Bible being the Sole Authority??

[joe370]

Then you ought to be fearful, jr, that when you quote from Hebrews, Revelation, Titus, 3 John (which, BTW, never once mentions Jesus!) that a fallible church may have erred in declaring those books to be theopneustos. You know that a fallible church is going to be wrong. That’s what fallible means.

Exactly. If the CC can make infallible declarations about sacred scripture and the holy Trinity, then why not other things…Does God guide His church only on certain occasions, regarding certain things…

 

[Porknpie]

If all of the early churches were catholic churches, united as the one catholic church, then the church to which you belong, relies on the teachings and practices of the early catholic church and their leaders i.e. the Magisterium.

:yup:

 

[aidanbradypop]

No. I don’t think any church has or has had the gift of infallibility. The only thing we have that is infallible is the Bible, and that is infallible because its writers were guided by God in such a way as to produce infallible writings. And God providentially preserves His Word in those writings over time.

This strike me odd. If the Bible is infallible, then wouldnt the institution, Catholic Church, the composed the manuscripts into the Bible also be infallible as well? How can an infallible manuscript be produced with authority from a Church that is not infallible?

It does not take an infallible church for God to preserve the scriptures for us.

Respectfully disagree on this point. How else would Sacred Scripture survived this long?

 

[jrtrent]

Then you ought to be fearful, jr, that when you quote from Hebrews, Revelation, Titus, 3 John (which, BTW, never once mentions Jesus!) that a fallible church may have erred in declaring those books to be theopneustos.

That’s interesting. I hadn’t heard before that there was doubt about Titus. The books the Lutherans consider to have had some questions about are Hebrews, the Second Epistle of Peter, the Second and Third Epistles of John, the Epistle of James, the Epistle of Jude, and the Apocalypse.

Is this really the position you want to take when in dialogue here on the CAFs? What that means is each time you quote from the NT to us, we may be able to tell you, “Except that you’re not really certain that this is the inspired word of God, right, jr? Because you believe a fallible church, which is capable of erring, declared that text to be inspired.”

Would my uncertainty affect the truthfulness of the quote? If you are certain that the NT is the inspired word of God, how does my uncertainty affect you?

I have confidence that the 66 books my church accepts as canonical are scripture, writings inspired by God and preserved for our benefit. I am more “really certain” about this aspect of my religion than some other things (such as understanding predestination and free will). But it is the nature of religion that we walk by faith, a faith that, in my case anyway, varies in its strength and certitude. The father in Mark 9 said, “Lord I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” And this is a petition I often make myself. John Gill’s commentary on this verse includes, “every believer, more or less, at one time or another, finds himself in this man’s case; and also that it is necessary to make use of the same petition; for faith is but imperfect in this life, and often very weak and defective in its exercise.”

 

[jrtrent]

What you are stating above is no more and no less than the Catholic teaching regarding infallibility. You believe men can be guided by God is such a way as to produce infallible writings.

That’s what the Catholic Church believes about its Magisterium.

And I do not dispute your right to believe that about the Magisterium; it’s simply not a belief that I share.

 

[PRmerger]

And I do not dispute your right to believe that about the Magisterium; it’s simply not a belief that I share.

As I stated, you do share it! Even if you don’t acknowledge it.

You believe God can guide fallible men to write infallibly.

That’s nothing more and nothing less than what the Church teaches about its charism (gift) of infallibility).

 

[jrtrent]

We both believe that the apostles belonged to Jesus’ church - correct? Surely you believe that Jesus’ church, to which the apostles belonged, possessed the gift of infallibility due to the fact that the apostles, belonging to Jesus’ church, “were guided by God in such a way as to produce infallible writings”?

It’s an interesting point. I do believe that the writers of scripture were used of God to produce infallible writings, yet when we look at the content of those writings, and the many problems they were addressing, it doesn’t paint a picture of infallible churches.

If all of the early churches were catholic churches, united as the one catholic church, then the church to which you belong, relies on the teachings and practices of the early catholic church and their leaders i.e. the Magisterium.

Now that’s very good, and reflects the point Porknpie made in an earlier post with lots of interesting early quotes, and is valid even if I don’t believe that today’s Roman Catholic Church is still the “catholic” church of those first few centuries. I may still be seeing things through the lens of 10 years of post-Mormon exposure to Reformed Baptist teaching, but I’ve never seen those early churches as being structurally united. Rather, I’ve seen them as independent, local congregations headed by their own elders, united by faith in Christ, but with none having jurisdictional authority over any other; that type of oversight having ended with the last of the apostles.

