Sola scriptura

[Albion]

You can either understand the Word of God as very holy and dedicated men did, or according to newer interpretations by men who don't have anywhere near that dedication.

As usual on this thread, that comment doesn't deal with what Sola Scriptura is. We still do need to have you and the others who are primarily interested in vilifying Protestant Christians to show some understanding of what Sola Scriptura means before disagreeing with it.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

As usual on this thread, that comment doesn't deal with what Sola Scriptura is. We still do need to have you and the others who are primarily interested in vilifying Protestant Christians to show some understanding of what Sola Scriptura means before disagreeing with it.

Sola Scriptura
(Lat., ‘by scripture alone’).
The belief that the truths of Christian faith and practice can and must be established from scripture alone, without additions from, e.g., tradition or development.

http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100516917

 

[Albion]

Sola Scriptura
(Lat., ‘by scripture alone’).
The belief that the truths of Christian faith and practice can and must be established from scripture alone, without additions from, e.g., tradition or development.

OK! We are making some progress after all. Now, take the above sentence into consideration and tell us why you prefer a different doctrinal authority.

 

[civilwarbuff]

Sola Scriptura
(Lat., ‘by scripture alone’).
The belief that the truths of Christian faith and practice can and must be established from scripture alone, without additions from, e.g., tradition or development.

http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100516917

I don't understand why anyone would go with man made traditions over scripture....though i could speculate....

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

OK! We are making some progress after all. Now, take the above sentence into consideration and tell us why you prefer a different doctrinal authority.

Because the earliest Christians relied completely on Holy Tradition prior to any of it being written down. Christ's way of ensuring his teachings were passed on, was by instructing many hand-picked teachers, and telling them to pass on what he taught; they in turn chose other teachers to continue this process, and so on until present day. Scripture is writings by these teachers they set to paper mostly to resolve questions or issues with other churches, but these writings were never intended to be some sort of exhaustive catalogue of teachings, each writer didn't think of himself as writing something that would be included in a larger work, he just wrote what he was writing to address particular things.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

I don't understand why anyone would go with man made traditions over scripture....though i could speculate....

see

First of all, Holy Tradition isn't man-made. Many traditions employed by the Church are, but Holy Tradition means precisely and only what Christ personally passed on to his Apostles. Christ did not pass on any Scripture, but Scripture witnesses Christ's teachings, it is a witness to Holy Tradition, and that is why it is Sacred. However, there is no part of Scripture that claims Scripture is a comprehensive account of what Christ taught (how could it be? look how long he taught). Furthermore, there is no verse in Scripture giving a New Testament canon, that canon was put together by deliberation of the Church. So if you subscribe to a New Testament canon, right off the bat you are accepting a non-Scriptural teaching. And, once again, nothing in the New Testament says it is a comprehensive record of all dogma.

 

[sculleywr]

As usual on this thread, that comment doesn't deal with what Sola Scriptura is. We still do need to have you and the others who are primarily interested in vilifying Protestant Christians to show some understanding of what Sola Scriptura means before disagreeing with it.

Considering that we have already gone over this and you PATENTLY REFUSE TO POST ANY KIND OF DEFINITION OF SOLA SCRIPTURA FOR YOURSELF, we're going to go with the most popular version, which is not your own version. Your own version has never been given form. It is as the earth before it was created, without form and void.

The fact is that pretty much all of the versions of Sola Scriptura were completely unfollowable in the Early Church era. You can't follow SS if you don't have Scripture, as would have been the case in India, Gaul, many of the outskirts of the Roman Empire like Britain, and many other places up until the printing press actually made it even fathomable to practice Sola Scriptura. If there had never been a press, there would never have been SS.

 

[sculleywr]

I don't understand why anyone would go with man made traditions over scripture....though i could speculate....

The Canon is a manmade tradition that is over Scripture, and every single church in the world places manmade traditions over Scripture. Every Christian does. The difference between traditional churches and Protestants is that the former are honest with themselves about it while the latter lie to themselves about it.

 

[sculleywr]

OK! We are making some progress after all. Now, take the above sentence into consideration and tell us why you prefer a different doctrinal authority.

Because I prefer one that actually exists and isn't self0contradictory. One that is actually possible is better than a fairy tale that is completely and fundamentally impossible.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

I have no idea what that has to do with anything I wrote.....could you explain or is it just a strawman?

I mean that whether or not someone is of the Spirit is discerned by a variety of things, it isn't just something on a checklist, it is, rather, something determined in the conclusion of a checklist.

Matthew 7:16

James 2:18

 

[civilwarbuff]

The Canon is a manmade tradition that is over Scripture, and every single church in the world places manmade traditions over Scripture. Every Christian does. The difference between traditional churches and Protestants is that the former are honest with themselves about it while the latter lie to themselves about it.

Canon is not over scripture; scripture would still exist even without canon.
Please be careful about who you call liars.....

 

[Albion]

Because the earliest Christians relied completely on Holy Tradition prior to any of it being written down.

