YAQUBOS:
You beat me to the punch. I have great respect for the Orthodox churches (Learning about it led me to the Catholic Church) and Pope John Paul II calls them the ‘other lung’ of the Catholic Church. However, they are currently in schism from the Catholic Church.
YAQUBOS:
God says:
“for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?
For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not mere men?” ( 1 Corinthians 3:3-4 )
Are you not fleshly when you say “I am of Peter”, and another, “I am of Andrew”, and another, “I am of the East”, and another “I am of the West”???
When will you pay attention to what God is saying?
In Love,
Yaqubos†
One could say the same thing about Protestants: “I am of Luther,” “I am of Calvin,” “I am of Wesley,” “I am of (insert founder of your denomination here).” However, Jesus gave Peter the keys to the church (Matt 16:18-20) and gave him the power to bind and loose, and we Catholics believe that Peter’s teaching authority has been handed down to the Popes through the centuries. Jesus founded ONE CHURCH, not thousands of conflicting denominations.
:yup:
Interesting! You look to the falts of others, and you measure yourself by that standard… Why don’t you look to the standard of God who says that we must not say “we are of Peter” etc, as you are saying here?
Because Peter was the Apostle that Jesus entrusted with the keys to the Church. I’m not saying that all the Popes have been perfect (a few Popes have been far from Holy and even Peter had his faults). The problem with the Protestant ‘reformers’ is that in their zeal to reform the ‘errors’ of Catholicism is that they shattered the ONE church-ONE-faith-ONE baptism that St paul stressed in ephesians, and made a mockery of Jesus prayer in John 17 that his followers be one.
My friend, if you call those teachings as revealed by the Holy Spirit, do you think that we can add them to the Bible? If no, why not?
Hello! Don’t forget that we are called to encourage each other * and to confess our sins to each other. * (Protestants are confused by this latter point, thinking that no priesthood is necessary and that the Sacrament of Penance is an accretion, but they forget the linkage established between forgiveness of sin and the Church. *)
The Church which Jesus Christ founded on the Apostles, guided by the Holy Spirit, determined which were the God inspired Scriptures and collected them together into one place and put them into one book. This is what you know today as the Bible. Or is it your belief that that God handed the Bible to King James?
First of all, Catholics do not base their teachings on ‘Sola Scriptura,’ or Bible alone, for the reason that for the first 400 years of the church there was no formal New Testament canon. The Christians looked to the Church for the final word on a given teaching. Therefore, she had to be infallible in order to keep her children from error. It was also the Catholic Church that infallibly determined the New Testament (BTW, when you accept the NT canon, you accept the authority of the Catholic Church). the Catholic Church relies on three sources for teaching: the Bible, Holy tradition (see 2 Thess 2:14) and the Magisterium (see Matt 16:16-20). None of these sources contradicts the other.
Great error: The Church didn’t DECIDE which books are Scripture, but She ACCEPTED as Scripture those books that were ALREADY accepted as Scripture ( because the Book imposed itself as Word of God ), and She rejected the other books that sects were trying to introduce as Word of God.
As I said before, when the New Testament existed and was accepted as Word of God, the Roman Catholic Church didn’t even exist as such, but there was ( and till today there is ) ONLY ONE CHURCH!
So… I suppose the New Testament just sorta dropped from the sky and the Church said “Looks good to us.”
Seriously, though, in the first few centuries of the Church there was alot of disagreement as to what the NT Canon consisted of. Some of the Early Church Fathers thought that James, Revelation, Hebrews and a two others (I think 2 Peter and 3 John, but I can’t remember for sure) did not belong in the canon (perhaps that’s why Luther put them in the back of his Bible). Other Early Church Fathers were convinced that other writings (like the Didache, the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, and epistles of Ignatius of Antioch) were part of the canon. So, how could the church simply “accept” the canon if good and holy men like the ECFs differed as to what the canon consisted of.
Oh, and one last thing… the table of contents doesn’t count!
Wrong! Totally wrong! We don’t believe about the Bible what the Muslims believe about the Qur’an!
Ah, yes. And some Church Fathers believed in universalism ( like Origen ), so you must believe in Universalism…
First, thank you for not respecting me by putting me in a group that you call “type”.
These are valid questions and if “Sola Scriptura” is correct, the answers must be in scripture.
You are avoiding the question. If Sola Scriptura is correct, pleas point out within scriptue where the answer is.
Once again, you did not answer the question from Scripture.
The answer is not from scripture. Again, if Sola Scriptura is correct, the answere must come from Scripture alone.
By Sola Scriptura, we are to go to the Bible Alone, therefore we must be able to tell from Scripture alone if a translation is in error.
Thank you- I couldn’t have said it better myself!
