Internal inconsistancy?

[mercygate]

The overarching Hypothosis:

Catholics always seem to be refering to the apostolic authority of their bishops

. . . to the bishops in communion with the Bishop of Rome, and teaching consistently with the Church through the ages. This is not just a matter of “I’m the guy with the pointy hat; what I say goes!”

. . . for verification of the proof of true Christian doctrine and dogma.

The Church may verify dogma, but ‘proof’ is a technical word that can be used only in a nontechnical sense here.

this is very much like the evangelical insistance on the bible as being the highest tangeble authority without any justification.

Actually it is quite different. Peter’s successor does not just make stuff up and tell people to believe it. Dogmatic definitions are promulgated only when needed, and the Church ‘discovers’ but does not ‘create’ teachings. The Holy Spirit is the guide ‘into all the truth’ as our Lord promised. The Church follows the guidance of the Holy Spirit, while using all of the merely natural resources at her command: logic, history, reason, archaeology, science . . .

to an outsider, “peter’s succesor says,…” does not do much in the way of persuasion. not only that, citing an historical process of succession does nothing to verify that at no point did error creep in as peter, john, paul, jude, and Jesus “alegedly” warned would happen. as a result, the theme of most of my posts is as follows

Q.e.d. Peter’s successor does not simply lay down dicta in a vacuum. Error is always with us – even in the Church – which is what heresy is. That is why councils are called to state unequivocally what IS error and keep it out of the official teaching. The view you attribute to “an outsider” is actually more the view of someone who does not fully understand the process.

God’s authority is absolutely correct

Catholic authority is/is not correct about something.

What? Paul & James? If you start with your assumption that God’s authority is correct and then allow that Scripture is a privileged place in which that authority is expressed, then it is the job of the reader to figure out the unity of the truth rather than to take it at face value and assume that the apparent contradictions are actual.

Therefore: catholic authority could be/is not divine depending on the verification of the second assumption.

Did we take care of that for you?

correctness can be verified imperfectly by internal consistancy, external consistancy, apparent correspondence to reality etc.

But you have to do your homework.

this is why it does’nt matter to me which books are in the bible if they all agree. if they don’t agree, the point is’nt for me to take one out(although some sects have) and be my own pope, the point is that the claim of divine authority of the canonizer is proved false.

Correction. Not “proved.” Demonstrated to your satisfaction, which may or – more likely – may not be adequate to the task of rendering a just verdict.

This method cannot ultimately prove the correctness of the church. however, if no rigorous proof to it’s falsness can be found, “softer” evidence in favor of catholocism is more persuasive. right now however, I have tons of assumed proofs to its falsness. therefore any positive “soft” evidence is unpersuasive to me as yet.

Let me see if I understand: The whole Christian enterprise is pretty much hooey. But of the hooey, the Catholic hooey is slightly less hoovical than the rest?

with respect to comparing the gospels, it is easier for me to simply accept that different whitnesses will remember different parts of the same events. the slight differences in writing style can be accounted for by recognizing that the gospels contain a careful paraphrase of Jesus words that convey an equivelant meaning to what he literally said. Divine providence is still in play here. in the james/paul case, I’ve discussed this with protestant pastors only to get implausable answers. I thought maybe the catholic church could do better since they claim it’s their book.

I hope I did better with the James & Paul thing.

 

[guanophore]

I understand that the catholic church selected the canon. I’ve had a lot of trouble reconciling these two groups of passages found in both catholic and protestant canons. Can anyone explain how they fit togeather or should I conclude that the catholic church failed to inerrently compile the canon of scripture?

group I
Eph 2:1-10 "for by grace you have been saved and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, NOT OF WORKS lest anyone should boast.

Rom 4:1-8 "but to him who DOES NOT WORK but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for rightiousness.

“For if Abraham was justified by works he has something to boast about, but not before God. But what does the Scripture say,’ Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for rightiousness.’”

Group II
James 2:14-26 “you see then that a man IS JUSTIFIED BY WORKS AND NOT BY FAITH ONLY.”

2:21 “Was not our father Abraham justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the alter?”

None of these passages says anything about the canon of scripture. The canon of scripture refers to the books that make up the bible.

There are no contradictions in scripture. If a person observes what appears to be an “internal inconsistency” then one has not interpreted the passages properly. Your question, phrased as it is, is a reflection of modern arrogance with regard to interpreting the scriptures. The very notion that one should consider that “the catholic church failed to compile”, instead that one’ own limited understanding might be the impediment demonstrates a lack of appreciation for a number of truths.

