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bisco1
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where’s that ‘like’ button?
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TarkanAttila
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Hey, guys, can we start a new thread elsewhere before this gets out of hand?
Randy is right, and if you two are going to duke it out, probably best to do it elsewhere and let the Evangelicals have their say-so.
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StMikhael
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Thanks all, lot’s of good stuff here.
Funny how there is little here regarding the original question (looking for evangelical arguments). This alone is telling.
I’m still thinking that somewhere, someone, somehow, has an evangelical argument explaining how we got an infallible canon via a fallible church. I can understand the Muslim argument for the Koran (direct from God), however I am still waiting to hear an evangelical argument for the infallible compilation of the bible.
Funny how there is little here regarding the original question (looking for evangelical arguments). This alone is telling.
I’m still thinking that somewhere, someone, somehow, has an evangelical argument explaining how we got an infallible canon via a fallible church. I can understand the Muslim argument for the Koran (direct from God), however I am still waiting to hear an evangelical argument for the infallible compilation of the bible.
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Gorgias
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Tim,
Would it be more fair to say that “The Catholic Church determined the Canon of Scripture”? That is, that the Catholic Church wrote the Table of Contents of Scripture?
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TarkanAttila
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Try asking over at Christian forums. There’s Baptists, Calvinists, Pentecostals, and all manner of Protestant over there. It’s not that hard, and there are even plenty of Catholics there, too. I’ve been there. And there’s even folks from over here there, too. (Such as gurneyhalleck1, and LivingWordUnity.)
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bisco1
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the church is infallible and fallible. when you understand the difference, it all becomes clear. read up on the infallibility of the pope.
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Jon_S_1
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You just won’t find it I don’t think. This is a clear way to show protestantidm is in error. And it’s something just not talked about by lay Protestants much at all.
The Protestants split from the western church. The Catholic Church and took many traditions with it. Christmas and Easter and the trinity are other examples. Advent another. There are quite a few things.
Since then, Protestsntism has in general split and reinvented itself countless times. Things like the above were just accepted assumptions and the theological implications of using catholic traditions wasn’t considered.
Protestants need (and largely are) becoming more aware of history and it will only help the cause of unity.
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TimothyH
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TimothyH
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I think my original post re the Catholic Church as the source of the Bible was intended to address your question of why there is a lack of counter arguments.
Part of the problem is Catholics themselves confusing the infallible canon of scripture (which comes from the Church guided by the Holy Spirit) with the Sacred Texts themselves (75% of which was written by non-Catholics). This results in triumphalist statements like “My Church wrote your Bible”. I wouldn’t even refute that if I was Evangelical.
My Evangelical friends who care enough about the Catholic Church to refute its beliefs think that the Church was invented by Constantine in 325AD. They believe that whomever determined the canon of Scripture was certainly not the invented-by-man Catholic Church. This is my experience among my friends.
Jon S had some great points two posts up. I live in the heart of the Evangelical deep South. Evangelicals don’t even consider themselves to be Protestant down here. Evangelicals care as little about Martin Luther and John Calvin as they do about the Catholic Church and what some dead guys did 1700 years ago is simply not relevant to their faith today. That is their view. As Jon said, they just don’t talk about it. Statements like “We wrote your Bible” only make them roll their eyes and walk away shaking their head.
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Jon_S_1
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Another thing that I recall as an evangelical was along the lines of the primitivism movement.
Sort of this idea of reinventing the Christian Faith as it was in the first century. It seems a lot of evangelicals hold some form of this idea.
The problem is the Christian Faith is meant to be a living thing and no living thing remains the same forever. It’s essence doesn’t chsnge. What it is doesn’t change. But what it looks like and how it interacts with the world does chsnge. It is a sign of health to see a majestic oak tree with all its knots and twists and blemishes. That is the Catholic Church.
The evangrlical tries to plant a sapling that he imagines the tree once looked like, but it can never be the same as that first tree.
So along those lines, there is a belief of evangelicals that the New Testament was written and readily accepted right away as the Bible. Later church happenings bear not on it . So they see themselves as going back to that time in the first and second century.
There sadly is a lot of historical blinders in this notion held by many evangelicals. I share it not as an apologetic they hold, but Asa cultural belief they carry.
