Here is a thought

[brianberean]

fulloftruth:

I just thought of something. If, when the Canon was assembled, all of the apostles were dead, and Christ was in heaven, who or what was used infallibly to determine what was inspired and what was not. Since they did not use Scripture to assemble the list of Canon, doesn’t that kind of prove that scripture is not the only infallable authority.

Are you saying that the canon has to be “infallibly” set before Scripture can be recognized as God-breathed and inspired? Before it can become “profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”?

If that does not prove that to you, then when, and you must prove this from scripture, did the authority cease to be authoritative and when did Scripture become the only infallible rule of faith, and not the Church that assembled and Promulgated it:clapping: :ehh: :dancing:

We don’t have to use Scripture to prove post-Scriptural institutions and people are infallible. The post-Scriptural institutions and people have demonstrated that themselves.

Brian

 

[Xavier]

MariaG:

Hey Xavier,
since you posted at about the same time I did, did you read the post right above your newest one from me?

As someone who is not a practicing Catholic, please do not tell me what practicing Catholic do or do not believe. We do not worship Mary. If you were taught that, you were taught wrong no matter how many Nuns(?) told you this. If you did not understand the nuance and fullness of the Catholic faith and faith that rests solely on Christ while Catholic, it is better you left it in my opinion. I pray you will not let your poor teaching keep you from finding the REAL teachings of the Catholic church, the church Christ founded. The church that Scripture calls the pillar and foundation of truth.(1 Tim 3:15)

God Bless,
Maria

You believe Mary is a coRedeemer because she said yes to God redemption plan. Gods plan was made effectual because Mary said “let it be done unto me…”
Is this not what you believe?

 

[newby]

MrS,

What a woderful answer to Xaiever. I hope you don’t mind if I copy it for use with some people that I am sure will have to chew on it before they can just spit it out as usless drivel!

Bless you

 

[brianberean]

brianberean:

We don’t have to use Scripture to prove post-Scriptural institutions and people are infallible. The post-Scriptural institutions and people have demonstrated that themselves.

Brian

Correction of previous post, “infallible” should read “fallible”

 

[Pax]

brianberean:

Correction of previous post, “infallible” should read “fallible”

Brian,

You should have left it alone…your first attempt was somewhat closer to the truth.

 

[Pax]

brianberean:

Are you saying that the canon has to be “infallibly” set before Scripture can be recognized as God-breathed and inspired? Before it can become “profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”? …

Brian

Brian,

You’re a pretty smart guy, and I think you know better than to bother asking this question. You’re just harassing the poster. It isn’t a question of whether a particular book of the bible like the Gospel of Matthew is inspired. All Christians accept this book and believe it to be inspired. Anyone could pick up this gospel whether they were aware that it was inspired and read it. And yes, they would indeed be reading the inspired word of God.

You know what is meant by the post. The is that the accepted and approved canon was not settled by the apostles and could not have been. There are numerous books that are considered non-canonical and not inspired. There was a time when some of these books were thought by some to be inspired. The Shepherd of Hermas would be an example. Needless to say, the Canon had to be settled and it was done so by the Church. That is all that is being said here.

 

[Catholic4aReasn]

Xavier:

There is one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church—It is the Body of Christ and consists of all believers of the Lord Jesus.

If the church is nothing other than “all believers” how does the church function as the upholder, protector and defender of the truth (1 Tim 3:15) when different believers hold conflicting and contradictory truths?

Thanks for your time on this one!

In Christ,
Nancy

 

[BayCityRickL]

Karl must be on vacation again, or have the weekend off.

One of his recent newsletters lucidly explained what infallible means, and scripture cannot be infallible. The words don’t correspond, as I understand Karl.

 

[Pax]

Xavier:

The selling of indulgences was the starting point of Wus’ and Luthers protestations. The fact that not only theRCC allowed but condoned this practice speaks volumes.
It is because of the tolerance of this adhorent practice that there was a split.

I am fullly aware of the RCC teaching on Mary, to call her a co redeemer ( yes I know of the nuance that you really dont mean redeemer—but you do).
Mary was a women full of faith yet she did no more than is expected of you or I. To say to God let it be done according to thy word.
I was raised a Catholic went to parocial school went to STFXU studied much on Catholism. I know the teachings, but more so I know Him and Him crucified. The living Christ, the Living Word. Catholism did not teach me this.