Jesus promised that He would lead His church into all truth. If the church has failed to effectively compile the canon then Jesus is a liar, and His spirit is weak, and cannot do what He promised.

It also reflects a lack of understanding of 2000 years of church practice. This is a rejection of the Apostlolic teaching that was commissioned by Jesus, and a failure to appreciate that Jesus entrusted the gospel to those Apostles, who have faithfully handed it down to the present day.

Perhaps you should consider Luther’ solution, which was to exclude the book of James from the canon? It, along with the deuterocanonical books and several other books, did not fit Luther’s ideas, so he thought it would be better not to leave them in the bible.

If you do that, you will consider that the Catholic Church has failed, and along with Luther, will then consider Jesus a liar, and demonstrate yourself to be ignorant of historical criticism and theology. The choice is yours.

 

[guanophore]

the truth bears inspection.

Yes. So, what “truth” are you attempting to inspect here? It seems to me that what you really want to know has nothing to do with the canon, but has to do with how to reconcile apparently contradictory passages within that canon.

the claim is that the authority comes from christ to the apostles, especially peter and was passed generationally, from bishop to bishop.

Bishops are called from every generation and walk of life, and are not related by family (necessarily). By the way this sentence is phrased, your issue has more to do with the suppsed “claim” to authority rather than the canon.

I am born too late to whitness the ordination of each bishop so I must have some test for the claim. it is exactly the by what authority question that I am trying to answer.

In that case, your problem has nothing to do with the apparent contradictions in scripture.

but this is a huge issue and I refuse to change in a hurry.

Change from what, to what?

I can’t understand how catholics fail to recognize that a relatively certain chain of politically connected links traceable to peter himself is inadaquate.

Because it does not exist. The appointments of Popes is in the hands of God. God does work through political means at times, and through sinful people, but God is the head of the church, not some politician. If God as head is inadequate for you, then you reallly do have a “huge issue”.

peter himself warned us that false teachers would creap in, so did paul, jude, and john. these wolves in sheeps clothing look like bishops because they have the position to lead, and lead people astray.

It is true that individual Catholics have engaged in some reprehensible behaviors. The church is full of sinners, and not all are in the process of becoming saints, as they ought. However, the Teaching of Jesus Christ continues to exist with purity within the church, in spite of her sometimes wayward members.

furthermore, Paul’s ordination did not come through an apostolic council but through a direct encounter with the risen Christ leading to fellowship with the other apostles.

All bishops are called by God. They present themselves to the Church so that she can confirm their calling, just as Paul did.

so it does’nt follow that peter’s successor must be appointed through the direct action of living bishops.

Certainly, God is able to call whomever He wishes. This is the manner in which He chose to act.

simply having a list of bishops that visibly succede each other, is inadequate, even if the list historically describes the visible papacy.

I think that is good, otherwise you could just decide to call yourself a bishop, make up a list of names, and voila! The process of discernment and ordination prevents such nonsense.

the claim must be tested by recognizing whether it has the property of truth. so are the references consistent? at a glance they don’t seem to be since “faith apart from works” excludes “works and faith working togeather.”

The only connection I see between ordination, and the apparent ocntradiction is your lack of understanding of both.

simply responding by appealing to the assumption I am trying to test just goes to show you probably don’t personally have a legitmate answer.

No, it indicates we realize you are confused about what you are trying to ask.

I don’t care who compiled the bible,

I didn’t think so.

if the books don’t agree, than there are too many.

If you want to aspire to be a Berean, then I urge you to consider some humility in approaching scripture. First, consider that Jesus is not a liar. Second, consider that what scripture says about itself is true, that it is inspired by God and inerrant. If those things are true, then it will not be necessary for you to set yourself up as the canonical authoirity, and you will be able to learn…

 

[guanophore]

if they don’t summerize the doctrine they are too few,

By what authority do you make this assertion?

and if a different set of books gave the same teaching from ministers appointed by God it could have none of the same books and still be an equivilent standard.

There are a couple problems with this assertion. You are erroneously assuming that persons who claim to be appointed by God, are, in fact, appointed by God, rather than by themselves. Persons who have not presented themselves to the Apostolic Authority are all suspect.

Secondly, you are assuming that one person’ s private interpretation of scripture is as correct as the next one down the street, and that the books are at fault, instead of the lack of understanding among the “ministers”.

66 books is arbitrary, the important thing is the content of those books which I am scrutinizing to verify their authoritative source. anything that is false is not from God.

What criteria do you intend to use for your research? You have already demonstrated that your own fallible interpretation cannot reconcile the contents thereof.

I asked you first. I don’t care to eliminate any of them if they can be reasonably understood to agree.

