Do Protestants know where we got the Bible?

[pablope]

I agree that there was no other church, except for the great church that Jesus established.

Origen, Irenaeus, Ignatius and Cyprian all acknowledge the Scriptures. This was before canonization of the scriptures formally, but Irenaeus already said that there were only 4 gospels and as such no other gnostic gospel was permitted to be read as Scripture.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Christodavid,

Would you kindly respond to post #265?

There really seems to be some ambiguity in your posts that needs to be addressed.

God bless

I agree that there was no other church, except for the great church that Jesus established.

Origen, Irenaeus, Ignatius and Cyprian all acknowledge the Scriptures. This was before canonization of the scriptures formally, but Irenaeus already said that there were only 4 gospels and as such no other gnostic gospel was permitted to be read as Scripture.

Paul’s letters likewise, even Revelation although Irenaeus sugfferd from a form of Chiliasm which he inherited from his asian understanding of the 1000 years (cf. Papias).

The Scriptures were already known, copied, published, preached, doctrines derived from, and copied in lectionaries and used in latreia for divine worship from the second century.

The necessity for their codification doesnt set the beginning of when they are understood as “the Bible” and the 20-60 years the church pre-existed it shouldn’t be spoken of in apologetic shorthand as “the Church predates the Bible by hundreds of years” as this is actually false.

 

[SteveVH]

Hi, SteveVH,

Do you think Tony is still with us? It bothers me when you see someone floundering for answers and then suddenly stop posting. While I can understand his difficulties with actually responding to posts - the reason many people are on CAF is to learn more about the Catholic Faith (I know that CAF has been a real God-send to me!!! )

When confronted with something you do not know, the idea is to some research and found out the answer - or if you can not present an answer to say so. But abandonig one’s position is not helpful to anyone.

God bless

Well I hope he is still with us. I admire all of the Mormon posters here. It has to be tough always being the target and answering post after post. I wish we could get more Morman posters here. However, I don’t think they are here to learn more about the Catholic faith, but rather to defend Mormonism. If you will notice, there are few, if any posts from Mormons asking penetrating questions about the Catholic faith for its sake only. I certainly do not blame them for defending their faith, but their motivation here is not to learn more about Catholicism from what I can see.

 

[Tony888]

tqualey,

You are saying you believe the current definiton of the Trinty preceeded Nicea, and thus it was always doctrine, even if we didn’t know it yet?

I appreciate your spirit but think you are wrong. Let’s try an analogy, using water

We now believe a water molecule is descrived as H20, it is our current doctrine and considered a univeral truth that preceeded our ability to understand and draw H2O as elements.

However, it is false to claim H20 as a description of water was always doctrine. It only became doctrine when it was discovered and accepted, regardless of it’s universal truth. For many eons previously, the doctrine was we had only four elements - Earth, Air, Fire, Water. This doctrine was replaced by the periodic table, which lead to H20 as a doctrine for water.

Discussing doctrine is about beliefs at a specific time and not about ultimate truth. eg. many scientific doctrines have been considered truth until our knowledge grew and the Doctrine changed. We are still adding elements to the Periodic table. In the same way the RCC defined/created doctrine at Nicea.

We must simply agree to disagree

Hi, Tony888,

I guess it just seems ‘silly’ to you.

Reality is independent of our understanding and our words to describe it. Science is still trying to describe both astronomical realities like black holes and biological realities like prions. Neither fit neatly into our experiences - but, that is really our problem.

The Trinity existed prior to our efforts to describe it. The issue is, we can not completely describe the Trinity but apparently it can be inaccurately described by many different organizations throughout time. For example, ‘gods’ existed before the Eternal Father or the Heavenly Father did not exist for all eternity (4mormon.org/mormon-org.php). Others have denied the existence of the Trinity as taught by the Catholic Church, like the Gnostics and the SDA.

