I'm going out on a limb here

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TNMan said:
I guess the one that I still slightly struggle with is the Immaculate Conception.
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I find that easy to believe. God needed a pure vessel to carry his son Jesus. Purity begets purity begets purity.
 
HopkinsReb said:
if you reject the idea of an infallible church, how do you get to an infallible canon of Scripture?
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By trusting in the sovereignty of God to cause what he wanted to be considered scripture to be considered scripture. Because it was His will for the books that became “The New Testament” to be considered scripture.
 
lanman87 said:
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HopkinsReb:
if you reject the idea of an infallible church, how do you get to an infallible canon of Scripture?
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By trusting in the sovereignty of God to cause what he wanted to be considered scripture to be considered scripture. Because it was His will for the books that became “The New Testament” to be considered scripture.
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So you’re willing to just assume that the book was correct, but not willing to assume that the church was correct? Why do you assume that the OT canon as compiled by a 16th century monk or lawyer trumps the one compiled by the Church?

You’re relying on no fewer assumptions than Catholics are.

Or, to put it more blithely, where’s your documentation of the Holy Spirit’s guidance? There’s no newspaper clippings about the Holy Spirit coming down and revealing to the public what books belong.
 
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As pointed out – records weren’t what they were then as compared to 1500-2000 years ago.

If we are going by this standard then i suppose it gives us both reason to reject Christianity all together – since there are virtually no writings about Christ outside of Christian sources early on. Even Josephus is in question from scholars as being Christian fabrication.

Lets just look at the Marian stuff for example. Look at it in it’s context – we are talking about an era in which Christians were killed and their literature was destroyed. Happen sorta often. A lot of what was written down likely never survived the first few centuries. Secondly, the early church had much bigger fish to fry. They were fighting tooth and nail to root out heresy after heresy as heretics are trying to tear the universal Church apart with wild opinions regarding who Christ is. So, no big surprise as to why we aren’t seeing much about her.

Lastly – the Church clearly got the other issues correct such as the Trinity, hypostatic union, etc. She compiled and safeguarded the scriptures for 1500 years prior to reformers. She could have corrupted them as much as need be if she really was this corrupted institution with an axe to grind, as some seem to believe.
 
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And I may be just missing a big piece of history here, but did Luther ever claim to being led by the Spirit in his works, findings, and interpretation of Sacred Scripture?
 
lanman87 said:
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HopkinsReb:
So you’re willing to just assume that the book was correct, but not willing to assume that the church was correct
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I’m assuming that the Lord’s will was done as He saw fit.
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So are Catholics.

The whole “the Holy Spirit made sure it came out alright” justification for the canon of Scripture is nothing more than fideism. You can’t simultaneously say that the lack of documentation for Catholic claims disproves Catholicism and say “the Bible is true by assumption.” Those are fundamentally incompatible positions.
 
HopkinsReb said:
You can’t simultaneously say that the lack of documentation for Catholic claims disproves Catholicism and say “the Bible is true by assumption.” Those are fundamentally incompatible positions.
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But we are both making the same assumption on the Bible is true. I’m not making the assumption that something someone taught 300 years (or later) after the resurrection is part of the Gospel as handed down by the apostles. Be it Augustine or Billy Graham.
 
HopkinsReb said:
The whole “the Holy Spirit made sure it came out alright” justification for the canon of Scripture is nothing more than fideism.
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I have faith that God will accomplish His purposes. I don’t have faith that mankind will always faithfully follow His purposes.
 
lanman87 said:
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HopkinsReb:
You can’t simultaneously say that the lack of documentation for Catholic claims disproves Catholicism and say “the Bible is true by assumption.” Those are fundamentally incompatible positions.
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But we are both making the same assumption on the Bible is true. I’m not making the assumption that something someone taught 300 years (or later) after the resurrection is part of the Gospel as handed down by the apostles. Be it Augustine or Billy Graham.
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Except the Apostles didn’t give us a table of contents. You are simply assuming that Luther or some other 16th century figure was correct about the canon of scripture. You can dress it up as “trusting in the Holy Spirit” or some other squishy formulation all you want, but at the end of the day it’s nothing more than “the Bible is true by assumption.”

