SolaChristo:
So where do we find the best, most authoritative record of apostolic teaching? Not corrupted by men of course
In the Bible
as interpreted in accordance with the Magesterium of the Holy Catholic Church.
If we just took the Bible, well it really isn’t very authoritative at all, now is it? See, Luther, using the Bible as the most authoritative thing on earth, got one set of ideas. Calvin got some * different ideas. My friend Sean has ideas that are different still. So we can’t call the Bible authoritative on its own, because when each one of these people criticizes the other’s view by pointing to “the authority of the Bible,” the other person will just hold up
his Bible and use it to argue
his point. By definition, something that is authoritative is something that can’t be argued with. Well, all these non Catholic Christians
do argue with each other, even though all of their teachings are being drawn from the “authoritative” Bible.
The problem is that the Bible is not systematic theology. If it was, we wouldn’t need anything else. If it just listed off point after point after point, then we could just go there and use that Bible and not need anything else. But it’s not that. The Bible is a collection of letters.
Let’s say that you didn’t know how to use your computer, so I came to see you and taught you how. Now assume I go home, and you go to download e-mail. However, you get an email with an attachment, and you don’t know how to download the attachment, because I never told you, or you forgot what I said. Say you write a letter to me asking how to download attachments. I write back, and say, “My dear Malachi, I am so thankful to hear from you. As far as the e-mail is concerned, all you need to know is to press the paperclip button.” You receive this letter and know what it means and are able to understand it completely.
This is the situation that the recipiants of Paul’s letters were in. Now assume you put the letter on your desk, and then someone else finds it later. They read it, and think, “all I need to know about e-mail is that button! Great!” However, when they go to use the email, they don’t understand what it says and don’t use the e-mail right, thinking they only have to press one button when in fact they have to do a lot more. This is the position that non-Catholics are in. They lack the context, whereas the original recipiants had the context.
Now Catholics don’t claim to know the context either. So how do we know what the Bible is meant to say? SImple! The author signed a deal with us, and He said He’d stick around and guide us whenever we try to figure it out!*