However, that’s an issue for me to explore later. Right now, I’ve started the Michael Barber book Coming Soon that Porknpie recommended, and that will probably occupy most of my leisure time for the next week or so (when I have to return it to the library)

 

[jrtrent]

As I stated, you do share it! Even if you don’t acknowledge it.

I’m afraid I don’t follow your logic here. To me, it’s like saying that you share a belief that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God, but you just don’t acknowledge it. To acknowledge something is to accept the truth of that thing. If you don’t accept the truth that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God, then that’s not a belief you share with Mormons. I don’t accept that the Magisterium of the Catholic Church is guided by God to produce infallible writings or teachings; therefore I don’t share your belief about it.

 

[joe370]

jrtrent;10348563]It’s an interesting point. I do believe that the writers of scripture were used of God to produce infallible writings, yet when we look at the content of those writings, and the many problems they were addressing, it doesn’t paint a picture of infallible churches.

Just fallible people belonging to Jesus’ church, teaching infallibly? It doesn’t paint a picture of infallible writers either - right? How can a sola scriptura advocate know, with certainty, that saint Paul, for example, wrote infallibly? Which church in the world today, did saint Paul belong to, in your opinion?

ow that’s very good, and reflects the point Porknpie made in an earlier post with lots of interesting early quotes, and is valid even if I don’t believe that today’s Roman Catholic Church is still the “catholic” church of those first few centuries.

OK. Does the catholic church of those first few centuries, still exist today? Of course we know that all of the protestant churches were founded by mere men, as opposed to Jesus.

I may still be seeing things through the lens of 10 years of post-Mormon exposure to Reformed Baptist teaching, but I’ve never seen those early churches as being structurally united.

Divided, doctrinally speaking? Please expound…

Rather, I’ve seen them as independent, local congregations headed by their own elders, united by faith in Christ, but with none having jurisdictional authority over any other; that type of oversight having ended with the last of the apostles.

If you are right then you must have proof to substantiate your claims???

Jesus said: I will build my church… Does His one church still exist?

 

[aidanbradypop]

OK. Does the catholic church of those first few centuries, still exist today? Of course we know that all of the protestant churches were founded by mere men, as opposed to Jesus.

Man gave the Bible the sole authority…Christ and His Church did not.

 

[joe370]

Man gave the Bible the sole authority…Christ and His Church did not.

Agreed.

 

[jrtrent]

Which church in the world today, did saint Paul belong to, in your opinion? . . .

Divided, doctrinally speaking? Please expound…

If you are right then you must have proof to substantiate your claims???

Jesus said: I will build my church… Does His one church still exist?

Like I said in my previous post, I think you have some good questions here, questions I will explore in more detail later, and using the documents and site suggested by Porknpie. For now, I can only leave it with these quotes from John R. Rice’s book False Doctinres, which I’ve posted before. Speaking of New Testament times, he wrote:

Then there were independent local congregations of churches. Each one was called a church. Of about one hundred and twelve times the word ecclesia is used in the Greek New Testament, fully ninety-eight or ninety-nine times it means a local congregation. The other times it refers to that mystical body of Christ . . . not one time is the word “church” in the Bible used to represent any human organisation larger than one local congregation. When a group of local congregations are mentioned, they are called “churches” (plural, not singular), as in Galations 1:2, “the churches of Galatia.” Galations1:22, “the churches of Judaea,” and in Revelation 1:11, “the seven churches which are in Asia.” . . .

If you had asked Paul if he were a member of the Catholic church, he would have looked perplexed, since there was no Catholic church then and he would have answered that the local church at Antioch, after prayer and fasting, had sent him and Barnabas out on their missionary journeys, and that he counted that as his local home church (see Acts 13:1-4).

Of course, these are thoughts from a Baptist perspective, but I do see a parallel to this in the thinking of Orthodox Christians. There is a passage in Father Andrew Damick’s book Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy that applies to the issue of Rome’s claim to universal jurisdiction:

Another practical problem from this structure which has theological implications is that Catholicity is defined purely by one’s submission to Rome, whose universality is the definition for true ecclesiology. But katholikos (the Greek word from which catholic comes) does not properly mean “universal” but rather, literally, “according to the whole.” For Orthodoxy, this wholeness resides in every diocese with its bishop as the president at the Eucharist, surrounded by his clergy and faithful. Orthodox parishes and dioceses are not merely part of the Catholic Church, but rather manifest catholicity within themselves fully and locally.

