Fallacies of sola scriptura

[sonichuiscool]

Really? How do you explain the disunity amongst most Christians, namely, the Protestant Churches.

That disunity argument is a myth. If you visit everything from an Anglican Church, to a Pentecostal, to an Evangelical, to a Baptist, to a Quaker, AOG, Lutheran, non-denominational, etc. you will see that they differ on peripheral issues and are united in the declaration that Jesus is Lord and died for humanity.

Now, you could go into how we know essential from non-essential doctrine, and like your decision to follow the guidance of the Catholic Church, we believe that it is a gift from the Holy Spirit. We have Scripture, you have Scripture + Tradition.

Even though our leaders are not hierarchical, they still manage to maintain better standards of orthodoxy than the bishops out of what I would argue is sensitivity to the Spirit’s call. This isn’t boasting, but its what i’ve personally experienced having attended Catholic institutions for the greater part of my life.

This is curious to me. Doesn’t being a Christian have foremost to do with faith - where and in whom you place it? If someone says they believe in Christ as Lord and Savior, but I find them sleeping around, I’d consider them perhaps a bad Christian or indeed an unrepentant Christian but a Christian nonetheless.

Likewise I do not get the Evolution vs. Creation debate, whether we look solely at Scripture or otherwise. To me, they are two different questions using two different modes of inquiry to research. The former asks “How”, the latter “Why”. Science cannot tell us our identity in Christ, and the Bible - not being a textbook of biology - cannot tell us why there are flightless cormorants on islands in the Pacific. It is neither the intention of biology to describe God nor of theology to describe genetics any more than you should use either to change the oil on your 1997 Honda Civic.

Good points here, although I won’t go into a digression about maintaining church unity among Protestants! All I am saying is that there is much room in the fold.

What passes for liberal in your mind, with your background distinct from mine, I might not consider the same. Specifics might be off topic in this thread, but if conversation slows here, please share.

I see liberal as approaching scripture with an antirealist postmodern hermeneutic (i.e. the Bible is what we personally make of it), a tendency to minimize or failure to condemn sin, refusal to tackle hard issues in the Christian life, a tendency to neglect theology in favor of feelings, isolation of Jesus and a tendency to preach about being a good person, and failure to provide meaningfully for the good of congregants (i.e. no fellowship).

If anything ceases to be completely rooted in Jesus, it is unChristian, at least in my opinion. Although the tendency is subtle, I have noted it in apologists on EWTN (yes, I have watched it!) and elsewhere in Catholic teaching. Don’t get me wrong, many Catholics are incredibly devoted to Jesus, but on a parish to parish level, and among greater institutions of higher learning, the devotion appears to be lacking.

 

[aburger]

Here’s a question for those who believe in sola scriptura: Why do you believe in the Bible?

No, really. Why do you think everything the Bible says is true? You can’t quote a Bible verse because that’s like me saying (for the record, I obviously don’t really believe this, it’s just an example) “I’m never wrong because I say I’m never wrong and that has to be true because I’m never wrong”. See how that’s a logical fallacy?

The answer: We believe the Bible is true because the Church established by Jesus through its divine authority (thanks to the Holy Spirit) says that the Bible is true.

Jesus didn’t write a book or establish a book as Holy. The New Testament was written many years after Jesus’s death. What Jesus did was establish a Church and give it the authority to make infallible decisions on faith and morals. The Bible is a book full of truths of our faith. The reason we believe the books are true is because our infallible, divinely guided Church said so. So when Protestants believe in books of the New Testament, they are unwittingly following Catholic Tradition!

 

[paul_c]

Did you know that the 12 apostles DID NOT know that our Lord Jesus Christ was to die, be resurrected and ascend into heaven during the time frame of the gospel accounts? In Luke 9:6 they were sent to preach the gospel. What was the content of that gospel they were to preach? Did you know that even on the day of Pentecost that Peter preached the cross as bad news in that he accused the Jews of murdering their Messiah? Did you know that our Lord Jesus Christ, in His earthly ministry, came ONLY to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And that he was speaking to Israel in John 6 and told them that it is the “Spirit that giveth life, the flesh profited nothing; THE WORDS THAT I SPEAK TO YOU THEY ARE SPIRIT AND THEY ARE LIFE.”