I’m sorry Xavier, but something is radically wrong here. You claim much but you deny much. I find it difficult to believe that you didn’t learn about Jesus especially Christ Crucified through the Catholic Church, but you somehow know all about the Church’s teachings on Mary. This is not possible unless you had the most miserable teachers on the planet or you really didn’t pay much attention while you were there. The Passionist Order of Catholic priests dedicate their lives to preaching the love of God and salvation through Christ Crucified. I could go on and on but you get the idea.

I have a very dear Evangelical friend that is a former Catholic (as a young child and early teen) that told me that she had never heard scripture in the church and was never taught anything about or from scripture. I pointed out to my friend all of the scripture that is found in the mass including the three main scripture readings. I also pointed out that the scripture readings at mass over the course of several years will take you through the entire bible. My friend actually got red faced embarassed, and said that she didn’t ever remember hearing scripture read at mass. Now that is a sorry state of affairs, but it is a true story. In cases such as these you can’t blame the church.

My guess is that your education in Catholicism hardly got off the ground particularly as it applies to the scriptural underpinnings. This could be the fault of the institutions you attended. Another problem is the overwhelming negative effects of the culture which has invaded so many of our institutions of higher learning regardless of religious affiliation.

I’m only guessing here and do not mean to belittle you or your education in any way. All I ever ask of non-Catholics that are interested in learning what the Catholic Church really teaches is a couple of things. Bring your questions to orthodox Catholics. Do not rely on anti-Catholic sources because you will never get the actual teaching. Raise your questions and doubts, but do an exhaustive and honest investigation. Look at Catholic apologetic websites and read the exchanges between knowledgeable Catholics and knowledgeable Protestants. You will find that your understandings are probably way over simplified.

 

[MariaG]

posted by Xavier

You believe Mary is a coRedeemer because she said yes to God redemption plan. Gods plan was made effectual because Mary said “let it be done unto me…”
Is this not what you believe?

In context, Mary is only anything because of Christ. Work from there. In fact, there are great threads devoted to this subject alone. All you have to do is go to the main nonCatholic board, search this thread, type in Mary, and you will get the threads on Mary and the Ark, CoRedeemer, etc. Or start a new one. They are good questions, and you should seek the answer to the questions. These subjects you bring up are all their own subject.

This thread is more about Scripture and the Church. And you still have not told me what your interpretation of Scripture is on oral teachings. Where in the Bible do you get your teaching? If you don’t know, I would understand, I certainly didn’t. But I did seek out the answer. I honestly asked God to lead me to the truth no matter what. I sought out explanations of doctrine that I didn’t understand from Catholic sources, not people who USED to be Catholic or don’t even think Catholics are Christians. There are alot of people, including you, you THINK they know what Catholicism is and disagree with it. I would ask you to at least disagree with what we are SUPPOSED to believe. (Notice I did not say taught, because more people are not Catholic in the last 40years due to poor reiligious education and a failure on educators to teach FIRST that Christ died for me. They explained the names of the different parts of Mass, but not the meaning behind them. They taught about confession, but forgot to show people where it is in the Bible that Christ instituted it.)

You turned away from Catholicism due to seriously bad education, and completely no heart “education” of who Jesus is. I’m glad you found Him where you are, but don’t think because you never found Him (or that He found you?) in the Catholic Church, that He is not alive and well in the hearts of millions of Catholic Christians.

Your sister in Christ,
Maria

 

[Strider]

Xavier:

I chose the board name Xavier because I admired STFX.
What I have found is Catholics know ther dogma but too few know the Christ.

I was referring to GRzeszDel. I know perfectly well who Xavier was. No offense, but it seems you know neither dogma nor Christ. I haven’t read every post on this thread, but those I have read by you show a superifical understanding of Catholic doctrine, Jesuit college notwithstanding.
God bless

 

[brianberean]

fulloftruth:

I just thought of something. If, when the Canon was assembled, all of the apostles were dead, and Christ was in heaven, who or what was used infallibly to determine what was inspired and what was not. Since they did not use Scripture to assemble the list of Canon, doesn’t that kind of prove that scripture is not the only infallable authority. If that does not prove that to you, then when, and you must prove this from scripture, did the authority cease to be authoritative and when did Scripture become the only infallible rule of faith, and not the Church that assembled and Promulgated it:clapping: :ehh: :dancing:

Pax, I got what you said and I’ll take a different approach:

Okay. By this reasoning, the Jews in the OT should have been recognized as infallible. God used them to correctly recognize and protect Scripture in the OT era. If they did this correctly, or as you put it “infallibly”, then why should they not have been recognized as infallible?

