Certain authors of the NT cite oral Tradition to support Christian doctrine, in addition to old Testament Scripture...

[Rightlydivide]

Hey Rightly…

I felt lost regarding the aforementioned reasons, but I digress; your thoughts regarding the OP?

Then Joe…you think entirely too much. If doctrinal differences could cause anyone to consider abandoing He who lives in us and redeems us…That I do not get
My thoughts on the OP, and I was mainly just reading, have already been expressed.
The NT does cite unwritten oral tradition. But everyone knows that. But its not anywhere, not even in the same ballpark with how the NT treats scripture (ie OT scripture mainly).
I will tell you after spending enough time reading Christian history and secular history, I have no doubts, and heaven knows I can doubt a lot of things, that over the course of time the Catholic Church layered traditions after traditions and myths after myths on top of each other to get their current beliefs. It started smaller and got bigger. I think all of the churches similiar to yours did.
Now, I understand me having no doubt should not convince anyone of anything.
But it lets you know my starting point for things like this. So thats why I did not jump in too much.
Just answering. Not meaning to offend because I absolutely get how completely any Catholic would disagree.

 

[PRmerger]

Then Joe…you think entirely too much.

You are contradicting the Scriptural injunction, then, to “think too much” about God. For does not God command us to love Him with our entire heart, soul, strength and MIND?

If doctrinal differences could cause anyone to consider abandoing He who lives in us and redeems us…That I do not get

Doctrinal differences are indeed important.

The JWs are professing to love a god who does not exist. It is a man who is the reincarnation of Michael the archangel.

That’s a great doctrinal difference, is it not?

 

[GreggAlvarez]

Then Joe…you think entirely too much. If doctrinal differences could cause anyone to consider abandoing He who lives in us and redeems us…That I do not get
My thoughts on the OP, and I was mainly just reading, have already been expressed.
The NT does cite unwritten oral tradition. But everyone knows that. But its not anywhere, not even in the same ballpark with how the NT treats scripture (ie OT scripture mainly).
I will tell you after spending enough time reading Christian history and secular history, I have no doubts, and heaven knows I can doubt a lot of things, that over the course of time the Catholic Church layered traditions after traditions and myths after myths on top of each other to get their current beliefs. It started smaller and got bigger. I think all of the churches similiar to yours did.
Now, I understand me having no doubt should not convince anyone of anything.
But it lets you know my starting point for things like this. So thats why I did not jump in too much.
Just answering. Not meaning to offend because I absolutely get how completely any Catholic would disagree.

If the Catholic Church did as you assert, then all of Christianity IS false. I have no doubts that the Catholic Church did nothing of the sort because there is nothing that is remotely close to be untrue in her. Secular history hardly matters.

And our “current beliefs” are the teachings of the Apostles. Otherwise, they would not be beliefs. Nothing “started smaller and got bigger” in the Church. Perhaps, the population and official declarations of previously believed doctrines, but no myths and traditions as you falsely suppose. Not one soul can bring an objection against the Church that has not been refuted or cannot be refuted. People have tried. Hell, I have tried even as a Catholic!

Our Church is the one of the few denominations (although I hate to denigrate it to a mere denomination) that even claims to have been the Church started by Christ Himself. St. Ignatius (around 150 A.D.) said, “Wherever Christ Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church.” That is pretty explicit to me. Priests nowadays can do some research to see which Apostle they come from. No non-Catholic preacher, priest or pastor can do that without eventually touching the Catholic history. I see zero of the other claiming denominations (Anabaptists, Orthodox, etc…) that have their name explicitly said. Now, if you can show me where the Church went wrong between that time and St. Ignatius’ statement, then perhaps you have a good reason to doubt. Otherwise, you have no good reason to doubt.\

Thousands of denominations should be enough proof that Protestants have done what you falsely assume the Church did. But, I am sure you already looked through that and though, “Nah, they are still my brothers but these Catholics… They are trouble with their traditions (“T” or “t” it does not matter) and myths.”

