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Nicea325
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Yeah sounds good more or less. Yes God knows everything and to say He did not know about it would be absurd-right?
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Nicea325
Guest
I did not decide or was a part of the process,so I cannot say it is okay. Whatever the church decided is what God wills.
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AmateurPianist
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OK.
So if the church had decided Hebrews was out that would have been cool too. Because it would have been God’s will either way.
That is what I mean by the church deciding for God what the NT canon would be.
Now I don’t believe that is how it worked myself, but I did want to clarify this point for the sake of my understanding.
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crazzeto
Guest
The Holy Spirit guided the church, just as Christ has promised… In the case we are talking, it was the Holy Spirit which gave light to which books should be considered fully canonical, this list was compiled at at least 3 regional councils and one Eccumenical councile.
As demonstrated previously (with a little help from my Lutheran friends) only the guidence of the Holy Spirit could have done this, and the guidence of the Holy Spirit case as it always has through the Church. This is why we Catholics rightly submit to the authority of the Church, otherwise as has been well demonstrated, there is no Canon of scripture.
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AmateurPianist
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crazzeto
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Sorry, I was more addressing what I saw you wrote… Did God already know the Canon? Well God knew everything so of course… However just because God knows doesn’t mean we did, it’s not a simple process… If it was it wouldn’t be in contention still to this very day.
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kepha1
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You are correct, which is why I don’t use such figures to prove Protestant disunity. Protestant apologists themselvs say the figure is more like 22,000 denominations with distinctively different doctrines and bible interpretations. To be on the safe side, I cut that by 90%, and say there are 2000 post reformist Protestant denominations, and I totally ignore David Barrett’s statistics found in the World Christian Encyclopedia.
No disunity there. :banghead:
The Facts and Stats on “33,000 Denominations”
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AmateurPianist
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I meant more than foreknow. I meant foreordained.
The difference meaning that before all of this started, from God’s perspective there was one and only one fixed canon. And there could be one and only one way that the people involved in this process could get it right, and that would be by agreeing with God as to what the canon was.
I am getting really confused because folks here are really making it seem that the church was deciding for God what the canon was. Like it really didn’t matter whether Hebrews wa in the canon or not, If the folks that had decided this had decided Hebrews was excluded that would be cool with God. Or in other words from God’s perspective it was “whatever you folks come up with is fine by me”.
I don’t get why this is so hard…
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crazzeto
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Obviously the Church isn’t telling God what the Canon is, but God acted through a real agent in the world to tell us which books should be considered his own word. That agent is the legitimate Church, founded by Christ, the Catholic ChurchI meant more than foreknow. I meant foreordained.
The difference meaning that before all of this started, from God’s perspective there was one and only one fixed canon. And there could be one and only one way that the people involved in this process could get it right, and that would be by agreeing with God as to what the canon was.
I am getting really confused because folks here are really making it seem that the church was deciding for God what the canon was. Like it really didn’t matter whether Hebrews wa in the canon or not, If the folks that had decided this had decided Hebrews was excluded that would be cool with God. Or in other words from God’s perspective it was “whatever you folks come up with is fine by me”.
I don’t get why this is so hard…
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AmateurPianist
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So in other words God used people to join Him in His work. That is all I was driving at really. Nicea325 made it sound different.Obviously the Church isn’t telling God what the Canon is, but God acted through a real agent in the world to tell us which books should be considered his own word. That agent is the legitimate Church, founded by Christ, the Catholic Church
So that being said, I guess I will retire since I am getting tired.
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simspt
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Edwin,But the claim that the Bible is in “complete harmony” makes no sense except to the eyes of faith, and even many believers have trouble agreeing with your statement entirely. There are plenty of ways in which the Bible can be seen to be in less than perfect harmony. You may choose to ignore these–but they are there anyway.
This sounds good, but when you go through these one by one you find that most of them fall into one of two categories:
I don’t dismiss the argument from prophecy altogether. I think that passages such as Isaiah 53 do make even more sense when you think of them as pointing to Jesus (as well as to the people of Israel collectively). But the purely statistical argument on which you rely has no validity whatever. It’s a dishonest argument and Christians should stop using it.
- They are so vague and ambiguous that they could apply to a lot of things, and Christians have chosen to apply them to Jesus (see Matt. 1:23, Matt. 2:15, and Matt. 2:23).
- It is quite possible that Christian writers made up the fulfillment (or in some cases that Jesus deliberately set out to fulfill the prophecy–riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, for instance). Since there is almost no external confirmation of the events described in the NT, this could cover pretty much all the fulfilled prophecies. For instance, how do we know (except on the basis of faith in the truth of Scripture and the teaching of the Church) that Jesus’ bones were really unbroken? How do we know that He was actually born in Bethlehem? How do we know that He really rode into Jerusalem on a donkey? How do we know that He fled to Egypt with His parents and later returned, making Hosea’s words about calling Israel out of Egypt apply to Him personally? Only on the testimony of the Gospel writers themselves.