If there is no language to avoid the error in teaching what is totally beyond our comprehension - multiple errors will immediately spring forth. Here we have language that avoids error - and look at all of the novel thoughts about the Trinity exist today.

I really do think that a ‘red herring’ was introduced here. The Catholic Church’s teachings about the Trinity is probably about as old as their condemnation of abortion.

By the way, in keeping with the topic thread, what is your view of where did we get the Bible?

God bless

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Tony888,

Nice to see you with us. Now, let’s see what we have here … in reality it is a jumble and will honestly take a bit of sorting … so, let me see what I can do…

////////

tqualey,
You are saying you believe the current definiton of the Trinty preceeded Nicea, and thus it was always doctrine, even if we didn’t know it yet?

Here is the fundemental error right here in your opening statement, Tony888, how can one believe something that is totally unknown? This would totally defy the human intellect, frustrate the will to give its consent and condem the person to live in total disorder and confusion. Such is not the case

Take a look at Matthew 3:16-17
**16
After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened (for him), and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove (and) coming upon him.
17
And a voice came from the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” **

We have a very special Appearance here at the beginning of Christ’s Public Ministry - A Voice that calls Christ His Son (so the Voice would be the Father) we do not yet know the role of the Holy Spirit - but, clearly there are Three separate entities present at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River.

Christ continues to develop our understanding of the by promising the Holy Spirit will guide the Chruch founded by Christ on Peter (Matt 16:18) and keep it from teaching error. Your attention is drawn to the following NT verses: Luke 12:12, John 14:26 and John 16:13. Now all was taught by Christ at this time! The Apostles could not bear it - but, all Truth would be given to them

If we work from the idea that Christ not only gave Peter the Authority to bind and lose - and the Keys as a symbol of that Authority (not given to the others) - BUT ALSO A SET OF BLUEPRINTS… from which all Truth would be neatly established so that the entire structure of God’s Design for His Church (and, yes, that would be the Catholic Church) would be known to all at that time … well … that isn’t what we have here is it? What we do have is a process of real growth and development. Now, while you are pondering that … check this out.

God is not science. God’s Word is not science. God is Perfect Being and science is groping in the dark for what appears to answer various questions and it may or may not be valid tomorrow.

Your H2O analogy … really, I don’t know what you do with it… Men have, to the best of my knowledge, have always ‘believed’ in water… they drank it, cooked with it, bathed in it, sailed on it and drowned in it! It is real and its chemical formula was of no consequece until we moved into alchemy and then into chemistry and physics. Not knowing the formula did not change our belief in water - just like knowing the formula has not changed our ‘belief’ in water. The take home message is that water is real - and so is the Trinity.

Discussing doctrine is about beliefs at a specific time and not about ultimate truth. eg. many scientific doctrines have been considered truth until our knowledge grew and the Doctrine changed. We are still adding elements to the Periodic table. In the same way the RCC defined/created doctrine at Nicea.

Now, you just have to ask yourself … just what happened BEFORE Nicea to bring about this Council that set into language our existing belief about the Trinity? The Catholic Church just does not call Councils as a way of getting everyone together to have a party, announce birthdays, appointments, retirements and the like - there was a crisis that needed to be resolved. The Arian heresy was like a forest fire buring out of control - and the Council of Nicea provided the language to establsih our understanding and belief in the Trinity - it did not create the Trinity. (Just because we know the formula for water does not mean we created water - even combining 2 parts H with 1 part of O with a spark is not the same as God creating water, is it?)

We must simply agree to disagree

Not so fast Tony888… . If you wish to disengage from this dialogue, that’s fine - but, please do so with a little more style and not a cliche. I realize this may throw some H2O on your approach - but, you really have not made your case - just stated your position without benefit of any refereces or much logic. You really could have done that to anyone and not have bothered with CAF - really. But, you are here and my guess is that you want to learn more. My recommendation would be to take the other posts and just see what has been presented… and do so with an open mind.

God bless