Well, maybe our canon will be safe after all!

have you looked up the james and paul references, do they agree?

I don’t get it.

Than may be, but your lack of understanding does not nullify God.

half the time on this forum when I ask a question, the response I get is to show that the protestant view is worse. I know more about protestant theology than most on this forum and I don’t agree with all of it because it dos’nt all make sense. the question is does catholocism make sense?

A good question. I am glad you are here asking it. It may be difficult to get answers to your questions due to an arrogant approach, and faulty composition of the hypotheses.
However, there are many people here who are happy to help you, if you are willing.

 

[mercygate]

I am born too late to whitness the ordination of each bishop so I must have some test for the claim. . . … I can’t understand how catholics fail to recognize that a relatively certain chain of politically connected links traceable to peter himself is inadaquate.

A “politically connected * chain” would be in adequate. And we would not accept it if that’s all there were. We have the chain of history and the chain of continuity of teaching.

. . . Paul’s ordination did not come through an apostolic council but through a direct encounter with the risen Christ leading to fellowship with the other apostles.

On the contrary. Paul’s call came via a divine encounter. In order to verify and ordain his ministry, Ananias of Damascus also received a direct message from the Lord that Paul was His “chosen.” Ananias baptizes Paul and through the laying on of his hands restores Paul’s sight and transmits the Holy Spirit. Paul does not go out on mission until he has received the affirmation of the Church **and **the laying on of hands for that ministry.

so it does’nt follow that peter’s successor must be appointed through the direct action of living bishops. simply having a list of bishops that visibly succede each other, is inadequate, even if the list historically describes the visible papacy.

Is 3 John in your Bible? What’s that *all *about? Who is this guy? Where did he come from? In the early Church the authenticity of all ministry was verified by “who you know.” Even Paul, going up to Jerusalem to verify that he was preaching the “same” Gospel (which he received by revelation) “lest he had run in vain” boasts that the “pillars” “added nothing” to what he had been teaching. Paul’s boast is not that he did not need the others but that he was teaching the **same **Gospel as the eyewitnesses.

66 books is arbitrary . . .

Catholics agree with you on that. The canon was reduced by people who arbitrarily took out 7 books.*

 

[guanophore]

My questions are sincere and I have been open about my motivation for asking them–to see if the catholic church can be verified as true.

Yes. We were simply pointing out that you are using flawed reasoning to accomplish your goal. If you do that, it does not matter which apparent contradiction gets you started, you will never have done!

unfortunatly a lot of people seem to be more interested in using my questions as a jumping off point to shoot down some position they think I hold.

It is the false premises from which you are proceeding that will most hinder you from finding the answers you seek.

When its important I have been sincere about that too. the following is a response to the other people who have replied.

once again, I’m getting answer’s from the horse behind the cart. here’s the correction on the argument.

1. A divine authority is not divided against itself.

the meaning of james and paul’s propositions are divided against each other.

therefore the bible contains at least some material that is not of divine authority.

James and Paul appear to be “divided against each other” only in your own mind, because your thinking is flawed. You are trying to invalidate the external trigger, rather than correct your thinking error.

1. the catholic church endorces the whole bible on grounds of divine authority,

the bible contains at least some material that is not of divine authority.

Therefore the catholic church endorses the whole bible on false grounds.

On what basis can one say that some material in the Bible is not of divine authority? Only on the basis of lack of personal knowledge and understanding of the contents.

OR equivilently,

the bible contains some error

the bible comes through catholic authority

therefore error comes through the catholic church.

By what standard does one determine the contents are erroneous? Do you, because the contents don’t make sense to your limited understanding, find yourself qualified to judge the contents erroneous?

1. error does not come from God

catholic authority has error

Therefore catholic authority does not come from God.

This is not a question about scripture, but about the Authority of the Church Jesus founded. This is the main reason I did not answer your scripture question . I don’t think your question has as much to do with the scripture passages which you have not reconciled, as your assertion that the Church Jesus founded has the authority to write, include them in canon, and interpret them for the faithful.

 

[guanophore]

The overarching Hypothosis:

Catholics always seem to be refering to the apostolic authority of their bishops for verification of the proof of true Christian doctrine and dogma.

This is not quite an accurate understanding of the magesterium

this is very much like the evangelical insistance on the bible as being the highest tangeble authority without any justification. to an outsider, “peter’s succesor says,…” does not do much in the way of persuasion.

What evidence might you find pursuasive?

not only that, citing an historical process of succession does nothing to verify that at no point did error creep in as peter, john, paul, jude, and Jesus “alegedly” warned would happen.