That’s certainly a valid argument, but of course it’s a subjective one. People whose lives have not been changed in this way, or who think they see reason to believe that the Bible has made people’s lives worse, are not going to be affected by it!
And in places Christians have struggled to reconcile it with what we now think we know on that subject.
Not something that can yet be directly verified
This is an extremely far-fetched interpretation. You appear to be thinking of Job 38:14, which most translations render as “change,” not “turn” in the sense of “rotate.” We had better leave these kinds of arguments to the Muslims–they only discredit us.
What are these?
Says who?
Sure, and these are rather obvious, aren’t they?
And there we see that your opinions are not just harmless error but are downright evil. You would teach us to abandon care for God’s creation on the basis of your apocalyptic delusions.
Again, I think this is one that has weight. But it’s not a conclusive proof, just something that should make people think a little. (For one thing, Israel *didn’t *remain in existence continuously–it just keeps coming back, most recently after a lapse of nearly 1900 years!)
If this happens “continually,” why is it that the HIttites are the one example one hears cited over and over? Yes, there are cases of this–but there are many other examples where archeology either creates problems for the Biblical narrative or just fails to turn up any evidence. For instance, Jericho was destroyed several times, but none of the destructions seem to fit the Biblical chronology. There is no archeological evidence of the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness, and not much evidence for a conquest of Canaan as described in Joshua. There is no undisputed contemporaneous evidence for the kingdoms of David and Solomon, even though the Bible describes them as glorious little empires.
This is a convenient argument for you, because if anyone points out that your arguments don’t hold up, you can dismiss them as not being real Christians. Well, that’s the risk I’ll have to take, because you discredit the Faith by these poor arguments.
Edwin
I agree.
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mackbrislawn
Guest
To narrow the question a bit:
The early reformers branded the pope the anti-christ, and the Church the Whore of Babylon. A false church.
But what is ironical, is that they nevertheless accepted the holy book of this same false religion! And from that holy book attempted to construct the true religion! That doesn’t make any sense to me.
Perhaps they were right in branding the Catholic church as false, but it doesn’t seem right that it’s holy book would not be false as well.
It’s like deriving the true religion from the Koran.
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Nicea325
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Well would you apply the same argument that the church decided for God what the Trinity encompasses? As stated, it is a process over the years of God guiding the church that enabled it to explain and elaborate the complex nature of the Trinity. Same for the canon.
Bottomline: Either the Holy Spirit guided the church in all its doctrines or it did not?
Cannot have it as an either/or dichotomy.
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larkin31
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Why can’t the answer be “some”?
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Nicea325
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Some? In reference to doctrines? Is that what you are making reference to?
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simspt
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From my understanding and I could be way off on this but Sola Scriptura has to do with the Bible being the only authoritative norm, not the Church. The Church is subject to the Bible. The OP is discussing the dilemma that if you accept the authority of the Bible, by default you must accept that the Church must possess a certain amount and type of authority since it decided on what would be in that canon. Stating that the Church only recognized which books should be in the canon based on their inspiration but that the Church did not **decide **which were inspired is Evangelical jibberish. Therefore is not the Church also authoritative. If we trust the Bible then how can the Church not enjoy the authority that is given to the NT espescially in light of the three or four hundred year history of the development of the canon. But couldnt Protestants acknowledge this authority and claim that it was abused by the Catholic Church in other ways.
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gcnuss
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A few thoughts – and I have to say that I come from the perspective of a 21st century Lutheran and not that of one of the 16th century reformers.
I think it would be a reach to say that the reformers branded the Catholic Church as a “false church.” They certainly thought it was in error in some ways but, at least in the early years of the Reformation, they sought “reform” and reconciliation. That this did not happen was not the sole responsibility of one side or the other.
The name-calling that went on between the reformers and the Catholic authorities was most regrettable. It made civil, productive discourse nearly impossible. Add to that the infusion of political machinations and there were all the ingredients for the divisions that, sadly, exist to this day.
All of this, however, has little bearing on the validity and authority of Holy Scripture. As I have noted in other threads, the first 1500 years of church history is shared by all of us, non-Catholics and Catholics alike. The canon of scripture was established early on and there is no reason for non-Catholics to reject it. To be sure, we are not of one mind with regard to the deuterocanonical books but the Lutheran tradition doesn’t disregard them entirely.
Finally, I would never apply the term “antiChrist” to the pope nor the term “whore of Babylon” to the Catholic Church. There is no reason to demonize fellow Christians in that way. We are all called to follow our Lord and to proclaim him with one voice – or as near to one voice as we are able in this imperfect world.
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larkin31
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You said that one must have “either none or all” and I am simply asking, why can’t the answer be “some”?
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Nicea325
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What I said is that EITHER the Holy Spirit guided the church when dealing with doctrines or it DID NOT.
And no,the Holy Spirit did not guide only SOME,it guided the church in ALL its doctrines. If it did not,then it is open to question.
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AmateurPianist
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Why not?
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