Before you respond that there wasn’t a set canon, you must explain then how Jesus can refer to “all” the Scriptures and how He could have held people accountable for not knowing the Scriptures if they weren’t expected to know what was Scripture and what wasn’t.

Brian

 

[Pax]

brianberean:

Pax, I got what you said and I’ll take a different approach:

Okay. By this reasoning, the Jews in the OT should have been recognized as infallible. God used them to correctly recognize and protect Scripture in the OT era. If they did this correctly, or as you put it “infallibly”, then why should they not have been recognized as infallible?

Before you respond that there wasn’t a set canon, you must explain then how Jesus can refer to “all” the Scriptures and how He could have held people accountable for not knowing the Scriptures if they weren’t expected to know what was Scripture and what wasn’t.

Brian

Obviously not everything in scripture is clear. Without the exact context to the passage, I may inadvertantly muddy things up even more. Not being shy and prone to make mistakes ('cuz I ain’t infallible) I’ll, nevertheless, give it a go.

My uneducated guess is that Jesus only holds us accountable for what we do know. Assuming that one group of Jews only accepted the Pentetuch then that is all that they would be accountable to know. If they accepted the Septuagint then they would be expected to know the books contained therein. But that is not to suggest that they would know every single detail. Jesus himself points out certain things in the OT that pertain to him when no one recognized this. Even after His death and resurrection we read in John 20:8-9 “Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;
for as yet they did not know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.”

It is also important to note that there are many uninspired writings from the OT era that are good and holy, and that there are also writings from the very early Christian era that are good and holy but, likewise, not considered part of the inspired canon.
I believe that to some degree you are correct about the OT Jews preserving inspired OT writings. It is clear, however, that some of things they preserved were not inspired and, since their cannon was not settled at the time of Christ, it is impossible to say that they knew which books were inspired and which were not.

As Christians today, we are blessed by the Lord in a way that the Jews were not. Jesus made promises to His Church and that is how we have been given the inspired OT and NT cannon that we enjoy today. If it were not for the Church I would have no reason to trust any of it as inspired because I cannot trust myself to know those that are inspired and those that are not. Moreover, even if I were extremely scholarly and knowledgeable, I would have to defer judgment to the Church because such authority or power to discern such an important truth was ever granted to me.

I love the Lord and what He has given me through the Church which is His body. I have raised the white flag and surrendered to Jesus and to the body of Christ on earth. It is the most positive thing I have ever done. It is a sweet surrender that has given me great peace.

 

[fulloftruth]

Here is a question for Xavier and Brian. Did Christ say he was going to start a church? Did he give that church the power to Forgive sins?(notice that here we see Christ Breathing on the Apostles. So God did breath on something other than Scripture Huh) Did he also give that church the power to bind and loose, basically make rules and regulations, not only on earth but in heaven? Since nothing imperfect can be in heaven doesn’t that sort of gaurantee that the Church will be guarded from teaching error, officially? Did he also give that church the job of Sheperding and feeding of the lambs? Where is it in the Bible the teaching that, to be a Christian you must read and interpret scripture every Sunday and read some more and sing and read some more? Where is a church that you know of that has any of the Characteristics that Christ endowed His church with. Where is the Church you take your brother to for excommunication when he does not listen to the church. Where is the New Kingdom of David, the new Heavenly Jerusalem, The Father to the inhabitants of the new Jerusalem, the Throne of honor in your Fathers house. Where all of these Characteristics that Christ himself spoke of?

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Could someone educate me on how the canon of scripture was assembled if the Church did not have Sacred Tradition to compare the various letters and Gospels to?

Why do Protestants believe that the 27 books included in the NT are in fact the infallible word of God, if the do not think that the Catholic Church has the ability to infalliby define things that pertain to faith and morals?

Also, as I understand it the Jewish folks did not offically have a canon until 100 years after Christs death, when Christianity was on the rise and they condemed the deuteralcannoicals and all of the other scriptures being read.

