Shouldn't The Bible Be Sufficient Enough For Knowledge Of God?

[JamesAH]

Shouldn't the Bible be enough for us to know God? Why do humans continue to seek more answers? I realize that knowledge is a forbearer of human desire but if God wanted us to know more than the Word says about him wouldn't he have written more?

Do you think there are some answers that need not to be known either because we don't need to know or God wants us to know later after all of this is said and done?

Opinions!!!!!

 

[Eucharisted]

The New Testament doesn't tell us how to celebrate the Eucharist, while the Old Testament gives explicit detail on the Jewish liturgy. Obviously the early Christians didn't consider the Bible sufficient to know God, so they must have another source of knowledge of God, which we call Apostolic or Sacred or Holy Tradition because it is the transmission of the Word of God from the Apostles to their successors (the Bishops) and from one Bishop to the next down throughout the generations to the present day and on to the end of the age, preserved free of error by the same Spirit who makes the transmission living.

 

[Musa80]

Shouldn't the Bible be enough for us to know God? Why do humans continue to seek more answers? I realize that knowledge is a forbearer of human desire but if God wanted us to know more than the Word says about him wouldn't he have written more?

Do you think there are some answers that need not to be known either because we don't need to know or God wants us to know later after all of this is said and done?

Opinions!!!!!

What are these books you have in your Bible that God wrote himself? I've looked all through mine and haven't found any yet.

Seriously though, no, the Bible alone does not contain everything needed for salvation, and nowhere in the Bible is that claim ever made. In fact there is an explicit occurrence of this in the Bible itself.

The Ethiopian eunuch is given scripture and asked if he knows what it means. The answer, "how can I understand except someone teach me." It seems pretty clear the Apostolic Tradition is necessary as well.

 

[JamesAH]

What are these books you have in your Bible that God wrote himself? I've looked all through mine and haven't found any yet.

The Word comes from Him. He might not have written the books literally by coming down and writing it Himself but all that is in the Word comes from Him so you can say he did write the Bible but not physically.

God is the author of the Word. Those who say otherwise is a heretic.

 

[Eucharisted]

2 Timothy 3:13-17
But evil men and seducers shall grow worse and worse: erring, and driving into error,
but continue in those things which you have learned and which have been committed to you. Knowing of whom you have learned them:
And because from your infancy you have known the holy scriptures which can instruct you to salvation by the faith which is in Christ Jesus.
All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice:
That the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work.

The Scriptures here referenced refers to the Jewish Scriptures and the Gospels. The Bible as we know it today didn't exist during the days of the Apostles. So the Apostle isn't claiming Scripture is enough - only that it is profitable.

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Shouldn't the Bible be enough for us to know God? Why do humans continue to seek more answers? I realize that knowledge is a forbearer of human desire but if God wanted us to know more than the Word says about him wouldn't he have written more?

Do you think there are some answers that need not to be known either because we don't need to know or God wants us to know later after all of this is said and done?

Opinions!!!!!

I would say if Jesus wouldn't have talked in "parables" so much, His words would also have been more clear, not only to us, but also the Jews of today [who are still waiting on their own Messiah]....

I do love a "mystery" tho

Mark 4:11 and He said to them "to ye it hath been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of the God, to those yet, the ones without, in parables the all are becoming

Textus Rec.) Mark 4:11 kai elegen autoiV umin dedotai gnwnai to musthrion thV basileiaV tou qeou ekeinoiV de toiV exw en parabolaiV ta panta ginetai

 

[ebia]

The New Testament doesn't tell us how to celebrate the Eucharist, while the Old Testament gives explicit detail on the Jewish liturgy. Obviously the early Christians didn't consider the Bible sufficient to know God, so they must have another source of knowledge of God, which we call Apostolic or Sacred or Holy Tradition because it is the transmission of the Word of God from the Apostles to their successors (the Bishops) and from one Bishop to the next down throughout the generations to the present day and on to the end of the age, preserved free of error by the same Spirit who makes the transmission living.