That's said by advocates of Holy Tradition, but much of the Bible was available to them from the earliest days. As a matter of fact, the earliest churches simply had not yet formed their views on much that later was to be defined. And the oral transmission of the teachings of the Lord by the Apostles in no way represents "Holy Tradition." To transmit the Lord's teachings by word of mouth is not, definitely not, the equivalent of augmenting it with speculation and custom.

Christ's way of ensuring his teachings were passed on, was by instructing many hand-picked teachers, and telling them to pass on what he taught; they in turn chose other teachers to continue this process, and so on until present day.

That's not Holy Tradition, and it doesn't in any way negate the authority of Scripture. Holy Tradition refers to the selection of customs, opinion, and folklore that the church in question chooses to dogmatize. No two Catholic/Orthodox churches have selected the same items, deemed them to be true by Holy Tradition, and declared them doctrines.

Anyway, this is slightly off-topic. We need to stay focused on Sola Scriptura.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

That's said by advocates of Holy Tradition, but much of the Bible was available to them from the earliest days. And the oral transmission of the teachings of the Apostles in no way represents "Holy Tradition." To transmit the Lord's teachings by word of mouth is not, definitely not, the equivalent of augmenting it with speculation and custom. The earliest church essentially left undefined many things that were defined later.

We're not talking about speculation or custom, we're talking about Holy Tradition.

And no, most of the New Testament was not available to most parishes, even after it was all composed. Most didn't even have more than one Gospel and a few Epistles for a long time.

That's not Holy Tradition, and it doesn't in any way negate the authority of Scripture. Holy Tradition refers to the selection of customs, opinion, and folklore that the church in question chooses to dogmatize.

No, Holy Tradition refers to the teachings Christ passed on. You're conflating Holy Tradition with stuff like canons, huge difference.

No two Catholic/Orthodox churches have selected the same items, deemed them to be true by Holy Tradition, and declared them doctrines.

That's because Christ only founded One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, not two.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

The Bible defends a doctrine that was completely unpracticeable at the time it was written. Like seriously, less than 5% of the Church could read (that is a very liberal estimate considering the fact that the Church was more attractive to the poor and impoverished, who had a much lower literacy rate than the average of the empire), and many of the Churches across the empire counted the existence of a portion of Scripture from which to read in a service as such an auspicious occassion that they would have parades from the place the Scriptures were kept to the place where the services were held where they sang joyous psalms and hymns! There weren't enough Scriptures to go around in many of the places to which the Faith was preached. India, Gaul, Britain, the peninsula where Sweden and Norway are now were all evangelized without the benefit of a copy of Scripture written in their local language, because either Scripture wasn't translated into the local language (such as in India) or else they didn't have a written language (such as with Gaul, in modern day Lyons).

So God was basically telling the illiterate masses that Christianity was not a faith for them, because Scripture is of no authority if you don't use it. Since they were unable to use it, they didn't use it.

As a result of your belief: You are either trusting in man written documents (that cannot truly be trusted or verified with 100% accuracy - unlike the Bible) or you have a time machine. Either way...

Let God be true and every man be a liar (Romans 3:4).


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[Albion]

We're not talking about speculation or custom, we're talking about Holy Tradition.

That's what "Holy Tradition" is.

And no, most of the New Testament was not available to most parishes

I said "Bible."

No, Holy Tradition refers to the teachings Christ passed on.

No, it refers to additions to Scripture. And as for being teachings that Christ passed on, if whatever it is correctly can be referred to that way, it's in the Bible. If it's not, it's not what Christ passed on.

You're conflating Holy Tradition with stuff like canons, huge difference.

Nope. I'm certainly not doing that.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

So either you are trusting in man written documents to obtain the information (that cannot truly be trusted or verified with 100% accuracy) or you so as to believe as you do, or you have a time machine.

Let God be true and every man be a liar (Romans 3:4).


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The canon of Scripture is a man-written document.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

And as for being teachings that Christ passed on, if whatever it is correctly can be referred to that way, it's in the Bible. If it's not, it's not what Christ passed on.

This statement isn't in the Bible.

 

[Albion]

The canon of Scripture is a man-written document.

Don't confuse the penman with the author.

 

[civilwarbuff]

Christ's way of ensuring his teachings were passed on, was by instructing many hand-picked teachers, and telling them to pass on what he taught; they in turn chose other teachers to continue this process, and so on until present day. Scripture is writings by these teachers they set to paper mostly to resolve questions or issues with other churches, but these writings were never intended to be some sort of exhaustive catalogue of teachings, each writer didn't think of himself as writing something that would be included in a larger work, he just wrote what he was writing to address particular things.

I will ask other Orthodox here if this is true teaching of Orthodoxy. Because IMHO this is some really screwed up beliefs and from what I know of the Orthodox, admittedly very limited, this is way off base.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

The canon of Scripture is a man-written document.

No. Not exactly. While the ink on the page was put forth by men, it's true author is God.


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