Whence sola scriptura?

[Jason1646]

There is an epistemological problem, which is that everyone makes this claim about their particular ideas about God. I think we need some kind of chain of evidence connecting a given text with God before that can be overcome.

Note that I have such a chain of evidence. That's why I don't have a problem with saying it's useful or necessary to support the Bible; it's not as if I'm asking for something that doesn't exist.

Sorry, I jumped in late I know, but I would never advocate a lack of evidence for support of the Bible. Faith is not believing what you know ain't true! God indeed used evidences to put His signature upon His revelation (Hebrews 2:4). But the problem is that nobody approaches evidences as 'brute facts'. All evidences are interpreted within a context or worldview because thoughts are not like marbles, they are like webs, with our fundamental assumptions about reality lying at the center. After all, the clear demonstration by Christ that He did the works of the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit did not keep the scribes from saying that Jesus did so by the power of Satan (Mark 3:22). Matthew 6:23 "But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!. If I may put a paraphrasical spin on that, 'proof' is in the eye of the beholder! Hence, there are two fundamental ways of evaluating things: Through the eyes of faith that begin with the fear of the Lord and His sovereignty over the sphere of knowledge, or the eyes of unbelief whereby man reasons autonomously and determines for himself what God must do to satisfy his own bar of reason. I choose the former.

Proverbs 9:10 "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Sincerely in Christ,

~Jason

 

[Bastoune]

I left off my last post saying that I'd post more on the Augustine quote. If you're interested let me know. It seems fairly apparent that you got the quote from a particular Catholic poster who supplied it to you privately because he didn't want to be warned for debating in the PRE, so I suspect you don't really have much interest in where Augustine was coming from, but if I'm wrong, let me know.

No, he read my post b4 it was deleted.

 

[Bastoune]

Sorry, I jumped in late I know, but I would never advocate a lack of evidence for support of the Bible. Faith is not believing what you know ain't true! God indeed used evidences to put His signature upon His revelation (Hebrews 2:4). But the problem is that nobody approaches evidences as 'brute facts'. All evidences are interpreted within a context or worldview because thoughts are not like marbles, they are like webs, with our fundamental assumptions about reality lying at the center. After all, the clear demonstration by Christ that He did the works of the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit did not keep the scribes from saying that Jesus did so by the power of Satan (Mark 3:22). Matthew 6:23 "But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!. If I may put a paraphrasical spin on that, 'proof' is in the eye of the beholder! Hence, there are two fundamental ways of evaluating things: Through the eyes of faith that begin with the fear of the Lord and His sovereignty over the sphere of knowledge, or the eyes of unbelief whereby man reasons autonomously and determines for himself what God must do to satisfy his own bar of reason. I choose the former.

Proverbs 9:10 "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Sincerely in Christ,

~Jason

Beautiful post, Jason! BRILLIANT!!!

The Lord said in John 5:39 that by going to the Scriptures you have knowledge... but the knowledge comes from the LORD. Look at the Psalms... look at 2 Corinthians -- the OT Scriptures were brought to light AFTER the Holy Spirit descended (previously, a "veil" was over their true meaning, and the understanding of the foreshadowed coming of Jesus, His Life, Passion, Death and Resurrection, as foretold in the OT, came AFTER the fact... not by man's knowledge but by God's intervention).

 

[A. believer]

I love Augustine. I own (and have read) every one of his works. Anyone interested, p.m. me!

But he's just a fallible man, after all!

That's great that you own and have read them all! I've only read excerpts from his treatise De Unitate Ecclesia (On the Unity of the Church) that he wrote in response to the Donatists, but none of the excerpts I read showed where Augustine affirmed union with, and submission to, the bishop of Rome as the (or even a) defining mark of unity the way Roman Catholic ecclesiology does. Considering the fact that this document was an explicit treatise on Augustine's views on the matter, I'm interested in letting Augustine speak for himself, after all the back and forth I've seen about what the necessary implications are of other things he said in other contexts. Before now, though, I hadn't run across anyone who had access to the entire document in English.

 

[Lotar]

I love Augustine. I own (and have read) every one of his works. Anyone interested, p.m. me!

But he's just a fallible man, after all!

Today we have about 100 books, 240 letters, and over 500 sermons written by Augustine. Sounds like you have a lot of time on your hands

 

[A. believer]

Today we have about 100 books, 240 letters, and over 500 sermons written by Augustine. Sounds like you have a lot of time on your hands

As well as a lot of money!

 

[II Paradox II]

Today we have about 100 books, 240 letters, and over 500 sermons written by Augustine. Sounds like you have a lot of time on your hands

If I remember correctly, not all of his works are translated yet either, though I could be wrong about this...

ken

 

[A. believer]

If I remember correctly, not all of his works are translated yet either, though I could be wrong about this...

ken

I pretty certain you're right about that, Ken, but still Bastoune owns and has read them all. No doubt he's quite the Latin scholar.

 

[A. believer]

Oops--double posted.

 

[A. believer]

And what makes you think that refers to a book, rather than to the Living Word?

seebs,

I'm not answering point by point since you said you're done with the discussion, but I just wanted to ask you one question. If you were persuaded that verse I quoted from Hebrews is a reference to Scripture, would that have any bearing on how you view Scripture?