Similarly, at least in my particular Anglican church, there is no authority in terms of oversight of our churches higher than the local Bishop. I believe that was also true in the early church. However, one of the guidelines for participation in the non-Catholics religions forum is, “If you aren’t going to go into the discussion with the resolution that you could just possibly have your view broadened, you may as well not go into it.” As I said before, I’m willing to look further into issues relating to the structure of the early church, but I’ll have to drop this line of inquiry for now as I don’t plan to start til after I’ve finished the Michael Barber book.

 

[aidanbradypop]

Jr…getting back to the OP that I posted…Do you give the Bible sole authority? lol…We kind of got off topic here.

 

[stewstew03]

As I stated, you do share it! Even if you don’t acknowledge it.

You believe God can guide fallible men to write infallibly.

That’s nothing more and nothing less than what the Church teaches about its charism (gift) of infallibility).

I’m afraid I don’t follow your logic here. … I don’t accept that the Magisterium of the Catholic Church is guided by God to produce infallible writings or teachings; therefore I don’t share your belief about it.

What about the Canon? Do you think the Church got it right, or are you skeptical of your bible’s table of contents?

 

[QWERT_1human]

Saying the bible is the sole authority leads to circular reasoning.

I drew a chart demonstrating how saying the bible is the authority creates a false circular argument.

 

[jrtrent]

Jr…getting back to the OP that I posted…Do you give the Bible sole authority? lol…We kind of got off topic here.

I think Attejohannes gave a pretty good answer back in post #5, and I offered my answer in post #62. Here is an abbreviated version:

The Bible becomes the sole authority in the sense that we have no other source of divine revelation. The authority and inspiration given to the writers of scripture was not passed along after their deaths. . . An interesting article on the personal application of Biblical authority can be found here:

ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Bible_Authoritative.htm

This being a discussion forum, people can’t just say, “Thanks for sharing your perspective,” so anytime a person offers a reason for why they consider scripture to be the sole, or even final, authority, there must ensue a debate on the merits of their answer. Discussion does seem to go off on tangents sometimes, but that’s part of the fun.

 

[aidanbradypop]

I think Attejohannes gave a pretty good answer back in post #5, and I offered my answer in post #62. Here is an abbreviated version:

This being a discussion forum, people can’t just say, “Thanks for sharing your perspective,” so anytime a person offers a reason for why they consider scripture to be the sole, or even final, authority, there must ensue a debate on the merits of their answer. Discussion does seem to go off on tangents sometimes, but that’s part of the fun.

I agree and I love the debate but I also do not want the thread to be closed for getting off topic too much. That’s all

 

[Telestia]

Saying the bible is the sole authority leads to circular reasoning.

I drew a chart demonstrating how saying the bible is the authority creates a false circular argument.

To QWERT and others, since the Bible is fallible, why believe anything written therein. The Book of Revelations = The Apocalypse of John, was rejected by most of the early Christian Churches in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries.

The earliest copy known of the story of Jesus and the Adulterous Woman in John chapter 8 is from the 5th century AD. Earlier Texts did not have the story of the Adulterous Woman.

The ending of Gospel of Mark (Peter’s Gospel actually) is wrong. An add on???

As for the rest of the Bible:

According to Famed Bible scholar Norman Geisler’s research:

Here’s another thing that is very important. Not only do we have 5,686 manuscripts, earlier, more accurately copied than any book from the ancient world, but if you destroyed every Bible in the world, all of those almost 6,000 manuscripts, all of the translations in Latin and Ethiopic and Coptic and every other language, if you destroyed every Bible in the world, we could still reconstruct virtually the whole Bible from quotations from the early Fathers. Go to your library and get out the Ante-Nicene Fathers, the Fathers from second to the fourth century and this chart shows us what you would see. One scholar studied the Ante-Nicene Fathers and he concluded, there were 36,289 quotes from the New Testament in these early Fathers. That means every verse in the New Testament except eleven, most of which come from 3 John–when did you quote 3 John last?–are found in these Fathers. You could destroy every Bible in the world and still reconstruct virtually the whole New Testament just from these quotations of the Fathers

I believe the New Testament to be amazingly accurate and reliable, being confirmed by quotations from the Early Church Fathers quoting the the letters that make up the New Testaments. Plus, surely God wants us to know the Truth of His plan for us.

As for the Book of Revelations, though it is accurate, may be questionable. When the Bible was assembled in the 4th century AD, the last choice was to pick between The Apocalypse of John and The Apocalypse of Peter. The Apocalypse of Peter I have read. In my view I found It to be unbelievable, but I could be wrong. John’s Revelation received two more votes than Peter’s Revelation. Oh Well.

The Bible, perhaps with the possible exception of Apostle’s John Revelation, are sound and trustworthy for establishing sound Doctrine. Our Bible is extremely Reliable.