 

[Dokimas]

Certainly not if they got it directly from Christ Himself. “The horse’s mouth”…if you will…

True. However whose to say that any church that exists today has that authority? I hope it’s not that church doing the saying.

 

[PRmerger]

True. However whose to say that any church that exists today has that authority? I hope it’s not that church doing the saying.

'Tis the Scriptures that say so.

 

[Bluegoat]

Okay…This will be my last response to this off topic subject. You say quite a bit, rather eloquently, but I can never really pin point your exact beliefs regarding many things, but perhaps they are none of my business.

I’m not sure what I think on a few points. I am blessed, or cursed, with the ability to see a variety of points of view, and with a keen awareness of the limits of my own information. I have been a very catholic Anglican for over 10 years - I would not consider myself an advocate of sola scriptura however (not an unheard of position among Anglicans) I am aware of the limits of the Anglican position, and I had considered Catholicism at one time - but there are issues within it that are what Dr Phil would call “deal-breakers” for me. I am currently seriously considering the EO church. I have some questions there, a few doctrinal, and more pressingly, some practical (I am married and don’t get to make this decision myself, and I love my parish church.) The alternate to the EO position on a doctrinal level, as far as I can see, is that all churches are in error or compromised to some extent, and that to be perfectly orthodox and perfectly catholic are ideals we are meant to live up to, like being perfect and without sin as individuals. That is we will not see the unified, perfect Church until we see the Church Triumphant, and the divisions and errors we see are part of the Fall, just as the errors and divisions even in baptized individuals are part of the Fall.

That’s cool. All I wanted to do, if in fact you support the position of the reformers, was to understand your position, as to where you think the reformed church can be found in the world today…the reformed church that successfully did what the CC could not do, which was to steer clear of doctrinal errors??? I don’t think that is asking too much.

I think the reformers were correct that there were serious errors in what the CC was teaching. If the EO are in fact the Church as they claim, then the correct thing would be for individuals or church bodies to seek union with them. (I really can’t much fault the Reformers for not doing so.) If they are not, then none are, but some are closer than others. I’d say the EO and CC and I suppose perhaps the OO would be in that group, except one can’t actually believe they are in error that way and be a member - so for me that would leave some Anglicans, and maybe confessional Lutherans and a few others as being close.

Which I did as a former protestant; the consequences were almost catastrophic to my faith…

Some parts of the Protestant world get quite bizarre.

I understand what you are saying; what I don’t understand, to this day, even after asking all of the SS experts, as well as the average SS Joe, is the practice of sola scriptura. I simply cannot support something if I do not understand it. I am told by SS advocates that the bible is the Christians only authority, which means, everyone and anyone, who interprets the bible and forms a belief, is right! Let’s assume that the experiences of the Reformers made sense, and they were correct regarding the doctrinal errors they saw, even if they did not surmise the correct solution. With this new 16th century system in place, how can a SS advocate know which SS advocate is teaching something that is in accordance with Scripture as opposed to contradicting it, and which SS advocate is not, considering the fact that the holy bible, which has replaced the authority of the church, in the SS world, is their one and only authoritative rule of faith, again, **as opposed to any one church or person? **

Well, as an Anglican I would have said that the Bible is not the only authority - it is the final authority, but tradition and reason are also authorities. In order to find truth, one must balance all three. I would also argue that any one person cannot claim the authority to interpret doctrine - it must be the whole ecclesiastical group. (In this sense classical protestantism is more like Orthodoxy, though there are differences too.)

 

[Rightlydivide]

You are contradicting the Scriptural injunction, then, to “think too much” about God. For does not God command us to love Him with our entire heart, soul, strength and MIND?

Doctrinal differences are indeed important.

The JWs are professing to love a god who does not exist. It is a man who is the reincarnation of Michael the archangel.

That’s a great doctrinal difference, is it not?

Of course they are important. But uncertainity about doctrine causing what he said…nope. Shouldn’t happen. Read a little more careful what I said, not what you think I said.

 

[Rightlydivide]

If the Catholic Church did as you assert, then all of Christianity IS false. I have no doubts that the Catholic Church did nothing of the sort because there is nothing that is remotely close to be untrue in her. Secular history hardly matters.

