Tantum ergo;2523943]First: The Catholic Church teaches that Mary should be honored because **the Scriptures themselves **support the honor the Church gives her and all should give her. Just as there is nothing that flat out states in the Bible: God is One Being in Three Divine Persons (but Christians teach exactly this, implicit in Scripture), there may not be an explicit, “Mary was conceived without Sin” although the Scripture is implicit (full of grace, in context with many old testament passages and the parallels with the Ark of the Covenant for starters). And the fact is, for 1500 years the honor was given to Mary as the Catholic Church still does today. . .even the ‘reformers’ Luther and Calvin honored her that way.
Let me address a couple of points you make here. One is that “full of grace” does not mean without sin all of a person’ life. Look this phrase up in a greek lexicon.
As for Mary being in parallel with the “Ark of the covenant” there is no such teaching in the scriptures about her with this. I suspect also this was unknown for centuries.
Second: Not everything that Jesus said and did --in teaching His disciples–is presented in Scripture. “But there are many more things which Jesus did which are not given here.” Therefore, to state that because something is not presented in Scripture does not mean it was not an authoritative oral teaching.
I’m famliar with this saying but it doesn’t help you. That saying has to do with the Lord Jesus and other things He did. Secondly, i agree there was “oral teaching” but we don’t know what that was. The only thing we do know are the written Scriptures.
St. Paul tells us to hold fast to the traditions, both by word of mouth and letter, that we have received.
Notice the context in which Paul is writing. His traditions are from him and not someone else. He is not speaking of any future leaders traditions.
Jesus founded a Church, not a book,
Huh? Did Jesus consider the OT to be inspired-inerrant? Did He put His teachings on the same par as the OT? Did His followers? Did the NT church?
If what you say is true, then why did the church eventually find it necessary to define the canon of the NT and call it sacred scripture?
not even a holy and wonderful book which many of us Catholics read daily for wonderful Scriptural nourishment. . .but the “book”, though the written word, is ‘not enough’.
The what am i to make of these passages that say otherwise:
John 15: 7 “If you abide in Me, and
My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
I Peter 1:23 for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.
I Peter 2:like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation,
Without the Scriptures you don’t have the church nor knowledge of salvation in Christ.
We have the flesh and blood of the Risen Lord as our main nourishment, and the written word as the supplemental ‘appetizer’ that enables us to feed and digest that communion most richly.
Third: We are told the Holy Spirit would guide us to all truth. That guidance included oral guidance (much of which has come down to us as Sacred Tradition, none of which contradicts Sacred Scripture, and all of which is found implicitly in Sacred Scripture or does not contradict Sacred Scripture) for the 350 years we did not have the canon of Scripture and for another nearly 1500 years after that when there were few who could read, fewer still who could afford, a Bible.
Fourth: Nowhere in Scripture does it state that Scripture ‘alone’ is the ‘only’ source of Truth. After all, Scripture says nothing about computers, in vitro fertilization, or gay marriage. Using Scripture ‘alone’, we have thousands of Christians arguing that Jesus ‘never said anything about homosexual actions being wrong’ so therefore they aren’tt wrong. What makes their interpretation of Scripture wrong or right then? What authority can make them sure their Scripture interpretation is correct when other groups claim the same authority–Scripture and ‘the Holy Spirit’ and come to a diametrically opposite conclusion?
One cannot have something be both a and not-a. One cannot have homosexual actions being both wrong and not wrong.
“Scripture alone” has led to these dichotomies because each person makes himself his own authority.
These would be good topics for another time