This assumes that we need detailed instructions on how to celebrate the eucharist.

 

[ebia]

What are these books you have in your Bible that God wrote himself? I've looked all through mine and haven't found any yet.

Seriously though, no, the Bible alone does not contain everything needed for salvation, and nowhere in the Bible is that claim ever made. In fact there is an explicit occurrence of this in the Bible itself.

The Ethiopian eunuch is given scripture and asked if he knows what it means. The answer, "how can I understand except someone teach me." It seems pretty clear the Apostolic Tradition is necessary as well.

That seems dreadfully contrived from the text. The Ethiopian only had the Old Testament in his scriptures, and even then he was asking for help in accessing what he had, not for additional information. He did actually need extra - he needed the gospel - but that wasn't actually what he was asking for. There's a difference between needing to study in the community of the people of God of understand scripture and needing extra inspired information over and above scripture.

 

[ebia]

Of course one can't prove from scripture that scripture is sufficient, since the last words of scripture were penned a significant time before the boundaries of scripture were set. Any attempt to write "scripture is sufficient" within scripture would have been wrong or meaningless at the time it was written.

 

[Athanasias]

Shouldn't the Bible be enough for us to know God? Why do humans continue to seek more answers? I realize that knowledge is a forbearer of human desire but if God wanted us to know more than the Word says about him wouldn't he have written more?

Do you think there are some answers that need not to be known either because we don't need to know or God wants us to know later after all of this is said and done?

Opinions!!!!!

Ask this man "So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" And he said, "How can I, unless some one guides me?" And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. "(Act s 8:30-31)

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Ask this man "So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" And he said, "How can I, unless some one guides me?" And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. "(Act s 8:30-31)

And how did Philip know how to explain those Scriptures to the eunuch

Acts 8:34 And the eunuch, making answer unto Philip, said--I pray thee! Of whom, is the prophet saying this? of himself, or, of some different person?
35 And Philip, opening his mouth, and beginning from this scripture, told him the glad tidings of Jesus.

 

[Athanasias]

And how did Philip know how to explain those Scriptures to the eunuch

Acts 8:34 And the eunuch, making answer unto Philip, said--I pray thee! Of whom, is the prophet saying this? of himself, or, of some different person?
35 And Philip, opening his mouth, and beginning from this scripture, told him the glad tidings of Jesus.

Why he was taught and ordained by the apostles of course. See this why we need teachers(a magisterium)/!

 

[Secundulus]

And how did Philip know how to explain those Scriptures to the eunuch

Probably being taught personally by Jesus for three years had something to do with it.

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Probably being taught personally by Jesus for three years had something to do with it.

Hmmm.....this Philip?..I would love to have been there with Jesus when He spoke this........

http://www.christianforums.com/t7391061/#post52559491

John 14:8,9 Phillip is saying to Him "Lord! show! to us the Father and is being sufficient to us".
Jesus is saying to him "as much time with ye I am and not thou have known Me Philip!
The one having seen Me has seen the Father, and why thou saying 'show! to us the Father'? Not thou are believing that I in the Father and the Father in Me is?

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Why he was taught and ordained by the apostles of course. See this why we need teachers(a magisterium)/!

Ahhh.....that is true

Acts 6:4 and we to prayer, and to the ministration of the word, will give ourselves continually.'
5 And the thing was pleasing before all the multitude, and they did choose
Stephen/stefanon <4736> , a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, Stephen = "crowned"
and Philip/filippon <5376> , Philip = "lover of horses"
and Prochorus/procoron <4402> , Prochorus = "leader of the chorus"
and Nicanor/nikanora <3527> , Nicanor = "conqueror"
and Timon/timwna <5096> , Timon = "honourable"
and Parmenas/parmenan <3937>, Parmenas = "abiding"
and Nicolaus/nikolaon <3532>, a proselyte of Antioch/antiocea <491>, Nicolas = "victor of the people"
6 whom they did set before the apostles, and they, having prayed, laid on them [their] hands.
7 And the word of God did increase, and the number of the disciples did multiply in Jerusalem exceedingly; a great multitude also of the priests were obedient to the faith.

