian faith about, being a little professor of the Bible? Or is it loving God and living in the Spirit?

 

[FireDragon76]

The Bible is ink and paper. It only becomes a clear speech-act of God when it is correctly preached and taught. We cannot divorce the Bible's efficacy from the work of the Holy Spirit or the corporate nature of the Church.

The life of Augustine is a perfect example. He initially was not attracted to Christianity, he did not want to believe it. He read the Old Testament and thought it was barbaric and inferior to pagan philosophies. It was only after he encountered Bishop Ambrose, who taught him how to understand the Old Testament typologically/allegorically and Christologically, that he felt drawn to the orthodox Christian faith as the wisdom he had sought his whole life.

 

[Colter]

You are no great fan of St Paul then.

Well, I respect Paul as the first great, sincere evangelist whose personal religious opinions have greatly influenced the Christian religion and much of the NT theology.

 

[Landon Caeli]

What is Christian faith about, being a little professor of the Bible? Or is it loving God and living in the Spirit?

It's B.

Fundamentalism is a problem in many faiths, especially Islam.

The conscience is the highest authority on earth. God is the highest authority ultimately. The bible is our guide.

 

[Vicomte13]

A lot of translations are actually awful. ESV, RSV, KJV are all good. NIV and NRSV belong in the trash. And the "Message" translation is horrendous.

The Eastern Orthodox Bible (EOB) is the best single translation of the New Testament in English. It uses the correct manuscript, and it correctly translates the Greek idiom.

 

[Vicomte13]

The conscience is the highest authority on earth. God is the highest authority ultimately. The bible is our guide.

A:Yes,
B: Yes.
C: And the Church is a key guide to correctly understanding the Bible (but always subject to A).

 

[topcare]

Saying bishops in the first place would have avoided the confusion as the Church has multiple meanings to different people. Do you also hold to a select line of bishops having this authority or do all religious leaders have this higher authority? Would you state what church you follow that has this position?

Also, why do you bother saying the Bible says bishops are the higher authority? If bishops were actually the higher authority, than bishops would just declare it and no one would doubt it. Does not authority comes from higher to lower?

Just like all Traditional Christians I do not believe a collection of books has any authority by itself and I never said " the Bible says bishops are the higher authority" what I said was the Church which Christ founded has the Authority

Note that the apostles never claimed to be inerrant or the highest authority. In fact scripture points out errors and disagreements in the apostles. Further, the apostles never stated that the hierarchy they established had the same authority as what Jesus gave them directly. You must concede that the authority conveyed from Jesus to be higher than by the apostles.

Actually God made them the authority first as Christ when He gave them authority (John 20:21-23) and than later in no uncertain terms when Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write that the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth. So yes the Bible does attest to who has authority and it's not a book.

The concept of scripture being the highest authority on God's truth is based on a process of elimination. The elimination is that there is no other entity on earth that was given authority to speak for God. Therefore since scripture is our record on earth of God's word, it is supreme, not by self declaration but by process of elimination.

It is based solely on man and because of this man made tradition there has been nothing but chaos in protestant Christianity since after Luther. In reality those who say the Bible alone is the only authority are really saying that they are the highest authority because they can make the Bible say anything they want and no one can tell them it's wrong.

 

[food4thought]

No, it's Catholic.

CCC 1782
Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. "He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters."53

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a6.htm

Note that the catechism carefully says nothing in that passage about interpreting scripture... only the very vague term "religious matters". Ask your priest who has the authority to interpret Scripture.

I won't pretend to be an expert on Catholicism, and I did not mean to start a debate about it. I'm pretty sure I'm right on this though. As I stated in my original post, I was not trying to be mean. In reading what I said I can see how someone might call it "mudslinging", and I ask your forgiveness for that. I will try to be more carefull of how I say things.

As to the OP: I believe that Scripture is the highest authority on earth, but it must be interpreted by the Holy Spirit... the two go hand and hand. Spirit over Scripture= radical Pentecostal. Scripture without Spirit= dead religion.

 

[Vicomte13]

The Bible is not the absolute authority of incontrovertible truth. There is no such thing; that authority belongs ONLY to God, and he does not take kindly to us setting up idols and plating them with gold, not even Bible shaped ones.

Just so.

 

[Vicomte13]

I guess you missed the part of the question for something physical on earth today; something that we may use to learn what God wants us to learn.

The Shroud of Turin and the Oviedo Cloth.
The Lanciano Eucharistic Miracle.
The Incorrupt Bodies of Saints.
The Miraculous Healings at Lourdes.

 

[Vicomte13]

Seriously?!?

Definition of irony: person who claims to belong to the Catholic church-- the church that slaughtered thousands of people (or more) over the centuries because they refused to accept that only the Catholic church, not laypeople, could interpret Scripture-- claiming that individual laypeople are the highest authority of deciding what Scripture means.

Not trying to be mean, Vicomte13... just wondering if you really understand what the Catholic church teaches on the matter. Judging by your statements above, you are a hardcore protestant in what you believe.

I am a Catholic.

 

[lesliedellow]

The Eastern Orthodox Bible (EOB) is the best single translation of the New Testament in English. It uses the correct manuscript, and it correctly translates the Greek idiom.

What might the "correct" manuscript be? And what makes it correct? Modern translations are made from a critical edition of the Greek New Testamnt, commonly the Nestle Aland one, and that will have been put together by textual critics collating a vast array of manuscript evidence.

 

[Vicomte13]

I'm pretty sure I'm right on this though.

You're not.

 

[Vicomte13]

What might the "correct" manuscript be? And what makes it correct? Modern translations are made from a critical edition of the Greek New Testamnt, commonly the Nestle Aland one, and that will have been put together by textual critics, collating a vast array of manuscript evidence.

The Patriarchal Text.

 

[lesliedellow]

The Patriarchal Text.

And where is that to be found?