So what do you think the Apostles taught when they were sent out during Jesus’ ministry on earth? They preached what Jesus preached: Have you read the Sermon on the Mount? (Matthew 5-7). We are called to live lives of love and to do the will of God. That’s what they preached. And that’s what the Church still preaches. We are called to live out our faith. That is ultimately the Gospel message. Love God and Love your Neighbor. Jesus died as reparation for our sins and to reconcile us to God but he also died to show us the ultimate example of love and he told us to pick up our crosses to follow him.

I find it very, very curious that you go beyond Sola Scriptura and only believe what Paul writes.

 

[aburger]

I just took a course explaining oral tradition and it is very accurate. It started with the Jews and was explained by Moses Maimonides. Other cultures such as Africans and American Indians also had oral tradition. I don’t mean to offend you but what kind of God do you think we have? God is a god of order and he has the power to create an accurate book. All tradition from the Catholic Church is supported by scripture and it never, never conflicts with scripture. We have a more common sense of interpretation. There has to be an interpretation of many to form an accurate meaning. This is where the non-Catholic churches actually don’t rely on scripture as much as Catholics. You can be a cafeteria Catholic if you don’t believe in the accuracy of our scriptures. If you don’t like something in the bible you can say the bible isn’t accurate.

 

[paul_c]

That disunity argument is a myth. If you visit everything from an Anglican Church, to a Pentecostal, to an Evangelical, to a Baptist, to a Quaker, AOG, Lutheran, non-denominational, etc. you will see that they differ on peripheral issues and are united in the declaration that Jesus is Lord and died for humanity.

while it is true that they agree on enough of the fundamentals to be called Christian, it is simply not true that they are unified. What you call peripheral issues, things like the efficacy of the sacraments, are in fact, essential to salvation.

Now, you could go into how we know essential from non-essential doctrine, and like your decision to follow the guidance of the Catholic Church, we believe that it is a gift from the Holy Spirit. We have Scripture, you have Scripture + Tradition.

The fact that there is disagreement between Christians on what is essential doctrine disproves your thesis that the Holy Spirit is guiding you.

Even though our leaders are not hierarchical, they still manage to maintain better standards of orthodoxy than the bishops out of what I would argue is sensitivity to the Spirit’s call. This isn’t boasting, but its what i’ve personally experienced having attended Catholic institutions for the greater part of my life.

Please, you can not prove anything you say here. You and everyone else knows that many, many non-Catholic christians are constatnly Church shopping, looking for congregations that agree with their views. If you are a Catholic, you bend your views to the truth, rather than bend the truth to your views.

If anything ceases to be completely rooted in Jesus, it is unChristian, at least in my opinion. Although the tendency is subtle, I have noted it in apologists on EWTN (yes, I have watched it!) and elsewhere in Catholic teaching. Don’t get me wrong, many Catholics are incredibly devoted to Jesus, but on a parish to parish level, and among greater institutions of higher learning, the devotion appears to be lacking. Every Catholic mass is a celebration of Jesus’s sacrifice. Your complaint is completely without substance.

 

[Nathan_Wagar]

I think it’s kind of funny. I never saw so much reverence for the Bible as the first time I attended a high mass. I wonder if the protestants would call it idolatry… Then of course, there’s the excellent point made above that Jesus is present in a Sacramental way in every mass, the fact that a gospel passage is read EVERY mass as opposed to being exposed to nothing but the pauline corpus. The fact that readings from the Old and the New show the overarching themes of salvation history rooted in the Christ as opposed to encouraging a cherry-picking approach to the Bible, the rich Biblical allusions in every single part of the mass…the list goes on. I’ve never seen a faith as Christocentric as Catholicism. And the funny thing is, many protestants so familiar with the Bible never seem to notice the references when they sit in on the mass…

