Anyone care to take a swing at these questions?

[Autocur]

Found these questions from a site that looks like it was designed in the 90’s. I’ve seen this one come up here before (this site at least), as it is a very anti-catholic very pro Sola Scriptura website. That said, these questions aren’t that bad in the sense that unlike most fundamentalist attacks, he quotes the church fathers fairly heavily and dosen’t just spam 1 Timothy 2:5 like most do. His point mainly goes around the idea that you can’t trust tradition because the Catholics and the Orthodox have different traditions and therefore you can only trust scripture alone. Anyone care to take a shot? Here you go: Irrefutable questions that Roman Catholics can't answer

 

[humbleseeker]

Could you pick just one and go from there?This thread will soon be bogged down with dozens of people answering different questions. Not going to be very fruitful.

 

[Justin_Mary]

His point mainly goes around the idea that you can’t trust tradition because the Catholics and the Orthodox have different traditions and therefore you can only trust scripture alone. Anyone care to take a shot?

Is that because Catholics & Orthodox have the same scripture?

 

[Justin_Mary]

That said, these questions aren’t that bad in the sense that unlike most fundamentalist attacks, he quotes the church fathers fairly heavily

On a serious note. He almost sounds like an intelligent person, but his questions show a misunderstood between Church, Rome, & just about everything else.

I don’t mean this as an insult.

He questions why do Catholics believe one thing, Orthodox believe another but don’t share communion. Well, that’s kinda the answer.

Still, those are good questions to ask with an open mind. Truth will lead you home.

 

[Autocur]

I think his point is if Rome and the East both say “trust us to give you the true apostolic traditions” and they have different traditions, you can’t really trust either of them.

 

[Stidlet]

I’ll address a few from my choosing.

If the Roman Catholic church gave the world the Bible, being infallible, then why did Rome reject or question the inspiration of James and Hebrews , then later accept it? Conversely, Rome accepted as scripture books that were later rejected. If the Catholic church really is illuminated by the Holy Spirit so that men can trust her as “God’s organization”, why was she so wrong about something so simple? Should not the “Holy See” have known?

This is his first point and he really fails to understand the concept of time. Tradition inherently develops over time. When the infallible decisions were made to canonize these books, they were infallibly true. Just because that had not been revealed before doesn’t challenge Catholicism on tradition.

Provide a single example of a doctrine that originates from an oral Apostolic Tradition that the Bible is silent about? Provide proof that this doctrinal tradition is apostolic in origin.

This shows such a deep misunderstanding of the doctrine of tradition and such. Tradition comes first from scripture and develops through tradition and doctrine. The fact he expects a Catholic to prove this is nonsense.

Provide a single example of where inspired apostolic “oral revelation” (tradition) differed from “written” (scripture)?

Besides wording and detail of tradition, once again no Catholic should ever be expected to prove this because it is against doctrine.

Since the two synods of Hippo (393 AD) and Carthage, (397 AD) were under the control of what would later become the “orthodox church”, how can the Roman Catholic church claim they determined the Canon? Would not such a claim be more naturally due the Eastern Orthodox church?

This assumes Catholics justify ourselves as the true church by location, which is completely false.

Overall this site shows a sever lack of understanding of Catholic doctrine, and a limited understanding of history.

 

[Justin_Mary]

I think his point is if Rome and the East both say “trust us to give you the true apostolic traditions” and they have different traditions, you can’t really trust either of them.

I understand. The answer is that’s not the way that works. That’s not what either tradition teaches. There was a time when there was one Church. Even then there were differences.

Even today there are differences among the Orthodox but they share communion.

There are differences among Catholics, many who “think” like Orthodox, but they still share communion with Rome.

So that’s what I’m saying, he’s basing his questions on wrong thinking.

 

[Gorgias]

I think his point is if Rome and the East both say “trust us to give you the true apostolic traditions” and they have different traditions, you can’t really trust either of them.

That’s an invalid conclusion. The proper conclusion is “both cannot be simultaneously and completely true.”

 

[Richard_White]

The writings of Scripture, too, are based off of the traditions, environments, and perspectives of the Israelite (for the Old Testament) and Christian (for the New Testament) communities that existed at the time of their writing. As such, it is very hard to parse out Scripture from Tradition anyway.

May God bless you all with a transformative Lent!

 

[KMC]

Two high level responses:

1. it looks like “tradition” is being used in two different ways. First, “tradition” in the sense of disciplinary tradition that can change (like married priests…Orthodox have them…Roman Catholics (western rite) do not). “Tradition” is the oral Gospel before it was ever written down. I like to think of it as “the holy context”. The Orthodox and RCC both believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist because they both hold to the consistent Tradition that Jesus was speaking literally in John 6 and at the Last Supper.
2. Ask you friend: “If you were alive in the 49AD what would the source of your theology be?” This would after Christ, but before the first word of the NT was written. Would your friend just stay Jewish, waiting for Christianity to publish its own Scriptures?
3. Your friend accepts, at a minimum, one Tradition: The contents of the Bible, since there is no “inspired table of contents”. If your friend does not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, that would be a second tradition (Since that belief is pretty much an invention…not in alignment with Christianity up until the Reformation)

Blessings.