On the contrary, it is the historical and divinely ordained apostolic succession that proves the error.

as a result, the theme of most of my posts is as follows

God’s authority is absolutely correct

Catholic authority is/is not correct about something.

Therefore: catholic authority could be/is not divine depending on the verification of the second assumption.

correctness can be verified imperfectly by internal consistancy, external consistancy, apparent correspondence to reality etc.

Are you talking here about your perception of consistency?

this is why it does’nt matter to me which books are in the bible if they all agree. if they don’t agree, the point is’nt for me to take one out(although some sects have) and be my own pope, the point is that the claim of divine authority of the canonizer is proved false.

Supposing that is is your finite understanding of the contents that makes it appear they are inconistent? At least you do recognize that you make yourself Pope, and that is good. Most protestants do this without recognizing what they are doing.

right now however, I have tons of assumed proofs to its falsness.

It is also good that you recognize you have assumed the Catholic Church is in error. It is admirable that you are not willing to check your assumptions.

with respect to comparing the gospels, it is easier for me to simply accept that different whitnesses will remember different parts of the same events. the slight differences in writing style can be accounted for by recognizing that the gospels contain a careful paraphrase of Jesus words that convey an equivelant meaning to what he literally said. Divine providence is still in play here. in the james/paul case, I’ve discussed this with protestant pastors only to get implausable answers. I thought maybe the catholic church could do better since they claim it’s their book.

If you can do this with the gospels, then you can do it with the epistles as well. you can recognize that the authors are talking about two ends of the same elephant.

 

[guanophore]

The Catholic Church asserts that the Bible contains the complete revelation of God, not that the Bible is infallible. There are historical and geographic errors in the Bible which are not revelatory in nature. These minor errors do not invalidate the Ten Commandments.

I think you need to read Dei Verbum also. The Catholic Church teaches that the complete revelation of God is found in the written word and in Sacred Tradition. These two “threads” are woven together in an unbreakable strand. Neither is intended to be separated from one another. Both are infallible, and both complete the public revelation of God. These sources are inerrant in the teaching of faith and morals, not, as you say, in teaching other subjects such as math and science.

 

[utunumsint]

2 Peter 3:14-18 Therefore, beloved, since you await these things, be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace. **And consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, as our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, also wrote to you, speaking of these things as he does in all his letters. In them there are some things hard to understand that the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures. Therefore, beloved, since you are forewarned, be on your guard not to be led into the error of the unprincipled and to fall from your own stability. **But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory now and to the day of eternity. (Amen.)

Paul’s theology is complicated.Whose intepretation do you trust?

The one that makes the most sense. But how is one supposed to figure that out alone and unaided? For many hundreds of years, people were barely literate. How did they know these things? They knew it because someone in authority told them.

The only reason the Protestant reformation took off like it did was because of the invention of the printing press and an increase in litteracy. So everyone decided to become their own authority and they turned their backs on the one that Christ actually established.

I’m not knocking litteracy, but even for the literate, the Bible is still “hard to understand” and there are many more literate “ignorant and unstable” people to “distort” the Bible **“to their own destruction.” ** And I have to go one step further and say that there are many Protestants who are not ignorant and unstable who can still make small mistakes that have far reaching implications for their theology.

There needs to be an authority to interpret the Bible, or there is only chaos that remains.

Ut

 

[utunumsint]

I’m not knocking litteracy, but even for the literate, the Bible is still “hard to understand” and there are many more literate “ignorant and unstable” people to “distort” the Bible “to their own destruction.” And I have to go one step further and say that there are many Protestants who are not ignorant and unstable who can still make small mistakes that have far reaching implications for their theology.

To be fair, I should say that this applies to Catholics as well as Protestants (and sometimes myself ).

Ut

 

[pneuma07]

Thank you for this thread. What it is teaching us is that there is nothing like a supposed “perspicuity” of the Bible. Different ecclesial communities are there just because they understand “different Bibles”: OSAS vs non-OSAS, real presence vs symbolic communion …They certainly have their “groups of verses” apparently supporting so strongly their views. Each of them. Then, it is undisputable that you have a number of seeming doctrinal contradictions in the Bible. A fortiori, then, single honest fellows, learning Scripture by themselves, will come out with seriously different pictures. Consciously or not, we are all in the position of the eunuch of Acts 8:26-39. How can we understand, if we are not taught ? If we are aware and humble enough to acknowledge that, the next step could be: who can teach me ? In any ecclesial community you are generally taught by guys who were taught by… going back to those who where taught by the founder(s) of that community. TBC

 

[Teflon93]

I think you need to read Dei Verbum also. The Catholic Church teaches that the complete revelation of God is found in the written word and in Sacred Tradition. These two “threads” are woven together in an unbreakable strand. Neither is intended to be separated from one another. Both are infallible, and both complete the public revelation of God. These sources are inerrant in the teaching of faith and morals, not, as you say, in teaching other subjects such as math and science.

