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I follow the Church, just as scripture and Tradition tells us
You are fallible, which is why your views are being questioned. Jesus said to the Apostles, he that hears you, hears Me, he that rejects you rejects Me and the One who sent Me. The Holy Spirit speaks through the Church, not you or your interpretations.
Sinful human beings like us received unwritten teachings/traditions as the Bible attests and later put some of that down on parchment, which became the written portion of the word. The church received and preached the gospel decades before any of the new testament was written.
If you're fallible then you're saying that your understanding of scripture is unreliable? I mean, if you disagree with someone on the meaning of scripture do you just assume that you're quite possibly or even probably wrong?
I'd attack the first one, because it seems to misrepresent what sola scriptura actually means in orthodox protestant tradition. Sola scriptura is simply the claim that Scripture is the final authority, and is the judge of any tradition. Sola scriptura doesn't require that all doctrine be derivable from Scripture, merely that a legitimate doctrine cannot contradict Scripture. What it boils down to is a declaration that every question must ultimately rely on a single authority, and as far as we must decide between Scripture and ecclesial bodies we must depend on Scripture.
I noticed you say you are SDA. And somehow you don't think the writings of Ellen Gould White are inspired? Catholics treat the Fathers and the Councils and the popes as far less inspired than the SDA treats Ellen Gould White.
There are a bevy of definitions of Sola Scriptura, and that makes this kind of discussion a bit maddening. Your apparent definition is actually close to that of 'Dei Verbum' from Vatican II in that it puts Scripture as primary. Others do think that if it's not explicit in Scripture it is no doctrine. Or that if it;s not explicitly forbidden in Scripture then it's allowed, or some other permutation. The problem is the dogma itself isn't in Scripture so it's whatever somebody thinks it is. I wish you guys, the guys who claim Sola Scriptura, could all agree and then get back to us. It would be so much easier.
So you admit to obeying the traditions of men rather than God. Contraception makes the law of God of no effect to you. If you don’t want children, don’t have sexual intercourse.
It seems to me the best way to understand what it is is how it was used by those who are most closely associated with it. Certainly some misunderstand it to require Scriptural derivation, but that's not how Jan Hus and the proto-reformers, and the reformers who followed, used the term. What they used it for was to challenge scholastic theology that was more rooted in medeival culture than in the historic tradition. The reformers didn't see Scripture as exhaustive, in fact they relied heavily on Augustine for their doctrine. And sola scriptura isn't really a dogma, as it's not meant to be taken axiomatically but by recognizing that either we rely on what has been authenticated as codified Apostolic tradition or we subject ourselves to authorities of dubious character. There has always been a recognition of authorities alongside Scripure.
Yes, I do believe Ellen White is inspired. She passes all the Biblical tests of a prophet.
You jump to some real conclusions. My wife's ex husband cheated on her. And he left her, She had solid Biblical ground for her divorce.
So you don't like Tradition but you are willing to follow the traditions of this woman. You even call her inspired. How's that for Sola Scriptura? OT, NT, White's Testament? I just wanted to confirm that. Thanks for the confirmation.
Good description of a version of Sola Scriptura that makes a little more sense. So often all of this stuff is a caricature. For example, the Catholic view is often said by Protestants to be 'Tradition Alone'.
I hear you. I point people to Dei Verbum from Vatican II. I doubt more than a tiny percentage of people I point to it ever read it, but it is a surprisingly good statement.
Yeah, unfortunately a lot of the nuances get lost in the spirit of conflict. Realistically, the majority of Christian history is just sparring at the margins rather than major discrepancies. Things get blown out of proportion because of politics, which is not to say there aren't real differences just that actually engaging with the original disputers usually reveals the gaps were much smaller and grew over time. I pray for the day that Christendom is able to heal the schisms, but I fear the power issues will prevent that from happening.
My main objection to Dei Verbum is the restriction to bishops, because many of the greatest luminaries were never bishops. I don't know of a clear statement, but I think having an official magisterium and sola scriptura are in error to some degree. There is no sharp divide between Scripture and tradition for me, but the lineage of Christian tradition has not been neatly conveyed among the episcopate. Interpretation takes a community disposed to learning.
Whatever. You ignore everything I say and put me down for saying it. Have at it. Your opinion doesn't matter to me any more than mine matters to you.
The same question arises, just in a different key. Given that your new definition of Sola Scriptura does not come from Scripture, from where does it derive its authority? Sola Scriptura, even on your definition, is a tradition not found in the Bible.
The difficulty is that if you go back into history this neat separation between Scripture and Tradition doesn't actually exist. Scripture itself grew out of a tradition, and that tradition possesses divine authority. It is from that authority that Scripture comes. The Apostolic teaching was interpretive and authoritative, e.g. Acts 15:28..., and it generated the New Testament Scriptures. The Protestant claim is that, at some arbitrary point in history, this Apostolic authority vanished from the face of the earth.
Which is what the Bereans did in Acts 17:11 to the point of flat out rejecting the teaching/tradition of their magisterium on that very same topic of whether to accept or reject Paul's doctrine
it appears so.
Not a background context that the Bereans had since they did not accept Jesus "as the Christ" prior to hearing Paul speak and then testing out his teaching against scripture to 'see if those things were so'.
The text says they wanted to test Paul's claims his teaching etc to see if "Those things were so" and the text says that they used scripture alone to do it - and of course by Acts 17 we already have the record in scripture that the magesterium of Jewish believers had already condemned both the the teaching that Jesus was the Christ, and the teaching of Paul and the teaching of Jesus.
Indeed they searched the scriptures to verify Paul's teaching -- to "see IF" those things "were so"
Nor did they say "we are all Christians and it is nice to finally have a Christian speak in our Synagogue".
The Bereans did not have anything remotely like that as a text to read. They had what we call the Old Testament scriptures and they had a pile of traditions/teachings of the Jews. Nothing else.
I have "The Faith Explained" by Leo Trese and I have the Catholic Catechism online.
The Bereans listened to Paul without then asking some other Jewish believer in the Synagogue to first re-imagine Paul's statement.. They took what Paul said and compared it against scripture.
In this case - it is me showing what the Bible says in Acts 17:11 - and everyone being able to read it for themselves.
I don't ever make the case "accept my view rather than scripture -- don't read the scripture for yourself to see if you find a sola scriptura test in Acts 17:11." I never argue for anything remotely along those lines.
Agreed. "to see IF those things are so" -- to see IF scripture supports a view in the way that is claimed by someone's doctrine or tradition.
That Bible text is not that confusing if you are willing to quote it and note the details.
You seem to be making a category mistake, because sola scriptura is not an authoritative dogma. It's simply the recognition of the supremacy of the written tradition and its function in determining the authenticity of purported holy tradition. So it's not something that needs to derive authority from anywhere.
The protestant claim isn't that the authority vanished, but that the authority is vested in its antiquity and the oral tradition degraded over time as oral traditions are prone to. Things were added and removed from the tradition to suit the politics of the day, but we have a record of the earliest tradition in the Scriptures that plays a normative role over the innovations of a magesterium that has asserted its own authority in an illegitimate fashion. So while I agree that there is no way to neatly separate tradition and Scripture and Scripture must be read in light of the surrounding tradition, the oral tradition must be judged by the authentic writings of the apostle's rather than be held up on the authority of institutions.