 

[PaulDupre]

I’m sorry Xavier, but something is radically wrong here. You claim much but you deny much. I find it difficult to believe that you didn’t learn about Jesus especially Christ Crucified through the Catholic Church, but you somehow know all about the Church’s teachings on Mary. This is not possible unless you had the most miserable teachers on the planet or you really didn’t pay much attention while you were there. The Passionist Order of Catholic priests dedicate their lives to preaching the love of God and salvation through Christ Crucified. I could go on and on but you get the idea.

This is a typically deceptive ploy used by disaffected Catholics to trash the Church. One another thread, a disaffected Catholic claims that while she attended the Catholic Church, no one ever told her that God loved her. She had to go to a non-denom church to hear that. Yeah, right.
Paul

 

[spauline]

I just thought of something. If, when the Canon was assembled, all of the apostles were dead, and Christ was in heaven, who or what was used infallibly to determine what was inspired and what was not. Since they did not use Scripture to assemble the list of Canon, doesn’t that kind of prove that scripture is not the only infallable authority. If that does not prove that to you, then when, and you must prove this from scripture, did the authority cease to be authoritative and when did Scripture become the only infallible rule of faith, and not the Church that assembled and Promulgated it:clapping: :ehh: :dancing:

this is precisely the issue that gave me the peace to return to the Church and be able to trust it’s infallibility. This was the ultimate issue of my reversion, printed in This Rock in Oct. '99:

While reading the Bible to figure out, “What must I do to be saved?”, I was still investigating the Apocalyptic. I was researching the book of Daniel, which is the cause of a battle between Fundamentalists and rationalists. Rationalists do not believe in miracles, so since Daniel contains prophecy of future events, they must argue that it is late dated, i.e. written after the events it supposedly prophecies about. I acquired a book by an Anglican scholar by the name of Edward Pusey, who wrote a defense against the attacks of the rationalists. One of the arguments he used regarded the canon of Scripture. The canon refers to the official list of the contents of the Bible. Pusey tried to argue when the canon of the Old Testament was settled.

When I stumbled across the subject of the canon, after a little study, it through me for a loop. I thought, “Wait a minute! I’ve been just assuming all along that I can take the Bible as a rule of faith. But I’ve never even stopped to think about where it came from and how I can know its contents to be true.” I suddenly realized that the Bible did not just fall from the sky, whole and intact. It wasn’t like there was this wise old man praying on a mountaintop, and suddenly a hand reached down from Heaven handing him a Book, and a thunderous Voice saying, “HERE IS THE BIBLE. TAKE IT, READ IT, AND DISTRIBUTE IT TO THE WHOLE WORLD!” No, I discovered that it was actually men who decided which books go into the Bible and which one’s don’t. Regarding this, an immediate question came to my mind: what sort of man or group of men could make such decisions? After careful thought, I concluded that any logical answer would be that these men would in some sense have to be guided by the Holy Spirit in an infallible manner because by their very decision, they are determining what books are infallible. And if they are determining which of the writings inerrantly communicate God’s truth, would they not in some sense have to know and understand what that truth is?

Pusey’s suggestion of the Old Testament seemed reasonable, at least in theory, for he maintained that it was the Old Testament prophets themselves who canonized the Old Testament. This seemed to make sense, for certainly the prophets were enlightened about the truths of God, in as much as they preached the Word of God themselves, doing so under the active guidance of the Holy Spirit. However, whether or not this was the case with the Old Testament, I still had to ask, who canonized the New Testament?

The Protestant maintains that the only men who were infallible in the New Covenant were Jesus and the apostles, but what I discovered is that neither Jesus nor any of the apostles settled the canon. Who did? The bishops of the Catholic Church! (and not until the fourth and fifth centuries, and later dogmatically in the fifteenth century). And they not only established the New Testament canon but also the Old. In fact, during the New Testament times, I have since learned that there was not a consensus amongst the Jews as to the canon of the Old Testament. One sect believed only in the Torah. Another sect believed not only in the Torah, but also the psalms and prophets, but only such books in Hebrew, and still another accepted the additional books found in the Septuagint (the Greek translation used by the Alexandrian Jews). And at the time the New Testament canon was being decided, there were disputes as well.

The implications for me were that since men have disagreed as to what is Scripture, and since Scripture doesn’t canonize itself (nothing close to an internal canon ), there must be an authority outside of Sacred Scripture , and if that authority is able to discern what is Scripture, it must necessarily understand it as well. And from history, we see that, at least for Christians, the most qualified candidate for that is the Catholic Church, since it was that very Church’s tradition that was used to settle the very same canon.