It's NOT in the Bible, okay?

[Drawmack]

Needing a canon…even knowing we need a canon is a FAR CRY from knowing what the canon is.

The point I made is that the CANON as we have it - 27 books - are not named in the Bible itseld, and yet every believer is obliged to believe that these books, no more, no less, are the NT.

That list of books is an extra-biblical Tradition.

You said it must be alluded to in the Bible. The Bible states that we need Scripture. This is a clear allusion that we must have a canon. Therefore that is alluded to in the Bible. Therefore none of the items on your list should be on your list.

 

[Drawmack]

Thanks…I wasn’t trying to be difficult…I simply couldn’t find it.

Sacred Tradition does not change, in the sense that nothing is being taught on the authority of Tradition today the opposite of which was taught in times gone by.

Does Tradition evolve? Sure, but that is not the same thing. So, if it troubles you that Tradition (or the Church itself for that matter) does not look exactly like it did in its infancy, neither do you, and your mom has a bunch of cute photos to prove it.

But God does and God does because Truth does. My physical body, my mother’s physical body, your physical body, are not Truth.

 

[Drawmack]

Actually, my own take is that Tradition is that which is “handed on” by the Church, and we know from scripture that the Magisterium of the Church is “God-Breathed”.

Oh, really? Well, sure…I’d be happy to show you:

John 20:21-23
21Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Jesus is God, and He breathed on the Apostles who made up the proto-magisterium of the Catholic Church. Only one other time in scripture when this occurs…the other is in Genesis when God breathed life into Adam.

So, this is important…the Apostles who gave us Apostolic Tradition were God-breathed!

Okay, and if that Tradition had never changed I’d accept that argument. But, you’re telling me that people who were not breathed have the authority to change the way in which people who were God Breathed taught others to practice Tradition.

 

[Drawmack]

Again though…where is this scriptural mandate that all that we believe and practice must be found in the pages of the Bible? You have yet to provide it.

I also have yet to claim that it does. What I have said is that those things that are extra-biblical are not necessary.

 

[Drawmack]

Honestly I don’t care whether you want to convert me or not, but if you hold this error in doctrine and you want to offer a serious apologetic for it then I don’t understand what this delay has been.

There has been no delay. I clearly stated that if it were in the Bible that you could not practice the things the Catholic Church practices then I would have to condemn the Catholic Church for practicing those things. Since I do not condemn the Catholic Church that means that they do not teach anything which goes against Scripture. However, I do not accept that the extra-Biblical teachings of the Catholic Church are necessary.

If you don’t hold the belief, say so and you can bail from the discussion, though I fail to understand why you keep posting on it if that is the case.

To show the fallacy in your thesis statement.

 

[RedBert]

wow, not even for debate will you agree on a defintion.

I had hoped…

 

[Drawmack]

By and large, yeah…they are the same. Most importantly, the underlying beliefs about each of those sacraments is identical.

If you’re going to make the claim that those are still practiced today as they were in the early Church then you need to do more research before I will continue this discussion with you.

Baptism? Regenerates and infants are welcome.
First Communion - no clue what your complaint is here
Confirmation - at the hands of the Bishop (or those whom he authorizes) just as we see in Acts when Peter went to Samaria

In the early Church all of these were practiced at the same time, as a single sacrament (by virtue of being performed together as the Orthodox Churches still practice them today), they are no longer practiced this way. That is a change!

Reconcilation - it’s private now instead of public, but if you mean that Catholics still believe they should confess their sins to a priest who has the authority to forgive them…yeah, we got that, too.

It is private instead of public. Penance takes much less time and devotion to carry out. It is used for many more sins than it was in the early Church. Big changes there!

Surely you aren’t quibbling over insignificant changes like the fact that we have organs now or electric lights instead of oil lamps?

Nah, I’m complaining because you don’t hold mass in a catacomb

I mean…NONE of the early Christians practiced sola scriptura, and they held fast to the Tradition which had been handed down from the Apostles.

Yes, when the Scripture hadn’t been written yet they obeyed oral traditions in lieu of that Scripture which wasn’t completed yet.