I’m not making the positive case for Catholicism; I’m simply saying that your reason for believing in the Bible’s inerrancy is 100% as unsupportable as you claim the Catholic Church’s claims are. Unless, of course, you can show me a newspaper clipping documenting the Holy Spirit’s coming down and guiding. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence, after all.
 
Right – it’s not about Mary it’s about Jesus.

God didn’t have to make Mary a pure vessel – but it is fitting, all things considered.
 
Come Home to Rome, OP.
You are 100% correct in your post.
Jesus founded one Church, one kingdom.
It’s not too late to come home.
 
lanman87 said:
The point is, if you want to make a historical claim you need to back it up with documentation, or else it is just a claim. Anyone can claim anything.
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Actually, the Catholic church saves most everything, they may not have all the documentation to back up everything, but they have quite a bit of documentation to back up quite alot.
lanman87 said:
By trusting in the sovereignty of God to cause what he wanted to be considered scripture to be considered scripture. Because it was His will for the books that became “The New Testament” to be considered scripture.
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So the Catholic bishops at that time, chose the books to be canonized and they chose them because of how they were reading them and how they were interpreting what they were reading. Isn’t it a huge assumption to believe that God would lead the bishops to make that one decision regarding the choice of books in the Bible even though their interpretation of the Scripture passages in those books was incorrect. ??
lanman87 said:
I have faith that God will accomplish His purposes.
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Even if He is accomplishing that purpose through the Bishops of the Catholic church today, just the same as He did at the time of the canonization of Scripture?
 
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Lenten_ashes said:
Now, I could see someone examining history and becoming faithful Anglican as they hold to Vincentian Canon and are very Eucharistic just as the early church was.
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Funny, that’s exactly what happened to me. Grew up SBC Baptist, became Anglican.
 
MagdalenaRita said:
Isn’t it a huge assumption to believe that God would lead the bishops to make that one decision regarding the choice of books in the Bible even though their interpretation of the Scripture passages in those books was incorrect. ??
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I don’t think so. If God was controlling which books were to become the New Testament but not controlling each individual interpretation then it is very possible to be right about one thing and wrong about another.
 
lanman87 said:
If God was controlling which books were to become the New Testament but not controlling each individual interpretation then it is very possible to be right about one thing and wrong about another.
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In all charity, so the group of Catholic Bishops at the council, who had decided to canonize a NT, (mostly because there were those who argued for either more or less books as being inspired), all wrongly interpreted the meaning of the verses in the books but could rightly choose the books that were inspired? All the while there were other Christian’s at that time who knew better what the canon should be.?
I don’t see it.
 
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MagdalenaRita said:
I don’t see it.
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Well, it is not that simple. There were differences and disagreements in the early church, even among what was scripture (although most of the New Testament was being used as scripture by the end of the first century). It took a little while to flesh it all out but eventually a consensus about what was scripture was reached. The councils didn’t decide what was scripture, they just recognized what was already being used as scripture. All you have to do is look at the 2nd century writings and see how often the books of the New Testament are quoted (and sometimes argued about) to see the God was working to deliver the New Testament long before the “Church” made an official canon.
 
lanman87 said:
There were differences and disagreements in the early church, even among what was scripture
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That is what I mean, these differences and disagreements were one of the main reasons for deciding to canonize a NT and it was the bishops under the Pope of the Catholic Church who made that decision. Led by the Holy Spirit.
lanman87 said:
although most of the New Testament was being used as scripture by the end of the first century)
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Yes all were there but not all were agreed upon. Just like the OT came to be over time, so did the NT and not with out arguments and disagreements.
 
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