As for my tree analogy…it’s from JRR Tolkien, he says it far better here.
theringofwords.tumblr.com/post/45489080434/the-protestant-search-backwards-for-simplicity
Sort of this idea of reinventing the Christian Faith as it was in the first century. It seems a lot of evangelicals hold some form of this idea.
The problem is the Christian Faith is meant to be a living thing and no living thing remains the same forever. It’s essence doesn’t chsnge. What it is doesn’t change. But what it looks like and how it interacts with the world does chsnge. It is a sign of health to see a majestic oak tree with all its knots and twists and blemishes. That is the Catholic Church.
The evangrlical tries to plant a sapling that he imagines the tree once looked like, but it can never be the same as that first tree.
So along those lines, there is a belief of evangelicals that the New Testament was written and readily accepted right away as the Bible. Later church happenings bear not on it . So they see themselves as going back to that time in the first and second century.
There sadly is a lot of historical blinders in this notion held by many evangelicals. I share it not as an apologetic they hold, but Asa cultural belief they carry.
As for my tree analogy…it’s from JRR Tolkien, he says it far better here.
theringofwords.tumblr.com/post/45489080434/the-protestant-search-backwards-for-simplicity
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bisco1
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the best answer to the protestant question, ‘where is that in the bible?’ is, ‘where do you think the bible came from?’
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steve_b
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It’s accurate to say the Catholic Church wrote the NT, collected and canonized the NT books, and it collected and canonized the OT books which together make up what we call the bible.
That’s not triumphalistic. It’s the truth.
Re: the OT being written by non Catholics, that’s true… However, consider the following event.
The OT writers didn’t know Jesus. They wrote about a savior to come but in types and shadowy language. In this event, I would suggest the OT figures in this story got brought up to speed real quick. In Context
Jesus takes with Him, Peter, the one He will give full authority over His Church with the keys (spoken of by Isaiah), and He also brings with Him James and John. Now they are all together on top of Mt Tabor, Jesus, Peter, James, John, Moses and Elijah, speaking with each other, and Jesus is transfigured in front of them all. And they hear God the Father say, this is my son, listen to Him. There are no questions on Moses or Elijah’s mind at this point, who they wrote in anticipation of.
I wouldn’t be surprised, given that heaven was not open yet, because Jesus hadn’t completed His work yet, with the knowledge these OT giants came away with that day, Moses and Elijah became Catholics that day.
I would also suggest, those OT Jews who were faithful, would be the faithful NT Jews who followed Jesus and made up the Catholic Church in the beginning.
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Once they know actual history , #34 then If they still refuse to believe, move on. There’s too many people out there who are going to be receptive to the truth.
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If that makes them feel good.
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Obviously Ya can’t say much to people like this. Keep in mind one’s ignorance isn’t always innocent 1791
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Shaolen
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Todays your lucky day. I deal with my dad and brother who are Baptist. I was taken aback once when my dad tried to use the compilation of the bible to support his side (it was really weird!). Basically my dad along with many Baptists think that modern Baptists decended from the Anabaptists (which isn’t true, the successors of the Anabaptists are Mennonites, Amish etc.) and they think the anabaptists go all the way back to the time of Christ (which is also not true as it was started I think in 1400’s). So he thinks there wasn’t just one church denomination at the beginning and that they came up with the cannon of scripture and theirs is correct since ours have more books and theirs being the same as what the Jews came up with (for the OT).
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Shaolen
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Holy cow that intire book for free?
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Randy_Carson
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David
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The following quote is from the book, The Catholic Controversy, page 113.
“I pray for you, reformers, tell me whence you have taken the canon of the Scriptures you follow? You have not taken it from the Jews, for the books of the Gospels would not be there; nor from the Council of Laodicea, for the Apocalypse would not be in it; nor from the Councils of Carthage or of Florence, for Ecclesiasticus and the Machabees would be there. Whence, then have you taken it?”
St Frances de Sales
21 August 1567 – 28 December 1622
“I pray for you, reformers, tell me whence you have taken the canon of the Scriptures you follow? You have not taken it from the Jews, for the books of the Gospels would not be there; nor from the Council of Laodicea, for the Apocalypse would not be in it; nor from the Councils of Carthage or of Florence, for Ecclesiasticus and the Machabees would be there. Whence, then have you taken it?”
