Arguments from Scripture

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Ron_Conte

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given that:

A is a true teaching of Scripture
and
B is a true teaching of Scripture
and
C necessarily follows from A and B

Is C true?
Is C a teaching of Scripture?
Is C a teaching of the Catholic Church?
 
Hi Ron,

Yes to all 3 questions. However, we know the dangers of false syllogisms. All the terms must have the same meaning in every part of the syllogism. Some parts of the Bible may have been written 1000 years before Christ. A term used then would not necessarily mean the same thing in a sentence by St. Paul.

There are a number of other syllogistic fallacies. You can find them at

philosophy.lander.edu/logic/syll_fall.html

Verbum
 
Verbum’s dead on. You need to be sure that C NECESSARILY follows from A and B, otherwise you’re out of luck. That’s the tricky part - making sure your reasoning is valid.

Also, you need to make sure your terms are clear and unambiguous.

One other thing. The teaching of C is most likely implicit and not explicit like A and B. That means it probably wouldn’t be spelled out in Scripture, but it’s still something rooted in it. For example, Jesus never says explicitly (I believe) that we have free will, but it necessarily follows from the true teaching of sin and salvation. So free will can be seen as an integral, though implicit, component of Scripture.
 
As an argument, given that C necessarily follows from A and B, and that all the terms are consistent, and that A and B are true, then C is certainly true.

The more interesting question is should C be considered a teaching of Scripture. I think many Protestants and some Catholics only consider something to be a teaching of Scripture is it is explicit.

Also, given that some truth is implicit in Scriture, but has not (yet) been taught explicitly by the Magisterium, is it a teaching of the Church?
 
A ) God is one.

B) Jesus is God, Father is God, Holy Spirit is God

C) Therefore all three are one God
 
CathFaith1 said:
Ron, isn’t the question of by whose authority the correct interpretation of A and B is vital?

Adam
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So what I’m asking is, absent an authoritative interpretation from the Magisterium, and given that a teaching is implicit in Scripture, is it a teaching of the Church? Is it a required belief?

When a truth is implicit in Scripture, or for that matter in Tradition, and absent an explicit definition or interpretation from the Magisterium, what is the weight of that truth?
 
Any theologian or scripture scholar can make an argument that his conclusion (C) is a necessary consequence A and B which are true teachings of scripture.

But his conclusion is not necessarily correct. And the chain of reasoning by which he arrives at C is usually more complex than he may realize.

Not only that, Scripture doesn’t actually “teach” anything, most particularly sets of propositions. Scripture is a collection of books, not a person. Persons teach, books don’t. And when it comes to teaching the meaning of scripture, the Pope and magisterium are the ultimate arbiters of whether a particular belief is actually implicit in scripture.
 
The Catechism, and a number of other magisterial documents, explicitly state that Sacred Scripture teaches … various truths.

Are we to rely on the teachings of the Magisterium alone as a basis for the Faith?

In my view, it is an essential element of the Catholic Faith that the truths of the Faith are based on Tradition, Scripture, and Magisterium, not on any one or two of those three.

It is true that human reason is not infallible, but neither can be believe and practice the Faith without use of reason. So if reason understands that Scripture teaches a particular truth, and there is no contrary teaching in Tradition or Magisterium, are we not obligated to adhere to that truth?
 
Ron_Conte said:
The Catechism, and a number of other magisterial documents, explicitly state that Sacred Scripture teaches … various truths.

Are we to rely on the teachings of the Magisterium alone as a basis for the Faith?

In my view, it is an essential element of the Catholic Faith that the truths of the Faith are based on Tradition, Scripture, and Magisterium, not on any one or two of those three.

It is true that human reason is not infallible, but neither can be believe and practice the Faith without use of reason. So if reason understands that Scripture teaches a particular truth, and there is no contrary teaching in Tradition or Magisterium, are we not obligated to adhere to that truth?
Click to expand...
Scripture, Tradition, the Magisterium are essentially one. Or,one could say that they are the ways in which the one gospel handed down from Jesus to the Apostles is handed down to us.

Whenever some new formulation of that ‘handed down’ truth is proposed, the magisterium has only one job: to say whether in fact this is what has always been believed, even if believed only implicitly.

The Faith is reasonable; but reason cannot substitute for what has been handed down. Sometimes the implications of existing beliefs can be rather subtle.

Father Leonard Feeney, for example, once thought that his reasoning and conclusions with respect to *extra ecclesiam nulla sanctus *necessarily followed from existing doctrine. The Vaitcan did not agree.
 
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