And our “current beliefs” are the teachings of the Apostles. Otherwise, they would not be beliefs. Nothing “started smaller and got bigger” in the Church. Perhaps, the population and official declarations of previously believed doctrines, but no myths and traditions as you falsely suppose. Not one soul can bring an objection against the Church that has not been refuted or cannot be refuted. People have tried. Hell, I have tried even as a Catholic!

Our Church is the one of the few denominations (although I hate to denigrate it to a mere denomination) that even claims to have been the Church started by Christ Himself. St. Ignatius (around 150 A.D.) said, “Wherever Christ Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church.” That is pretty explicit to me. Priests nowadays can do some research to see which Apostle they come from. No non-Catholic preacher, priest or pastor can do that without eventually touching the Catholic history. I see zero of the other claiming denominations (Anabaptists, Orthodox, etc…) that have their name explicitly said. Now, if you can show me where the Church went wrong between that time and St. Ignatius’ statement, then perhaps you have a good reason to doubt. Otherwise, you have no good reason to doubt.\

Thousands of denominations should be enough proof that Protestants have done what you falsely assume the Church did. But, I am sure you already looked through that and though, “Nah, they are still my brothers but these Catholics… They are trouble with their traditions (“T” or “t” it does not matter) and myths.”

My Jesus is not false! But we already know that and agree on that. As far as “Christianity”, most of it is false. As the Bible said it WOULD be.

 

[PRmerger]

Read a little more careful what I said, not what you think I said.

My apologies.

So you agree that doctrine and dogma are important?

And you are professing, then, that JW doctrine does not abandon “He who lives in us and redeems us”?

 

[PRmerger]

As far as “Christianity”, most of it is false. As the Bible said it WOULD be.

What parts of Christianity do you deem to be false?

 

[guanophore]

I have always wondered. Why would the disciples suddenly cease to obey the Apostolic command to follow everything (word of mouth) after some of it was written? For what reason would we assume they would STOP following the oral traditions?

All SS and its other forms teaches is that everything we need, basically the entire gospel, is found within the pages of scripture, right now.

Indeed it must. This is the most effective way to abrogate the need for a Chuch, and an authority in that Church.

One has to wonder, why would Jesus create something so unnecessary as a Church, and give her gifts and authority for the building up of the Body of Christ? What a waste of His time and energy!

Obviously that was not always the case. Its a praxis, not a doctrine to be believed. Its the practice of varifying everything taught by the church and in the church, with scripture.

No, because this type of verification has always been practiced in the Church, a millennia and a half before the Reformation.

The purpose of SS was to replace the ecclesial authorities. It was used as a tool to uproot and discount the Apostolic Succession, and the authority contained in it.

 

[Rightlydivide]

My apologies.

So you agree that doctrine and dogma are important?

And you are professing, then, that JW doctrine does not abandon “He who lives in us and redeems us”?

Read what Joe wrote. His doctrinal problems with Protestantism (JW’s are not Protestants) almost led him to being an agnostic.
It was my complete lack of getting that someone being born again, life changed, Holy Spirit filled, Christ lives in us changed and then considering being an agnostic…dont get it. Makes no sense to me but I was lost and now I am found. Thats what Christ does when he changes us. If that is not what happened to someone, if Christ did not completely change you, chances are, and I do not think that this is the case with Joe, you didnt get changed. And that aint a good thing
Go argue with someone else about those other guys.
I cannot remember in five years talking about JW and am not going to start…why would I?

 

[Rightlydivide]

What parts of Christianity do you deem to be false?

Please give me credit for being a little smart…but we know scripture says broad is the path to destruction and narrow is the pat that leads to everlasting life. Fundamentalism is tiny tiny part of the world. Hated for our beliefs. Persecuted. Made fun of. Kind of like…well what the Bible said would happen.

 

[JohnnyReb]

I have always wondered. Why would the disciples suddenly cease to obey the Apostolic command to follow everything (word of mouth) after some of it was written? For what reason would we assume they would STOP following the oral traditions

Its as simple as the fact that we no longer have the Apostles with us.