 

[paul_c]

I think it’s kind of funny. I never saw so much reverence for the Bible as the first time I attended a high mass. I wonder if the protestants would call it idolatry… Then of course, there’s the excellent point made above that Jesus is present in a Sacramental way in every mass, the fact that a gospel passage is read EVERY mass as opposed to being exposed to nothing but the pauline corpus. The fact that readings from the Old and the New show the overarching themes of salvation history rooted in the Christ as opposed to encouraging a cherry-picking approach to the Bible, the rich Biblical allusions in every single part of the mass…the list goes on. I’ve never seen a faith as Christocentric as Catholicism. And the funny thing is, many protestants so familiar with the Bible never seem to notice the references when they sit in on the mass…

Its not too hard to understand that Protestants don’t see all the references. They truncate the Bible to only what supports their own beliefs. An extreme example of this is QuickCat who says that the Actual Gospels are for the Jews only and that only Paul’s epistles are appropriate for Gentiles

 

[Nathan_Wagar]

**Did you know that the 12 apostles DID NOT know that our Lord Jesus Christ was to die, be resurrected and ascend into heaven during the time frame of the gospel accounts? In Luke 9:6 they were sent to preach the gospel. What was the content of that gospel they were to preach? Did you know that even on the day of Pentecost that Peter preached the cross as bad news in that he accused the Jews of murdering their Messiah? Did you know that our Lord Jesus Christ, in His earthly ministry, came ONLY to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And that he was speaking to Israel in John 6 and told them that it is the “Spirit that giveth life, the flesh profited nothing; THE WORDS THAT I SPEAK TO YOU THEY ARE SPIRIT AND THEY ARE LIFE.” **

Response The gospel they preached was most likely the same one he preached during his life: repentance and baptism. Peter followed suit. The fact that the baptism baptises into Jesus’ death is a nice side effect, and more was taught as more was understood by the fledgling Church, which has interesting implications for the definition of dogma, but I digress. Interestingly, this statement I do not believe is completely true anyway, because at the end of Luke, Jesus taught them from the Scriptures, but they recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, and ONLY at the breaking of the bread. Interesting, I’m seeing parallels with the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist, but again I digress.

Perfectly logical to assume that Eucharistic teaching was expanded, since Paul seems to have a rich theology later. This Eucharistic theology in Luke would seem to be part of this gospel…

As for the comment about verse 63 that many protestants try to desperately hold on to, I am not sure how you mean to imply that Jesus used increasingly graphic physical language throughout the second half of the bread of life discourse, then says “but I didn’t mean it, it’s all a symbol.” That explains why it was such a hard saying, in fact the first time he lost many disciples. Oh wait, it doesn’t.

1 Corinthians 2:12-15: " Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gift bestowed on us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit. The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one."

Saint Paul’s use of “judged spirituality” in 1 Corinthians 2:14 is not in a context distinguishing literal interpretation from a symbolic interpretation, rather it distinguishes the natural man who does not understand God from the spiritual man who “judges spiritually.” Judging spiritually does not mean judging symbolically. Protestants like to act as if this one verse cancels out everything Jesus just said, ignoring the shift to exclusively literal language and the fact that apparently the followers understood Him literally as well because they left. The thing is, if Jesus did mean all of it symbolically based off this one verse they are misconstruing, then that would be saying that Jesus negated the whole point of this very long sermon, basically saying “eat my flesh, but you’ll find it a waste of time.”

As for a comment made earlier about Jesus “dividing rightly” the Scriptures, that poster, as an individual, seems to me a bit presumptuous to assume he/she has the same infallible teaching authority as Jesus, considering Jesus was the fulfillment of those Scriptures he was interpreting. Especially since Jesus passed those darn keys off to Saint Pete. Oh wait, and heaven binds what he does. Hmmm, but heaven can’t endorse a lie, so there you go, papal infallibility implied, but again, I digress.