I did not mean to imply the Bible contained errors regarding faith and morals. I merely noted it does contain errors.

You are correct that I haven’t read Dei Verbum.

 

[Teflon93]

Thank you for this thread. What it is teaching us is that there is nothing like a supposed “perspicuity” of the Bible. Different ecclesial communities are there just because they understand “different Bibles”: OSAS vs non-OSAS, real presence vs symbolic communion …They certainly have their “groups of verses” apparently supporting so strongly their views. Each of them. Then, it is undisputable that you have a number of seeming doctrinal contradictions in the Bible. A fortiori, then, single honest fellows, learning Scripture by themselves, will come out with seriously different pictures. Consciously or not, we are all in the position of the eunuch of Acts 8:26-39. How can we understand, if we are not taught ? If we are aware and humble enough to acknowledge that, the next step could be: who can teach me ? In any ecclesial community you are generally taught by guys who were taught by… going back to those who where taught by the founder(s) of that community. TBC

A good example of Scriptural cherry-picking is the Word of Faith movement (Kenneth Copeland and the like). They magnify the verse about the word not returning void into something quite similar to the Oprah Book Club Selection “The Secret”—it’s referred to as “name it and claim it.”

My wife’s old boss was a die-hard in this movement, and firmly believed that if one mentioned illness, you “spoke it into existence.”

This is what happens when we reduce Scripture to soundbite.

 

[pneuma07]

These fellows, in their turn, were founders just because they decided exactly in the opposite way than our eunuch. Their choice was “Do it yourself, and better than anybody else”. After them, within each ecclesial community, while praising formally individual interpretation, I am taught by a mixture of their own magisterium, their own tradition - dating back to the founder - and a selectively percolated part of older traditions and of Tradition.

But, why am I to trust this magisterium, this tradition, this do-it-yourself founder ? Why am I to keep some of these
do-it-yourself fellows at all between me and the Apostles ? Why not a chain of teachers going directly back to our Lord, who is the Word stricto sensu, through the Apostles ? Isn’t that the best chance we have to properly understand the written Word ?

 

[dingyboatman]

Well…Ok go ahead Dingyboatman. Prove the CC to be false. There was no-one else around at that time - to compile the Bible but the CC…
But how many gospels were in existance 2000 years ago, how many epistles - how many now lost MSS did St. Jerome use.
If the CC Authority is false you are left in that hideous position of not knowing what is true, and as you say, being yourself unqualified to judge what is true from the remains of the totality of every manuscript ever written by human hands.

not liking the alternative is’nt a valid reason to ignore truth. but it is the primary argument for pluralism. why not exchange fear and sarcasm for a reasonable explanation of the evidence. the other books that st Jerome had access to are irrelevent to this vary specific question, “how can james and paul agree if their statements are mutually exclusive?” many thanks to those who have attempted an honest and rational explanation of this seeming scriptural contradiction.

 

[NotWorthy]

n"how can james and paul agree if their statements are mutually exclusive?"

Because they are not. Salvation is a process, not an event.
Paul discusses initial Salvation, and our works do nothing to get us initial salvation.

James discusses remaining saved. Our works (or lack of works) can cause us to lose this salvation, as is demonstrated in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.

The saying, “Salvation - you can’t earn it, but you can surely lose it”, in my opinion, sums it up most accurately (and it gels with Paul and James’ writings).

 

[pneuma07]

, “how can james and paul agree if their statements are mutually exclusive?” .

After the excursus about “perspicuity” and so on, which I hope was of some usefulness to set a general context, I’d like to come more specifically to your question. The issue is not, IMHO, a purely “Paul vs James” one. We must consider the centuries old disputation “faith “vs” works”, and remember the fact that in the Corpus Paulinum itself you can find “pro works” passages. Moreover, we would find the same seeming contradiction within the Gospel too ( as Matthew 25 shows). Therefore, in no case could we blame a supposedly unhappy or uninspired canonization process about this or that Book.
So what about “faith “vs” works” ?
A recent, profound and readable contribution about this ancient issue - and about something else, but mainly about this - can be found here
www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/philosophy/faculty/koons/case_for_catholicism.pdf
I hope you will share my appreciation of several aspects of that
essay, and in particular of the precision about terminology, which in these cases is of the utmost importance