Consequently, those who insist upon sola scriptura today are the ones who are clearly NOT practicing what the early Church believed and taught.

If a Truth was important enough to protect from bastardization it would have been important enough to write down and protect as Scripture.

– Edit: I mean bastardization in the sense of changing.

 

[Drawmack]

:extrahappy:

So, does the practice of praying to saints come to us from scripture or from tradition?

I said I defend the principle of it, not the practice. I do not believe that those who have died should be asked for intercession but that is because I do not believe that anyone who is face to face with God is looking down on the Earth – they are too busy rejoicing in God’s perfect love. However, when Catholics pray to saints they are simply asking people to pray with them, so there is nothing wrong with the principle of it – I just don’t accept the practice. BTW: I’d like to note that it is okay for a Catholic to refuse to pray to saints as well.

 

[Drawmack]

I am pleading that you qutoe the doctrine of Sola Scriptura correctly:

From www.catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0402fea3.asp

“Even the principle of sola scriptura (“Scripture alone”), according to the sharpest Protestant scholars, means that the Bible is the ultimate authority—above councils and popes and any tradition but not that no commentary or tradition may be cited or utilized"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesleyan_Quadrilateral

Upon examination of Wesley’s work, Outler theorized that Wesley used four different sources in coming to theological conclusions. The four sources are:
• Scripture - the Holy Bible (Old and New Testaments)
• Tradition - the two millennia history of the Christian Church
• Reason - rational thinking and sensible interpretation
• Experience - a Christian’s personal and communal journey in Christ

In practice, at least one of the Wesleyan denominations, The United Methodist Church, asserts that “Wesley believed that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason. Scripture [however] is primary, revealing the Word of God ‘so far as it is necessary for our salvation.’”

Protestant do NOT have an issue with traditions that are not the Bible
St. Thomas went to India, not tin the Bible.

The issue is where we feel there is a contradiction: who wins the tie -breaker: (see the Methodist doctrine above.)

I repeat: :not in the Bible is ok ,if it does NOT go against what IS in the Bible, thats all there is do it.

This Mediator [Jesus Christ], having spoken what He judged sufficient first by the prophets, then by His own lips, and afterwards by the apostles, has besides produced the Scripture which is called canonical, which has paramount authority, and to which we **yield assent in all matters **of which we ought not to be ignorant, and yet cannot know of ourselves. –

St. Augustine, quoted from his City of God, book XI, Chapter 3, online at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library server, at Wheaton College.
*
Seems VERY close to what the Methodist say*

We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith.–St. Irenaeus of Lyons (+ca.195):

Let me get this straight – you’re using wikipedia and Catholic resources to define Sola Scriptura! Can I use Protestant sources and wikipedia to define Catholic doctrines?

 

[Randy_Carson]

so even after I show you a Catholic .com definition of of Sola Scritura
even after I show you how it defined in a major Protestant denomination
I can add a wiiki or webster defintion, but would it matter?

you are DETERMINED to use your own definition, or quote some misguided example

I think I will go ask my Catholic friends if they believe in the Immaculate Conception; then ask them what it means,

or i could use the CORRECT definition as found on Catholic .com or Wiki , or Websters…

I’m willing to have a debate, can you agree to use the defintion below?

“means that the Bible is the ultimate authority—above councils and popes and any tradition, but not that no commentary or tradition may be cited or utilized”

It’s not my definition…I simply copied what one reformed apologist claims the definition to be.

Since sola scriptura is false and is itself unbiblical (thus self-refuting), I don’t care how it is defined.

 

[DerekD]

Really? I don’t understand how you missed it since St. Paul plainly tells Timothy that he’s to withdraw from anyone who doesn’t walk according to that tradition. If it wasn’t inspired, the why would he make a big deal of it?

2nd Thessalonians 3:6 And we charge you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother walking disorderly, and not according to the tradition which they have received of us.

2 thes 3:6-15
But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us. 7For you yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly among you; 8nor did we eat anyone’s bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, 9not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us.

10For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. 11For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. 12Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread.