St Frances de Sales
21 August 1567 – 28 December 1622
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garysibio
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That’s not entirely true. Even at the Council of Trent there was dispute over the canon. For example, Cardinal Cajetan, one of, if not the, premier biblical scholars of the time, did not accept the inclusion of the deuterocanonical books. He was not alone.
It is also good to remember that Trent’s definition of the canon passed with the support of only 44% of the bishops. There were enough abstainers that they couldn’t get a majority for either side.
It is also good to remember that Trent’s definition of the canon passed with the support of only 44% of the bishops. There were enough abstainers that they couldn’t get a majority for either side.
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Gorgias
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Umm… huh? What does the discussion & vote at Trent have to do with the fact that Nicaea didn’t address the canon of Scripture?
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dronald
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I’m pretty quick to dismiss the idea that “Catholics gave us the Bible” because we don’t exactly accept the same Bible. As we know, Evangelicals don’t use the Deuterocanonical books in their Scriptures but we think they are important. So right off the bat it would be false to say that Catholics made the choice for us and we all followed; even the Orthodox Church’s have some extra books and do not “submit” to the RCC’s authority.
So is that the argument that is being made? Or is the argument specifically in regards to the New Testament?
I once wrote up (and I wish I had saved it) that it’s pretty obvious based on history which books belong and which ones don’t. I often ask which books you as Catholics would exclude had you not found the CC?
Imagine yourself an Evangelical and you did your research in Early Church history of the Canon; whether it be in regards to dating, inspiration and Theology. Which books would you exclude?
Also, which books would you seek to include that aren’t included?
Whether you like it or not; Faith is the strongest argument for Catholics and Protestants alike. John on Patmos could have been some crazy rich man in Jerusalem who forged an Apocalypse document. There’s really no reason to accept it unless you actually believe that a man named John, on an island called Patmos saw a vision and recorded it. If you don’t believe that, you wouldn’t be Christian to begin with most likely. And if you do believe it, it’s not because “Catholics gave us the Bible” rather it’s because we don’t fall for lies and believe he was honestly a man named John on Patmos writing truth.
As stated before, I wrote a big thing here about each book in the NT as well as the books that were rejected and why. I should have saved it, but it was over a thousand posts ago probably. Lol. Basically I traced how all of the Gospels are connected. John written by John, Matthew by Matthew, Mark with Peter, Luke with Paul; and I showed how Paul quotes Luke, how Peter calls Paul’s letters Scripture, how the author of Hebrews was close to Timothy, and we accept Revelation because we truly believe it being by John. (Likewise 2 Peter from Peter, Timothy/Titus from Paul)
So is that the argument that is being made? Or is the argument specifically in regards to the New Testament?
I once wrote up (and I wish I had saved it) that it’s pretty obvious based on history which books belong and which ones don’t. I often ask which books you as Catholics would exclude had you not found the CC?
Imagine yourself an Evangelical and you did your research in Early Church history of the Canon; whether it be in regards to dating, inspiration and Theology. Which books would you exclude?
Also, which books would you seek to include that aren’t included?
Whether you like it or not; Faith is the strongest argument for Catholics and Protestants alike. John on Patmos could have been some crazy rich man in Jerusalem who forged an Apocalypse document. There’s really no reason to accept it unless you actually believe that a man named John, on an island called Patmos saw a vision and recorded it. If you don’t believe that, you wouldn’t be Christian to begin with most likely. And if you do believe it, it’s not because “Catholics gave us the Bible” rather it’s because we don’t fall for lies and believe he was honestly a man named John on Patmos writing truth.
As stated before, I wrote a big thing here about each book in the NT as well as the books that were rejected and why. I should have saved it, but it was over a thousand posts ago probably. Lol. Basically I traced how all of the Gospels are connected. John written by John, Matthew by Matthew, Mark with Peter, Luke with Paul; and I showed how Paul quotes Luke, how Peter calls Paul’s letters Scripture, how the author of Hebrews was close to Timothy, and we accept Revelation because we truly believe it being by John. (Likewise 2 Peter from Peter, Timothy/Titus from Paul)
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Jon_S_1
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Interesting…what did you do for books like Mark and Hebrews where the author is unknown.
How do you account for manuscripts that may not exist today because they were rejected by the Catholic/Orthodox Church nearly 2000 years ago.
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