Indeed it must. This is the most effective way to abrogate the need for a Chuch, and an authority in that Church.

This begs the question, but what means and on what authority does the church teach and what must it submit itself to.

 

[PRmerger]

Please give me credit for being a little smart…

I don’t have a problem with that, if you need to be affirmed.

[SIGN1]You are smart.[/SIGN1]

I give you credit for that!

but we know scripture says broad is the path to destruction and narrow is the pat that leads to everlasting life. Fundamentalism is tiny tiny part of the world. Hated for our beliefs. Persecuted. Made fun of. Kind of like…well what the Bible said would happen.

And what parts of Christianity are false, then, Rightly?

 

[guanophore]

  Clearly, as a Catholic, you don't think the CC had fallen into terrible error.  The Reformers did - so much so that they came to believe that the HS was not protecting the Church in the way they had thought.

That is the crux. If you want to understand the Protestant position, you have to imagine that you have come to that conclusion, and to work out the consequences of it from there. Arguing whether it was in error is a different discussion - to understand SS you must see that they were convinced that was the case. (What bad practices were justified on the basis of Tradition and authority? All of them!)

This is very true. It also still happens today. People (including most Catholics) suffer from a deficient understanding of the nature of the Church. They think that the corruption of men, particularly those in a position of authority, equates to the corruption of the Church, because they don’t see that the Church is incarnational just as Jesus is. There are human elements, and divine elements. The Divine elements of the Church cannot be corrupted.

It is true what corruption was justified on the basis of Tradition and authority. However, that does not make the Tradition and the authority invalid. That is like saying that, since Judas strayed, something is wrong with Jesus’ teachings.

People fell into terrible error, but the Church did not.

... the experiences of the Reformers make sense - they were correct to see errors, even if they did not see the correct solution. (They may not historically have been able to do so.)  I'm not trying to argue this, just suggest a way of thinking about Protestantism that might let you see the shape of it in a different way.

Definitely their experiences made sense. They just misunderstood the solution. Men are always in need of reform, the Teachings of Jesus (doctrine) does not need any reform.

 

[PRmerger]

It was my complete lack of getting that someone being born again, life changed, Holy Spirit filled, Christ lives in us changed and then considering being an agnostic…dont get it.

Sin, as Fr. Corapi says, is a temporary loss of our mind. We can’t understand why we do the very thing we hate, eh?

Makes no sense to me but I was lost and now I am found. Thats what Christ does when he changes us. If that is not what happened to someone, if Christ did not completely change you, chances are, and I do not think that this is the case with Joe, you didnt get changed. And that aint a good thing

Can you be mistaken and think you’re found but really not?

Go argue with someone else about those other guys.
I cannot remember in five years talking about JW and am not going to start…why would I?

Fair enough.

 

[JohnnyReb]

Hey JohnnyReb…

As you know, the authors of the NT drew on Jewish oral tradition, as being authoritative. That does not sound like the practice of scripture alone. They explicitly cite oral tradition to support Christian doctrine, which seems to undermine the practice of sola scriptura. If SS is to be embraced, one would hope that the practice of SS could trace its origin all the way back to the apostles? If, for the apostles, oral Tradition was trustworthy when formulating and developing elements of the Christian faith, then it stands to reason that apostolic (and post apostolic) - oral tradition can be trusted as well, if the holy spirit was/is still guiding Jesus’ church to all truth.

Here are some of my thoughts; Quoting a part of something does not make the whole authoritative, only that which is quoted and cited. Here is what I mean: When Paul said to the Corinthians “bad company corrupts good character” he was quoting Greek Philosophers. Does that mean that Paul was saying that we should appeal to Greek Philosophy as a source of Christian doctrine? No. Truth is truth, no matter where it is found. The statement, “Bad company corrupts good character”

I believe per the New Testament that the Holy Spirit has guided the church to all truth. He gave us all we need to know for our faith and salvation in the pages of the scriptures. As John the apostle wrote:

31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

If John’s Gospel presents enough for us to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and gives us enough to have life in his name, how much more so when combined with the other scriptures.

