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Fredricks
Guest
Do you agree the only valid traditions would come from Christ or the Apostles?
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Fredricks
Guest
I am claiming that Peter, John, Matthew, John, Paul, James and Jude, Mark and Luke wrote. They knew him. He did found a church. His followers also wrote a book and you cannot be contending they were writing inspired scripture against his will?
You have nothing but hearsay without his divine word.
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Eden
Guest
Only some of what our Lord said and did (was written) down. “The apostles entrusted the ‘sacred deposit’ of the faith (the depositum fidei), contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, to the whole of the Church” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 84). To this day, divine revelation is transmitted by two sources: Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. Therefore, “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God committed to the Church”.
catholic.com/thisrock/2000/0003fea3.asp
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Fredricks
Guest
Why does the Catholic church follow what the Bible and Sacred Tradition teaches but another church does the same, the Orthodox, not believe in the Papacy?
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Eden
Guest
But where did the Bible come from? It came from the Church, not vice versa. In apostolic times most people were illiterate. So what Christ said and did was passed on orally. Christ instructed the apostles to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). How could Our Lord order them to “preach the gospel” at a time when the gospels themselves did not exist in written form? Unless one is to accuse our Lord of being unreasonable, the only answer is that the gospel (“good news”) already existed in oral form as a part of the Sacred Tradition of the Church, “handed on . . . from the lips of Christ” (DV 8).
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Eden
Guest
Philip Blosser’s blog is a good place for information on that:
www.catholictradition.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_catholictradition_archive.html
Do you know what the Eastern Orthodox think about Protestant denominations? Let’s just say they think your church is even less legitimate than the Catholic Church. I am always bewildered by Protestants who think they have a comraderie with the Eastern Orthodox simply because you both reject papal authority.
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Fredricks
Guest
We agree only part of it was written down. What we do not agree on is that you do not adopt later traditons. Name a Catholic scholar who thinks that the Christian church had only one bishop per city prior to 120 or so AD. Name a Catholic scholar who disputes that the earliest Christians ATE a meal consisting of bread and wine without a “priest” until late in the 1st century. Name a Catholic scholar who thinks Priests took a confession prior to this meal. Name a Catholic scholar who thinks celibacy was required early on.
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Fredricks
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Eden
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Wait a minute. You don’t even have bishops at all.
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Eden
Guest
You have suggested that you believe that everything that was said or taught by Jesus or the apostles is in the Bible.
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Fredricks
Guest
But you still have not answered my point. You claim that the Sola Scripture will cause division but refuse to admit that Bible and Sacred Tradition do as well. You would say, well, its only a couple of divisions instead of 30000. But it only takes one to prove my point. Catholics and Orthodox, who both used Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, split prior to the reformation. You claim your church is infallible but do not seem bothered that the same people who use the same things as you are not united as well.
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Eden
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Jesus was celibate and so was St. Paul. Do you have a problem with their celibacy?
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Fredricks
Guest
yes we do.Wait a minute. You don’t even have bishops at all.
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Church_Militant
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Okay Fredricks, let me put it to you this way.
If St. John taught his disciples a certain thing and they in turn became the bishops of churches after he died and in fact gave their lives for what they believed and we have copies of letters from them today that spell out some of those things, and they are very distinctly Catholic teachings, that line up with passages of the New Testament, then why would they not be considered verifiable historical links to the teaching of St. John, who wrote the Gospel, the epistles, and the book of Revelation? They don’t have to be infallible canon…they just have to be verifiably historical documents by those guys, (just the same as the writings of someone like Martin Luther are verifiable historical documents that tell us what he and his followers believed, even though they are not canon.)
If we accept that those writings of Luther’s give us authentic evidence of what he taught, (and we do!) then why do you not accept the historical documents of the guys who were discipled by St. John?
These documents, and many others, offer us all the more verification that what we believe and practice today is the same as what St. John taught his friends.
Examples:
catholicfirst.com/thefaith/churchfathers/volume01/ignatius06.cfm
catholicfirst.com/thefaith/churchfathers/volume01/polycarp2.cfm
Can the church that you are in say that? Does your pastor or deacons or elders even know who Ignatius of Antioch or Polycarp were? Do they know what the Didache is and what it says?
Pax tecum,
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Eden
Guest
JaneFrances - I was just trying to get you another clue for your notebook.
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Fredricks
Guest
I have a problem with it being required when it conflicts with scripture. The Bible never teaches that you must do this. But you guys require it of your priests. Despite the fact, that the great Apostle Peter did it. it was good enough for him but you REQUIRE IT. The Bible says quite the opposite.
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Fredricks
Guest
Church Militant:
If I know who they are, I quite assure you they do. We all go to the same schools. Heck, one of my professors was a Notre Dame grad and author. I do accept them as valuable. I accept them as valuable because they show the progression in doctrine the further away they get from the Apostles. They are not infallible. Speaking of which, how would someone find out what Catholics, lets go with your premise, believed officially prior to 200 AD. Which authors could I use, infallibly?
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Fredricks
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Church Militant:
Just give me a name, I do not have time to read it all and respond as well.
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JaneFrances
Guest
Hmmm. . .I’m not sure what you are getting at?
Yes, I do acknowledge that when St. Paul refers to “tradition” in a positive manner that it is referencing “traditions” which have been “delivered” (1 Cor. 11:2) “taught” (2 Thess. 2:15) or otherwise “received” (2 Thess. 3:6). But nowhere does he say that all ‘traditions” which have been “delivered,” “taught,” or otherwise “received” must be explicit in Scripture or written down somewhere in document form during the Apostolic age.
The point of the Church’s teaching on Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition is that while the Bible is wholly true, it does not contain the whole truth. That is the function of the Word—which is found in the full deposit of faith, Sacred Scripture AND Sacred Tradition. This of course, was the point of Awful’s thread. . .
And. . .I would offer that while there may not be a reference to a “tradition that will be forthcoming” there is no passage of Scripture that explicitly states that ALL viable teaching had been completely delivered at the time of St. Paul’s 1st letter to the Corithinans, for instance. HENCE, he sends them a second letter!
And. …it would be hard to gather from the Scriptures ALONE a specific listing of all the pertinent “traditions” from 30 AD to 65 AD as St. Paul indicates that some were not written at all (i.e., “by word of mouth,” 2 Thess. 2:15).
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