The Word of God was oral and was given to them on the basis of apostolic authority. But the point is, and I hope you’re listening (since apparently no one is getting this), that there is no difference between what was preached orally and what was written. And if you’re asserting that there was: please tell us the actual difference.
No, it was James who said, “therefore, **I judge…”
lets start by stating that the totallity of revelation is basically the integral of Christ’s life, every thing he said and did. *“Christ, the Son of God made man, is the Father’s one, perfect and unsurpassable Word. In him he has said everything; there will be no other word than this one (ccc 65).” *I’m sure we can all agree on this, protestants and catholics. you are stating that everything Christ did in his actions and his teachings is contained in the bible. or that, the totality of revelation is contained in the bible. this may or may not be true. because it doesn’t say so in the scriptures, we can’t know for sure but i think it’s a reasonable argument.
I think everyone GETS it, but you don’t understand their answers. Of course the oral and written were not different on the essentials of salvation, but the oral can give details of the why and how of worship and other practices.
*** ***The actual difference is in the way the Word of God was/is transmitted. One is not inferior to the other, but compliments each other. Scriptures do not compete, contradict or conflict with oral tradition. It’s a matter of complimentarity, not a matter of difference.
** **And what exactly did James judge? Peter’s definitive teaching. He supported Peter’s teaching by quoting Amos 9:11- 12, then said (Acts 15:19) Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God,
BouleTheou
I may have missed your proof, but by what facts do you back your own assertion? We do have the refutation of just this in John 21:24-25 by CatholicMatthew.
This charge might be a bit more credible had you actually responded to any arguments yourself. Actually, numerous people have noted that the Petrine primacy, the ordination of bishops and priests, prayers for the dead, and veneration of the Blessed Virgin were recognized for as long as there have been Christians. Putting the name “papacy” or “purgatory” or “indulgences” or “temporal punishment” or “Immaculate Conception” merely provides a technical theological explanation for an enduring practice. You view these technical explanations as dogma itself, while we and the Orthodox follow lex orandi, lex credendi in determining what constitutes a belief.
The point is that you are equivocating about what constitutes a “belief.” You are implying by your questions that a belief in the papacy, etc., is a technical theological statement. Our point is that if that’s what you consider a “belief,” then even the “belief” in the Trinity was not held in that sense. Rather, this interpretation of the Scripture was held implicitly in the way that we worshipped God, in the practice of the Church.
Yeah, but so did Arius. The entire lesson of Arianism is that Scripture can be twisted if you take it out of context of the life and practice of the Church. Besides, this notion of Athanasius as some type of proto-Protestant holding sola scriptura is absurd, and has been refuted time after time to the satisfaction of any reasonable person.
If you take the technical exposition of the doctrine as being “the Trinity,” then definitely, one could not rule out subordinationism or many kinds of modalism based purely on the text of the Bible. That requires both the Scriptural text and having been taught of the practice of the Church, not to mention reasoning from both of those sources of knowledge.
Certainly, they deduced it from Biblical premises. The question is what method of deduction they used. Was it a perspicuous understanding of the plain meaning of Scripture based solely in the text, ignoring the constant practice of the Church? I don’t think so.
The only one who hasn’t seemed particularly “bright” at seeing things is you. Please stop patronizing and equivocating in place of actual arguments. Spend a bit of time critically thinking about your own position before you needlessly spew venom.
Please document this accusation. Where have I spewed venom? I will most definitely retract and apologize if I have done so.
How about this reckless and unfounded charge of intellectual cowardice?
Or this backhanded slap in the form of a so-called “compliment.”
I, for one, am “bright enough” to see that this statement clearly implies either intellectual dishonesty or failure to use our intelligence, and I happen to consider all of these charges of intellectual cowardice, intellectual dishonesty, and sheer ignorance to be quite “venomous.” Unless you’re going to document and demonstrate by a logical argument (as opposed to your blatantly irrational assertions) that these charges are substantiated in some way, they remain completely unwarranted personal attacks on the character and intelligence of everyone who has participated in this discussion.
The recipients received the apostles’ teachings as being from God - whether written or oral. When the church at Philippi received Paul’s letter, they did not dispute its inspiration, nor did they feel they could not trust it as being inspired unless a bishop in Rome said so (which would have been impossible since there was no single bishop in Rome until the mid-2nd century). 1 Thessalonians 2:13 attests explicitly to this: “And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.” No one questioned it because it was God-speaking and He needs no secondary witness. God speaks for himself, He doesn’t need a bishop in Rome to tell His people what he has and has not said.
I have never said that I determined for myself what books are canonical. Jesus held people accountable for knowing the canon apart from the existence of some infallible declaration of what is and is not canon - **that’s the simple point I’m trying to drive home here - and the point everyone is ignoring. **I trust the original recipients of the documents who received them for what they are - the Word of God. They didn’t need to check with anyone first, they received the apostles’ message as being from God - directly. No one in the OT needed an infallible institution to understand the canon then. No one in the NT needs one either. God is infallible and His Word is infallible.
We receive the same books the people of God in the OT did. You are the ones who added 7 un-inspired books in April of 1546. The name “deuterocanonical” is what it is for a reason. They are not protocanonical.
Two errors in your question:
That solves nothing. What are Catholics to do when they disagree on interpretation and the **Church doesn’t clarify the problem? **
Yes there is, it’s the Bible. We keep studying it. The solution is not to turn away from the voice of God to some other voice claiming to speak from Him. Also, trying to interpret Roman Catholic documents like Indulgentiarum Doctrina, or Vatican 2 is nigh unto simplistic in comparison to interpreting Scripture. Scripture is clarity and simplicity itself in comparison.
I can make no sense of your question or the last sentence. My theory does allow for disagreement. My theory has never been that everyone will correctly interpret Scripture.
Of course. All Protestants remain in constant consultation with one another about the meaning of Scripture. Some things are very plain: The Doctrine of God, the person of Christ, the atonement, justification by faith apart from works, etc. But other parts are not so clear - and we always work to make sure Scripture is always “correcting” us - 2 Timothy 3:16 - as Paul told Timothy Scripture should. The most fatal error of Roman Catholicism is its thinking it cannot err and thus it has exempted itself from the corrective lense of Scripture.
Let’s keep going. Thanks for the interaction, Chris.
) and is frequently pronounced dogma only when a counter assertion is made. (For example, Jesus being homoousious with the Father in the face of the Arian heresy.) This was always believed, but at Trent was clarified and declared dogma by applying the understanding previously held to the heresy and saying “nope, that’s not what we were taught and understand.”