And lastly, since the kingdom of David included Jew and Gentile, and Jesus is the new David, Im not exactly sure how the implications that Jesus had gentiles in mind all along in the gospels is not EMBARASSINGLY obvious, but hey, I’m just a digressing machine.

 

[JonNC]

=sonichuiscool;6630615]That disunity argument is a myth. If you visit everything from an Anglican Church, to a Pentecostal, to an Evangelical, to a Baptist, to a Quaker, AOG, Lutheran, non-denominational, etc. you will see that they differ on peripheral issues and are united in the declaration that Jesus is Lord and died for humanity.

I beg to differ. Sorry. While I agree that all Christians declare Jesus Lord and Savior, I don’t view the Sacraments of Baptism, confession/Holy Absolution, and the real and substantial presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist as peripheral issues, nor do I view the unbiblical notion of perseverance of saints as a minor disagreement to simply overlook.

The true myth is the myth that there is/was a Protestant Church that started as one and then splintered.

Now, you could go into how we know essential from non-essential doctrine, and like your decision to follow the guidance of the Catholic Church, we believe that it is a gift from the Holy Spirit. We have Scripture, you have Scripture + Tradition.

And I as a Lutheran follow scripture as it is rightly reflected in the Book of Concord.
Sola Scriptura is not a refutation of Tradition, nor is it equivalent to personal interpretation. It is the practice of measuring all teachers and teachings, all Tradition by scripture.

Jon

 

[Nathan_Wagar]

So who judged the traditions of the apostles before Scripture but after the Christ’s ascension?

 

[JonNC]

So who judged the traditions of the apostles before Scripture but after the Christ’s ascension?

When was there not scripture? Christ often said, “it is written”. There was scripture long before councils, etc. And before the end of the apostolic era, the Apostles were there.

Jon

 

[Nathan_Wagar]

Yeah, and the actions of the apostles were a radical departure from the then-current understanding of the Scripture. Jesus made it pretty clear that current day interpretation outside of his own divine authority did not bind Him. Jesus was the fulfillment of Scripture, He did not bend His actions to Scripture. The apostles after Him were invested with His authority, and acted out of conjunction with the Old Testament Scriptures, so again you are left with the same question.

If you are implying that apostolic authority ceased with the apostles, I could argue the case about offices, succession, etc, but I’d rather just ask you where it says in the Bible that the Holy Spirit’s guidance ended after the apostles, to only be invested in the books of the Word? That seems a bit…tenuous.

 

[po18guy]

Beyond that, those who are serious can find many great books that defend sola Scriptura and address the questions that are repeatedly raised here.

There are a multitude of writings by men defending sola scriptura. None of those writings is in the bible, and none of the defenders is Jesus Christ, His Apostles, or their successors.

The bible itself tells us that we must go outside of it for interpretation. See Nehemaih 8:8 and Acts 8:30-31, for example. In both cases, Ezra and Philip, who had authority, interpreted scripture for others.

The bible tells us in many places that it is incomplete. Witness: Luke 3:18, John 20:30, John 21:25, Acts 2:40, 1 Corinthians 11:34 and others.

Saint Paul compliments the Corthinians (1 Corinthians 11:2) on maintaining the traditions that he taught them orally. He counseled the Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians 2:15) to maintain the traditons which came to them either orally or by epistle.

Where does one go to find what is missing in the bible? To whom does one go to receive authoritative interpretation? The answer is found in the bible: Jesus told his followers to go to the Church as the final authority (Matthew 18:15-17). Paul taught Timothy that the Church is the “pilar and foundation of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). And, all Christians know that the truth is not something, it is Someone, Jesus Christ.

Jesus, our perfect example, did not write a single word for posterity. He taught in the oral tradition and sent His Apostles forth to teach in the same manner, giving them all authority over His earthly Church. The Apostle John preferred face to face teaching to written, as the hearer’s joy would then be complete (2 John 1:12).

