Is the bible all we need 1

[Sherlock]

kaycee:

This article might help you understand.

Nature of Canonicity Distinguished from Its Recognition
What books properly make up the canon for the church? In answering this question, it is imperative that we not confuse the nature of the canon with the recognition of certain writings as canonical. The legitimate authority of canonical books exists independently of their being personally acknowledged as authoritative by any individual or group. The nature (or grounds) of canonicity is thus logically distinct from the history (or recognition) of canonicity.

It is the inspiration of a book that renders it authoritative, not human acceptance or recognition of the book. If God has spoken, what He says is divine in itself, regardless of human response to it. It does not “become divine” through human agreement with it.

Accordingly, the canon is not the product of the Christian church. The church has no authority to control, create, or define the Word of God. Rather, the canon controls, creates and defines the church of Christ: “…having been begotten again, not by corruptible seed, but by incorruptible, by the word of God which lives and abides forever… And this is the word of good news which was preached unto you” (I Peter 1:23-25).

When we understand this, we can see how erroneous it is to suppose that the corporate church, at some council of its leaders, voted on certain documents and constituted them the canon. The church cannot subsequently attribute authority to certain writings. It can simply receive them as God’s revealed word which, as such, always has been the church’s canon. Authority is inherent in those writings from the outset, and the church simply confesses this to be the case.

reformed.org/bible/bahnsen_canon.html

No, this article does NOT help me understand, as it simply uses a lot of words to dance around the question of determining authority. It would be funny, except that you might fool some people into thinking that the problem here has been solved, when it hasn’t even been addressed.

Nor does your presentation of Augustine quotes referring to the confession of Peter do as much as you would like it to do either. As is typical with Protestant thinking, you are seeing it as an “either/or” scenario for no good reason. And you are simply ignoring the giving of the keys later in the same passage. One has to work pretty hard to get around the papacy, but you’ve done as good an attempt as I’ve seen.

Regardless of your arguments against the papacy, I have to ask—why should it matter to you? As a Protestant, you believe in private judgement regarding the interpretation of Scriptures with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Catholics believe what we believe quite sincerely, and we believe we have the guidance of the Holy Spirit—so what’s wrong with that picture? What makes your interpretation right, and ours wrong? Are you infallible in matters of Scriptural interpretation?

The proof is in the pudding: when I was a Protestant, there were many contradicting views regarding salvation (hardly a small matter) that I was exposed to. Everyone claimed that their view was the correct one, and that they were led by the Holy Spirit. I was left to conclude that either the Holy Spirit was a lousy guide, or the Catholic Church’s unique claims were correct after all. Guess you can figure which answer I chose…

 

[JamesRCowles]

This is an issue I deal with all the time in teaching RCIA, because we typically have a few evangelical folks in each RCIA group. I devote a couple of consecutive sessions to dealing with this issue, so this will be the “nutshell” version of my response.

o If the biblical text is the only authority, then the Church would have been doctrinally rudderless and unguided for the first half-millennium or so of her existence, because it took that long for the Church agree upon the contents of the biblical canon. Also, only very, very wealthy church communities had access to anything like even a significant portion of the Bible, some subsisting on only scraps and bits of the Gospels, sometimes just the Gospels themselves, etc., etc.

The “sola scriptura” argument assumes that the entire Church has always had access to the entire Bible, which is historically non-factual.

o The only reason the biblical canon exists as it does today, is because of a decision by the Church. Consequently, the historical “facts on the ground” render the “sola scriptura” argument circular: the Church created the biblical canon, which is then deemed to be the only authority for the Church, which created the Bible in the first place.

IOW, “sola scriptura” only works if you ignore both logic and history.

Jim