SS advocates (some, not all) - assert that all doctrines must be confined to written scripture, even though the apostles trusted oral tradition, along with written tradition; this troubled me as a former SS advocate.

Only because we no longer have the Apostles here with us anymore. During the Apostolic era, the church has the Apostles with them. All New Testament writings have Apostolic authority. They were written either by Apostles or their close associates. So for me, I am fine with the fact that the Apostles trusted oral tradition. They were guided by the Holy Spirit in their work of founding the church.

The Apostles simply did not hold to the practice of sola scriptura via private interpretation, so why should any Christian hold to such a practice?

What do you mean by private interpretation?

One of the things that drew me to the CC was the fact that the CC teaches that Christian doctrine is sola Verbum Dei (from the Word of God alone) - and this is what the holy bible actually says about itself. Christians belonging to the CC really do live by Jesus’ divine word, treasuring it, submitting to it completely, embracing the ways with which God has spoken, and Jesus’ Word has to us both through the writings of the prophets, apostles and through the oral traditions that the apostles handed on to their successors, and these are preserved by the CC through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If I didn’t believe that Jesus was still infallibly present in His church, forever guiding and protecting His church from within and without, regardless of the chaff mixed in with the wheat, I would not trust the CC or any church for that matter, for the simple fact that all people are fallible.

Your thoughts friend?

I think Protestants actually agree with the idea of Sola Verbum Dei-only the word of God. We just see the Word of God as found in the scriptures alone-now. But that was not always the case. If so, the process of bringing about the scriptures themselves would be very precarious. We both agree that the scriptures are infallible, represent Apostolic teaching, and are the Word of God, don’t we? Yet if a church teaches contrary to God’s Word, we cannot turn a blind eye to that. This is the case with continuing Anglicans such as myself. Our movement began when the Episcopal Church began to teach contrary to what God had revealed, especially in the area of sexuality. After attempting to correct TEC, many had no choice but to move on. We trusted the word of God and expected the church to submit itself to it. They did not.

 

[PRmerger]

If John’s Gospel presents enough for us to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and gives us enough to have life in his name, how much more so when combined with the other scriptures.

Indeed. But this brings up 2 questions:

-how do you know what these other Scriptures are, without an outside authority discerning such for you?

-is it not extra-biblical, then, to believe in these “other scriptures” if John’s Gospel does, as you state, present “enough for us to believe that Jesus is the Messiah”?

 

[joe370]

Hey Rightlydivide…

Then Joe…you think entirely too much.

I did as a protestant because all of the division and doctrinal disunity, demanded that I do so. I don’t think anyone cares, as to why protestantism almost drove me back to agnosticism so I shall digress. What is important to me is the fact that the CC was everything that made perfect sense to me; I finally felt at peace and at home.

If doctrinal differences could cause anyone to consider abandoing He who lives in us and redeems us…That I do not get

Well, you might not get it, and my story is too boring to go into it, but the fact is, it was almost a reality until I found the CC.

My thoughts on the OP, and I was mainly just reading, have already been expressed.
The NT does cite unwritten oral tradition. But everyone knows that. But its not anywhere, not even in the same ballpark with how the NT treats scripture (ie OT scripture mainly).
I will tell you after spending enough time reading Christian history and secular history, I have no doubts, and heaven knows I can doubt a lot of things, that over the course of time the Catholic Church layered traditions after traditions and myths after myths on top of each other to get their current beliefs. It started smaller and got bigger. I think all of the churches similiar to yours did.

I understand your position and no one here at CAF is going to change your mind, that much I can tell, so perhaps a friendly dialogue, regarding various subjects, will suffice.

Now, I understand me having no doubt should not convince anyone of anything.
But it lets you know my starting point for things like this. So thats why I did not jump in too much.
Just answering. Not meaning to offend because I absolutely get how completely any Catholic would disagree.

You are my brother in Christ and I take no offense. Rightly, thanks for your feedback regarding the OP…