That same authority was passed on to the Apostle’s successors, the Bishops and Popes. Every pen stroke in every protestant bible was declared scripture by Catholic Bishops and Popes. Church authority was used to compile and canonize every word in that same bible. Yet, protestants reject that same God-given authority. Jesus came to demolish the “sola scriptura” legalism of the Pharisees, which had made void the word of God (Matthew 15:6, Mark 7:13, referring to** Isaiah 55:11**).

Clearly, God’s sacred Word, twisted without authoritative interpretation, leads the believer astray. It did with the Pharisees, and it does today in the ever fracturing “sola scriptura” realm.

 

[Victorious]

Did you know that the 12 apostles DID NOT know that our Lord Jesus Christ was to die, be resurrected and ascend into heaven during the time frame of the gospel accounts?

Wrong. Jesus told them several times that these things would happen.

 

[sonichuiscool]

while it is true that they agree on enough of the fundamentals to be called Christian, it is simply not true that they are unified. What you call peripheral issues, things like the efficacy of the sacraments, are in fact, essential to salvation.

Only per the Catholic Church. If you have approached the CC for any other reason than Jesus personally telling you this, your insistence that the efficacy of the sacraments is based on a point of Catholic doctrine. Would you say that I am damned because I do not hold the exact same beliefs on baptism and communion as you do?

The fact that there is disagreement between Christians on what is essential doctrine disproves your thesis that the Holy Spirit is guiding you.

The Holy Spirit does not tell us exact points of doctrine. It isn’t an all or nothing game with authority, only the person of Jesus. And anticipating your question, yes I would say that anyone who disagrees with the Biblical doctrines regarding Christ and his redemptive message to humanity does in fact warrant the label non-Christian.

Please, you can not prove anything you say here. You and everyone else knows that many, many non-Catholic christians are constatnly Church shopping, looking for congregations that agree with their views. If you are a Catholic, you bend your views to the truth, rather than bend the truth to your views.

What is wrong with “Church shopping”? A literalist, Calvinist, pre-trib Christian is as much a follower of Jesus as a amillenial, Arminian, critical realist. What is so heretical about each finding people of the same mind?

I beg to differ. Sorry. While I agree that all Christians declare Jesus Lord and Savior, I don’t view the Sacraments of Baptism, confession/Holy Absolution, and the real and substantial presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist as peripheral issues, nor do I view the unbiblical notion of perseverance of saints as a minor disagreement to simply overlook.

So who in your mind has the monopoly on truth?

Every Catholic mass is a celebration of Jesus’s sacrifice. Your complaint is completely without substance.

And yet it seems that these heretical Protestants who do not celebrate the mass are more dedicated to serving Jesus than the Catholic priests who say the same mass. If the mass is a tool for evangelization, it has not done its job.

I do not believe that the mass is heretical, it is beautiful but the underlying beliefs that sacramentalism are what constitutes salvation and evangelism do leave many outside the fold of instutionalized Catholicism in a rather bad position.

 

[Berean2]

Jesus came to demolish the “sola scriptura” legalism of the Pharisees, which had made void the Word of God (Matthew 15:6, Mark 7:13, referring to** Isaiah 55:11**).

Clearly, God’s sacred Word, twisted without authoritative interpretation, leads the believer astray. It did with the Pharisees

But that’s just it! The Gospel passages you list refer precisely to the Pharisees’ oral traditions making void the Scriptures, not to mention that the P’s were those who had the “authoritative” interpretation: they functioned as the appointed keepers & guardians of God’s truth.

Honestly, just try this simple experiment in 3-D sometime: sit down with a Calvinist, a Baptist, a Methodist, a Lutheran, an Anglican, an Episcopalian, a Pentecostal, a Charismatic, an Emergent, & an LDS, and assuming these people were all of sound mind and overall decent character, as well as possessing goodwill and average intelligence, they’d all be able to agree on the basic meaning of these verses**.

Jesus wept.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not lie.

Of the fruit of that tree thou shalt not eat.