 

[sunlover1]

Ask this man "So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" And he said, "How can I, unless some one guides me?" And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. "(Act s 8:30-31)

You are missing the context though.
Ebia explains it here:

That seems dreadfully contrived from the text. The Ethiopian only had the Old Testament in his scriptures, and even then he was asking for help in accessing what he had, not for additional information. He did actually need extra - he needed the gospel - but that wasn't actually what he was asking for. There's a difference between needing to study in the community of the people of God of understand scripture and needing extra inspired information over and above scripture.

Shouldn't the Bible be enough for us to know God? Why do humans continue to seek more answers? I realize that knowledge is a forbearer of human desire but if God wanted us to know more than the Word says about him wouldn't he have written more?

Do you think there are some answers that need not to be known either because we don't need to know or God wants us to know later after all of this is said and done?

Opinions!!!!!

Scripture is enough for us to be acquainted with God.
It's not enough for me, I want more and more of Him..
But it's enough for us to know "about" Him certainly.
You'd think so, no?

Enjoying your posts btw
sunlover

 

[Athanasias]

You are missing the context though.
Ebia explains it here:




Scripture is enough for us to be acquainted with God.
It's not enough for me, I want more and more of Him..
But it's enough for us to know "about" Him certainly.
You'd think so, no?

Enjoying your posts btw
sunlover

Sure I can certainly say that scripture is enough for us to be acquainted with God(Materiel sufficiency) but what I can't say is that I will always be able to understand scripture without a teacher as Acts shows or also as St. Peter speaks about as he says some things in Pauls writings are hard to understand and the untaught twist them to the their own destruction. So Yes all the materiel is there but that does nto guarantee I am going to understand all of it to come to God and seek proper doctrine, that is why I need a teachers as Acts and Peter show. I can also say that alot less then scripture is enough for us to be acquainted with God too.

 

[Secundulus]

Are the Gospels only about knowing God individually? Or does the "Kingdom" have more meaning?

 

[ebia]

Sure I can certainly say that scripture is enough for us to be acquainted with God(Materiel sufficiency) but what I can't say is that I will always be able to understand scripture without a teacher as Acts shows or also as St. Peter speaks about as he says some things in Pauls writings are hard to understand and the untaught twist them to the their own destruction. So Yes all the materiel is there but that does nto guarantee I am going to understand all of it to come to God and seek proper doctrine, that is why I need a teachers as Acts and Peter show. I can also say that alot less then scripture is enough for us to be acquainted with God too.

But what is needed isn't extra information (Tradition (TM)) but the community in which to learn through mutual dialog with others at different stages in the learning process with different talents and perspectives.

Adding tradition doesn't help - it just means there is more data that I have to make sense of!

 

[Athanasias]

But what is needed isn't extra information (Tradition (TM)) but the community in which to learn through mutual dialog with others at different stages in the learning process with different talents and perspectives.

Adding tradition doesn't help - it just means there is more data that I have to make sense of!

Well I am heartened to see that you at least believe in a magisterium(teacher). I do dissagree through that all Tradition is bad. That community that is lived and its teachings are part of that tradition. I mean there certainly are some oral traditions that are apostolic and are to be believed by Christians. Umm the way I see it is this; if extra information was not needed then God would not have given us the extra information and instructed us to use it. Also empirically looking to the practical situation if extra info was not needed then the bible would be self explanatory and yet we have over 28,000 different groups claiming what scripture actually says and they do not agree and they use it apart from the extra data of tradition that God gave us. So who is correct? I think that demonstrates practically that something outside of scripture like tradition was needed to be used as a interpretive grid and indeed that is how the early Christians used it.

Extra data doesn't necessarily mean that you have to make sense of it all right now, that would take a lifetime as scripture studies themselves do. It means the teaching Chuch's priority is to make sense of it which it has for centuries since Christ founded his Church.

At least thats my take!