 

[aidanbradypop]

To QWERT and others, since the Bible is fallible, why believe anything written therein. The Book of Revelations = The Apocalypse of John, was rejected by most of the early Christian Churches in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries.

The earliest copy known of the story of Jesus and the Adulterous Woman in John chapter 8 is from the 5th century AD. Earlier Texts did not have the story of the Adulterous Woman.

The ending of Gospel of Mark (Peter’s Gospel actually) is wrong. An add on???

As for the rest of the Bible:

According to Famed Bible scholar Norman Geisler’s research:

Here’s another thing that is very important. Not only do we have 5,686 manuscripts, earlier, more accurately copied than any book from the ancient world, but if you destroyed every Bible in the world, all of those almost 6,000 manuscripts, all of the translations in Latin and Ethiopic and Coptic and every other language, if you destroyed every Bible in the world, we could still reconstruct virtually the whole Bible from quotations from the early Fathers. Go to your library and get out the Ante-Nicene Fathers, the Fathers from second to the fourth century and this chart shows us what you would see. One scholar studied the Ante-Nicene Fathers and he concluded, there were 36,289 quotes from the New Testament in these early Fathers. That means every verse in the New Testament except eleven, most of which come from 3 John–when did you quote 3 John last?–are found in these Fathers. You could destroy every Bible in the world and still reconstruct virtually the whole New Testament just from these quotations of the Fathers

I believe the New Testament to be amazingly accurate and reliable, being confirmed by quotations from the Early Church Fathers quoting the the letters that make up the the New testaments. Plus, surely God wants us to know the Truth of His plan for us.

As for the Book of Revelations, though it is accurate, may be questionable. When the Bible was assembled in the 4th century AD, the last choice was to pick between The Apocalypse of John and The Apocalypse of Peter. The Apocalypse of Peter I have read. It was unbelievable, but I could be wrong. John’s Revelation received two more votes than Peter’s Revelation. Oh Well.

The Bible, perhaps with the possible exception of Apostle’s John Revelation, are sound and trustworthy for establishing sound Doctrine. Our Bible is extremely Reliable.

I may be wrong, but I do not believe anyone here has said that Sacred Scripture is fallible. That is not the question being debated. Whether or not the Bible is fallible is a whole new thread. The questioned being asked is if the Bible should be the sole authority?

 

[CopticChristian]

To QWERT and others, since the Bible is fallible, why believe anything written therein. The Book of Revelations = The Apocalypse of John, was rejected by most of the early Christian Churches in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries.

The earliest copy known of the story of Jesus and the Adulterous Woman in John chapter 8 is from the 5th century AD. Earlier Texts did not have the story of the Adulterous Woman.

The ending of Gospel of Mark (Peter’s Gospel actually) is wrong. An add on???

As for the rest of the Bible:

According to Famed Bible scholar Norman Geisler’s research:

Here’s another thing that is very important. Not only do we have 5,686 manuscripts, earlier, more accurately copied than any book from the ancient world, but if you destroyed every Bible in the world, all of those almost 6,000 manuscripts, all of the translations in Latin and Ethiopic and Coptic and every other language, if you destroyed every Bible in the world, we could still reconstruct virtually the whole Bible from quotations from the early Fathers. Go to your library and get out the Ante-Nicene Fathers, the Fathers from second to the fourth century and this chart shows us what you would see. One scholar studied the Ante-Nicene Fathers and he concluded, there were 36,289 quotes from the New Testament in these early Fathers. That means every verse in the New Testament except eleven, most of which come from 3 John–when did you quote 3 John last?–are found in these Fathers. You could destroy every Bible in the world and still reconstruct virtually the whole New Testament just from these quotations of the Fathers

I believe the New Testament to be amazingly accurate and reliable, being confirmed by quotations from the Early Church Fathers quoting the the letters that make up the New Testaments. Plus, surely God wants us to know the Truth of His plan for us.

As for the Book of Revelations, though it is accurate, may be questionable. When the Bible was assembled in the 4th century AD, the last choice was to pick between The Apocalypse of John and The Apocalypse of Peter. The Apocalypse of Peter I have read. In my view I found It to be unbelievable, but I could be wrong. John’s Revelation received two more votes than Peter’s Revelation. Oh Well.

The Bible, perhaps with the possible exception of Apostle’s John Revelation, are sound and trustworthy for establishing sound Doctrine. Our Bible is extremely Reliable.

Telestia,

You might want to look at what Church fathers are quoting the Protocanonicals and which Church fathers are suggesting that the Bible is the Sole Authority. Now that would be something to provide evidence for.