“One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

(**IOW, they’re not going to say something like “Jesus wept” = “Jesus guffawed” or “Thou shalt not steal” = “You can go ahead and take whatever you want, whenever you want, where ever you want.”) Those verses are a mere sampling of thousands more that those same people would not “twist.”

I myself have been relying on Scripture for more than 3 decades, and never yet has it “led me astray.” On the contrary, I have “sniffed out” falsehoods based squarely on my knowledge of the Word (for example: Prosperity “Gospel,” Left Behindism, the Harry Blackaby fad, the Prayer of Jabez fad, the Purpose Driven Church fad, etc. etc.). From this and other similar posts of yours, it seems that you don’t trust God’s Spirit thru His Word to do exactly what it claims, that is, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…” (2 Tim. 3:16)

 

[FidesSpesCarita]

That disunity argument is a myth. If you visit everything from an Anglican Church, to a Pentecostal, to an Evangelical, to a Baptist, to a Quaker, AOG, Lutheran, non-denominational, etc. you will see that they differ on peripheral issues and are united in the declaration that Jesus is Lord and died for humanity.

We Catholics should be included among this list if the declaration that Jesus Christ is Lord and died for us is your sole criterion.

Now, you could go into how we know essential from non-essential doctrine, and like your decision to follow the guidance of the Catholic Church, we believe that it is a gift from the Holy Spirit. We have Scripture(SS, non biblical), you have Scripture + Tradition.Biblical, see above and various other threads

Good points here, although I won’t go into a digression about maintaining church unity among Protestants! All I am saying is that there is much room in the fold.

While there may be much room in the fold, not all sheep follow the shepherd. On occasion they wander off. A shepherd will occasionally be forced to break the legs of a sheep who continually wanders off and carry it for days/weeks until it heals, which causes the sheep to learn to follow. I choose to follow without requiring broken legs. Or maybe they have already been broken and I finally learned to follow the Shepherd… who knows.

I see liberal as approaching scripture with an antirealist postmodern hermeneutic (i.e. the Bible is what we personally make of it), a tendency to minimize or failure to condemn sin, refusal to tackle hard issues in the Christian life, a tendency to neglect theology in favor of feelings, isolation of Jesus and a tendency to preach about being a good person, and failure to provide meaningfully for the good of congregants (i.e. no fellowship).
Who said you were supposed to get anything out of the worship of God? Worship of God and Christ is a giving of self to God, who is deserving of all love. There is no promise of prosperity in the Word. No Promise of Earthly happiness. No promise of anything. Catholics worship Christ because He is Christ, not to get anything out of it. If we do receive graces, happiness, wisdom from the mass, WONDERFUL!!! but not necessary.

Only per the Catholic Church. If you have approached the CC for any other reason than Jesus personally telling you this, your insistence that the efficacy of the sacraments is based on a point of Catholic doctrine. Would you say that I am damned because I do not hold the exact same beliefs on baptism and communion as you do?
Absolutely not. No MAN can affirm the salvation or damnation of any man, even himself. That is entirely by the Grace of God.

The Holy Spirit does not tell us exact points of doctrine. It isn’t an all or nothing game with authority, only the person of Jesus. And anticipating your question, yes I would say that anyone who disagrees with the Biblical doctrines regarding Christ and his redemptive message to humanity does in fact warrant the label non-Christian.

There is nothing in the Catholic Church that disagrees with the Bible. Heck, we compiled it, why would we disagree with what we already agreed upon?

What is wrong with “Church shopping”? A literalist, Calvinist, pre-trib Christian is as much a follower of Jesus as a amillenial, Arminian, critical realist. What is so heretical about each finding people of the same mind?

Why search for others who feel as you do instead of searching yourself and bending to the truth? I used to surround myself with atheists, when I was one. When I went searching for the truth I surrounded myself with people who fit my outlook at the time. Yet the only complete, honest, truths I could find were here, in the Church founded by Christ upon Cephas. I will take real food over milk any day of the week. Church shopping is just trying to find the best tasting milk, without ever wanting to eat real food.

So who in your mind has the monopoly on truth?