13But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good. 14And if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed. 15Yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

The passage you referred to has nothing to do with tradition; other than the word “teaching”, not as you would refer to in your religious system of tradition. Paul and all the apostles taught exactly what God revealed to them, which primarily is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The only authority for direct/unique (outside of creation) revelation is found in the words of scripture. For a religion to speak outside of the bible; would need to refer to His word for that authority, which means the only true authority is God’s word…follow?

Verse 14; Paul explains that he is speaking of the letter he is writing, which apparently contains that “tradition”. most religious traitions are man-made; not a problem until it contradicts scripture by way of postering as an equal or higher authority than the word of God. most religions follow this error.

all that is based on the presumption that one accepts God’s word as authoritive; if they do not, then we do not need to concern ourselves with discussion becase if one does not believe what God has said through His prophets and apostles, then that person God believe in the God of the bible.

 

[Randy_Carson]

You said it must be alluded to in the Bible. The Bible states that we need Scripture. This is a clear allusion that we must have a canon. Therefore that is alluded to in the Bible. Therefore none of the items on your list should be on your list.

The idea that there would be a fixed, closed list of books that are understood to be inspired is alluded to in scripture.

A fixed, closed list.

Wow. I need to go back and re-read my NT, 'cause I don’t remember anything along those lines.

Could you point me to a verse to get me started?

 

[Randy_Carson]

But God does and God does because Truth does.

I have no idea what you mean here.

God does what?

 

[RedBert]

It’s not my definition…I simply copied what one reformed apologist claims the definition to be.

Since sola scriptura is false and is itself unbiblical (thus self-refuting), I don’t care how it is defined.

Well, there’s a discussion stopper.

thanks,

 

[Drawmack]

The idea that there would be a fixed, closed list of books that are understood to be inspired is alluded to in scripture.

A fixed, closed list.

Wow. I need to go back and re-read my NT, 'cause I don’t remember anything along those lines.

Could you point me to a verse to get me started?

Yeah, it’s that one Catholics like to use about Scripture being profitable. There’s also some things in Revelation about no more public Revelation until the second coming.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Okay, and if that Tradition had never changed I’d accept that argument. But, you’re telling me that people who were not breathed have the authority to change the way in which people who were God Breathed taught others to practice Tradition.

No, I would say that A) the people who came later are not God-breathed in the sense that the Apostles were.

Bishops are not Apostles. Bishops are not individually infalliblie like the Apostles were. Only the Bishop of Rome as the successor of Peter has this charism.

And Bishops do not and have not changed the doctrines of the Church when compared with the Apostles.

Have we developed our understanding of the revelation delivered once for all to the saints? Sure. But nothing contradicts the teachings of the Apostles.

 

[DerekD]

Have we developed our understanding of the revelation delivered once for all to the saints? Sure. But nothing contradicts the teachings of the Apostles.

Developed understanding? why do you phrase it like “the teaching of the apostles”? what about the prophets before them? does the all encompassing teaching ultimately come from God? or do you see it differently; strange way to phrase something unless you only believe the NT? can you clarify?

 

[crazzeto]

So drawmack, I have to admit curiosity consumes me. Do you have any responses to any of my challenges? I see you’re still active here, trying to push your own unique brand of sola scriptura. If you really believe that you should be able to answer my challenges.

 

[DerekD]

So drawmack, I have to admit curiosity consumes me. Do you have any responses to any of my challenges? I see you’re still active here, trying to push your own unique brand of sola scriptura. If you really believe that you should be able to answer my challenges.

Maybe I could take a stab at those unanswered questions if you would like to repeat 1 or 2 of them.

 

[Drawmack]

No, I would say that A) the people who came later are not God-breathed in the sense that the Apostles were.

Bishops are not Apostles. Bishops are not individually infalliblie like the Apostles were. Only the Bishop of Rome as the successor of Peter has this charism.

And Bishops do not and have not changed the doctrines of the Church when compared with the Apostles.

Have we developed our understanding of the revelation delivered once for all to the saints? Sure. But nothing contradicts the teachings of the Apostles.

It doesn’t have to contradict in order to change. Butter doesn’t contradict Toast either, but buttered toast isn’t the same as dry toast.