Perhaps that’s worth its own thread, then. My point was that something can be correct without being infallible - in other words, Lutherans do not replace a human pope for a paper one. Roman Catholics, in an understandable but mistaken comparison, often assume incorrectly.
The things I learn.
Thank you, steido.
Agreed. But we would say the church -even the visible church - is not confined to those in communion with Rome.
True, although while the Christian faithful are part of the Body of Christ, the successors of the Apostles - what we call bishops - are also a distinct organ in the Body. And, as the brain leads the other organs, the bishops lead the rest of the body. And Christ is the
anima, or soul, of the Church, to complete the analogy.
Precisely. It’s like a science; we call it simply a practice of our modern church, which we employ because we are removed by time from the Apostles. This is why we are equally perturbed by “Bible alone!” types. Sola Scriptura is not a doctrine.
The irony being that science is something of a doctrine, at odds with another tradition - that of the final authority of the bishops - something Catholics and the Orthodox have in common. They may not have a Pope. But they have episcopal authority, the authority which called the councils.
Again, I think it is a good principle. And that quote from the Orthodox makes me think they agree. Whatever the case, the Holy Spirit does choose certain men to be bishops, and the ordination of a priest formally imparts the Spirit. No amount of education can equal that sort of surety.
It reminds me a bit of the schism between Judah and Israel. God had promised David’s line to continue forever. It had His seal of anointing, the Spirit, on it. But when Rehoboam abused his authority, people stopped following him, even though God promised David a kingdom through him forever.
Do you follow?
In essence. I think this leaves open the eventual reunion of Lutheran and Roman Catholic communions - Lutherans are simply practicing a pre-Tridentine Catholic practice established by church fathers.
I hope someday a sort of “Lutheran Ordinariate” or somesuchthing comes about. It would be heartening to me - even if they do the whole “contemporary” “praise and worship” style thing I saw in one Lutheran parish.
Well, it is afforded a lesser authority than the gospels.
If I may, this is one problem I have with putting the “science” of Sola Scriptura ahead of episcopal authority. The information we bring in continually changes what authority the books have, and how much. For example, some scholars teach that the once unchallenged Gospels may well have been written 40 years after the fact, and this therefore makes them unreliable.
Again, not that using Tradition to determine doctrine is bad. We do just that. It is because of Tradition our bishops have the authority they do. But the bishops feel like something to fall back on when scholarship begins telling us nonsense like “heresy precedes orthodoxy”, and expecting us to decide our doctrines by their scholarship when they cannot agree on what Scripture means, or even how old it is.
Yes, the church, in general, has the authority to teach. That authority, we believe, need not be tied to one fallible human individual - and ought not to be.
And frankly, neither do we. But we consider the successors of the Apostles - the bishops - a God-given authority, above the authority of any other or collection of members in the body of Christ. The bishops and priests alone have the right to administer the sacraments (except baptism and marriage, which anyone can do). They alone have the authority to “bind and loose”. They alone carry the mark of the Holy Spirit which Jesus imparted on Pentecost that caused them to teach the Jews in Jerusalem and baptise thousands. The Church began with the Apostles. The laity were the fruit of the Holy Spirit working through the
Apostles, not simply any men, called or otherwise. Why, even Paul, called by Jesus Himself, sought the approval of Peter and the Twelve.
So, while Sacred Tradition is a vital element, only the bishops have all the Apostles had, because the Apostles only gave all of it to some, not all. Else, what would have become of the Judaisers, of those Paul delivered unto Satan?