The Church given the affirmation from Christ that the gates of hell shall not prevail. And, ftr, there is only one such Church.

And yet it seems that these heretical Protestants who do not celebrate the mass are more dedicated to serving Jesus than the Catholic priests who say the same mass. If the mass is a tool for evangelization, it has not done its job.

The mass is not an evangelical tool: it is a tool of worshipping our God. I cannot disagree that there are some (many) protestants who do a better job following Christ than some (many) priests. Yet that does not take away from their authority.

I do not believe that the mass is heretical, it is beautiful but the underlying beliefs that sacramentalism are what constitutes salvation and evangelism do leave many outside the fold of instutionalized Catholicism in a rather bad position.

the sacraments do not constitute salvation or evangelism, they are the visible and physical signs of invisible Graces granted us by Christ. I am sorry that anyone ever gave you that impression. We Catholics have a tendency to invite people to mass instead of evangelizing. But that is out of our deep love of the Mass, Worshipping our Lord, and receiving that greatest gift of His body and Blood, broken and poured out for us, in the species of bread and wine.

Anyway, thats one mans opinion.

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[Nathan_Wagar]

I’d say the sacraments definitely have to do with salvation, particularly the Eucharist (John 6) and baptism. The question you were being asked was fallacious though, because A: the Church doesn’t damn anybody, God does, and B: God’s grace is not confined to his sacraments.

 

[FidesSpesCarita]

But that’s just it! The Gospel passages you list refer precisely to the Pharisees’ oral traditions making void the Scriptures, not to mention that the P’s were those who had the “authoritative” interpretation: they functioned as the appointed keepers & guardians of God’s truth.

Honestly, just try this simple experiment in 3-D sometime: sit down with a Calvinist, a Baptist, a Methodist, a Lutheran, an Anglican, an Episcopalian, a Pentecostal, a Charismatic, an Emergent, & an LDS, and assuming these people were all of sound mind and overall decent character, as well as possessing goodwill and average intelligence, they’d all be able to agree on the basic meaning of these verses**.

Jesus wept.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not lie.

Of the fruit of that tree thou shalt not eat.

“One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

(**IOW, they’re not going to say something like “Jesus wept” = “Jesus guffawed” or “Thou shalt not steal” = “You can go ahead and take whatever you want, whenever you want, where ever you want.”) Those verses are a mere sampling of thousands more that those same people would not “twist.”

I myself have been relying on Scripture for more than 3 decades, and never yet has it “led me astray.” On the contrary, I have “sniffed out” falsehoods based squarely on my knowledge of the Word (for example: Prosperity “Gospel,” Left Behindism, the Harry Blackaby fad, the Prayer of Jabez fad, the Purpose Driven Church fad, etc. etc.). From this and other similar posts of yours, it seems that you don’t trust God’s Spirit thru His Word to do exactly what it claims, that is, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…” (2 Tim. 3:16)

All scripture truly is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching. But scripture is not the entirety of the education we must undergo. Time and time again, the apostles wrote to different churches telling them to look to the apostolic teachings, written or ORAL, or to look to THE CHURCH for the truth. Important to note was that they were never told to look to THEIR church, or A church, but THE Church (pillar and foundation of truth). Irenaeus (I think. might have been Ignatius) said that if there were disputes among churches, to look to the church founded on Peter and Paul at ROME. Not to look to Scripture. Why would he say this? Because Christ gave us an office which would be granted the Holy Spirit to guide us in “all truth” against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. The Church at Rome, founded on Peter, has the affirmation from Christ that she cannot teach untruths in matters of Faith and Morals (those things on which Christ taught).

Anyway, Im tired. Going to sleep soon. Sorry, gotta cut this rant off.

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[FidesSpesCarita]

I’d say the sacraments definitely have to do with salvation, particularly the Eucharist (John 6) and baptism. The question you were being asked was fallacious though, because A: the Church doesn’t damn anybody, God does, and B: God’s grace is not confined to his sacraments.

Touche. Thanks for the correction.

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