Need Help in response to Post in other forum

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Spence06

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Hey, This isn’t that long, but I hope that some of you could help me. I am posting on the Authority of the Church and how Protestants accept this authority, one way or the other, if they hold these 27 books to be inspired. I’ll show you the most recent post and I am unsure on how I should respond. Any Advice, or how you personally would respond would be great. Thank you and God bless.

P.S. I wrote what is it bold, and he just qouted me.

Why else would you consider these 27 books inspired, rather then many other letters and writings from that time period.
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This is the only question that really matters here isn’t it?

I could here seperate the councils from the Catholic Church and show how that what we have as the Roman catholic Church today does not bare that much resemblance to the church that determined the canon, and there are many people that do but I think they miss a bit of the point of the discussion. The discussion really doesn’t matter who was at the council or their various beliefs on some subjects, but that we are following their authority.

Now what kind of authority did these early councils that determined what books would be in the NY canon have? I don’t believe in Apostalic Authority as the RCC teaches it, but I do believe they were the smartest, most knowledgable Christians of their time. That gave them some authority. These councils were not a few guys that got together and threw bones to determine what books went in or went out, these were people who spent their lives studying and searching after God.

Let us set one thing straight right now before we procede any further. What is the “quality” that determines if a book is scripture or not? As I have said in the past; “We accept the books of the Bible becasue they are inspired by God. We identify scripture on only one basis; that it is inspired by God. That is what we look for when we look to a book, it is the qualitity that makes scripture scripture and also is the guide as to how we identify it as such.”

This is important to understand, it is not the stamp of approval of a council that makes something scripture, it being scripture is what makes it such. Its an internal quality that cannot be removed or altered.

At the time of the cannoziation of the NT there were already lists of books people believed to be scripture floating around. THIS SITE lists what a few people had written as books that were scripture and we can see that they were right on. These lists were years before the council put their stamp on the books. (There is another more indepth list HERE )

What does this tell us? It tells us early Christians didn’t need the approval of a council to tell them what NT books were inspired and which ones were not. They had the Spirit in them, they studies the religious books, they understood what was inspired and what was not.

So if everyone had a good idea by the time of the councils what was scripture then why did they occur? We need to remember that not everyone was a Christian and those who were not were trying to bring in books that were not scripture so a list was needed to stop this, and for offical purposes in the Roman Empire a list was also needed (so when they printed books and such). What the council did was codify what was already know by believers. There were a few minor disagreements, but that is essencialy it. They gave the lsits their authority. The scriptures didn’t need it to be scripture, but they gave it to them.

Bryan
SDG"
 
Clearly the person in question only has a vague familiarity with the teachings of the Early Church. Two sources I would highly recommend to you are “A Textual Concordance of the Holy Scriptures” published by TAN and also the three-volume set “Faith of the Early Fathers” The first will provide you with an easy reference to support Catholic teaching from Scripture and the second will provide you will an abundance of citations from the Early Church that shows that the Church of the first centuries after Christ is the same Church that is known as the Catholic Church today.

Basically the argument was a dodge to avoid answering the question (in my opinion). The reason for the dodge is that your point is unanswerable from the “average” Protestant position. If the Church is not an authority to which we are bound, then we have absolutely no basis for accepting the 27 writings we have in the New Testament. Why do Protestants accept the 39 writings of the Old Testament that they accept? Because of Church authority. Some claim “universal agreement” but then we would have to pull out about six of the New Testament writings because they were not universally recognized until the councils of the Church made authoritative declarations. Even the claim of universal agreement doesn’t support their position because when they are talking about universal agreement they are still placing the authority in the Church (provided that it has reached a universal agreement).

What writing of scripture lists the canon? Why should I believe that the writing we call the Gospel of Matthew is an inspired gospel that contains the word of God, or that it was written by any of the Apostles let alone Matthew, or that it was even written by a person named Matthew (it never identifies the author)? The Catholic’s response is that the authoritative Church has defined the canon. The Protestants have no answer that doesn’t rely on an authoritative decision or agreement made by the Church; whose authority they deny.

For some, you can explain this until you are blue in the face or (in the case of these forums) until your fingers fall off and it will have no effect that you will ever see. Present the truth and trust the Holy Spirit to do the rest. You may be planting the seed of reason that will, one day, blossom into the realization of the truth.
 
Bryan SDG:
What does this tell us? It tells us early Christians didn’t need the approval of a council to tell them what NT books were inspired and which ones were not. They had the Spirit in them, they studies the religious books, they understood what was inspired and what was not.

So if everyone had a good idea by the time of the councils what was scripture then why did they occur? We need to remember that not everyone was a Christian and those who were not were trying to bring in books that were not scripture so a list was needed to stop this, and for offical purposes in the Roman Empire a list was also needed (so when they printed books and such). What the council did was codify what was already know by believers. There were a few minor disagreements, but that is essencialy it. They gave the lsits their authority. The scriptures didn’t need it to be scripture, but they gave it to them.
Click to expand...
On re-reading your original quote of Brian I saw this and I can see what I missed before. So, what he seems to be claiming is that Scripture declares itself or, at least, makes itself known to believers. That is precisely what the Mormons claim regarding the book of Mormon when they speak of the “burning in the busom” it causes in them. So, why should I accept his interpetation of this over that of the Mormons? If he argues that the canon of Scripture is closed then I must ask where in Scripture it says that (it doesn’t). If he claims that all general revelation ended with the death of the last Apostle then I must again when in Scripture it says that (it doesn’t). When you consider that St. Paul was an Apostle who was not one of the original twelve, couldn’t there be subsequent Apostles in later times? If he says no then I must ask by what authority he makes such a claim because Scripture doesn’t make it.

The reason that the Early Church accepted those writings referenced on the site is that the authorities within the Church (the bishops) were attesting to the authenticity of those writings. If Scripture merely revealed itself, then we should expect that there would be no discrepancies between the lists of writings accepted in the Early Church but the very site he references reveals those discrepancies.

Why would discrepancies exists? Because we are dealing with a period of time where communication was not as fast or reliable as it is now. These writings were hand copied onto scrolls and then hand delivered between the Churches. Some undoubtedly got lost and were not received. Disputes between individual bishops could cause one to doubt the accuracy of another who passed on a given writing (or maybe even the accuracy of the copy).

No, his conclusion simply doesn’t follow his own evidence. It is clear that the only reason the Early Church accepted these writings was because the authority of the Church (the body of bishops) taught that they were to be accepted; not because the average Christian just intuitively knew that these were the true writings. If such a phenomenon existed, I think we could have expected some reference to that phenomenon instead of the lists of the writings to be accepted. Why write down a list? Because you are instructing people about the list.
 
This guy has a few problems in his argument, he is not really making sense to me. He said:

"Let us set one thing straight right now before we procede any further. What is the “quality” that determines if a book is scripture or not? As I have said in the past; “We accept the books of the Bible becasue they are inspired by God. We identify scripture on only one basis; that it is inspired by God. That is what we look for when we look to a book, it is the qualitity that makes scripture scripture and also is the guide as to how we identify it as such.”

First of all he misunderstands our position, he thinks that the
Church claims to have given the writings their “inspired quality”, when in fact the Church only claims that She, by the prompting of the Holy Spirit and by virtue of the authority bestowed upon Her, “determined” or “made known” which ones were and which ones were not. Then he falls into the common fallacious argument of begging the question. How can he say that he only accepts the books that are inspired and he knows exactly which ones those are because they are the ones that are inspired! :banghead: SAYS WHO?? The books dont tell us they are inspired and even if they did they cannot authenticate themselves. It’s a circular argument.

Then he goes on:

“So if everyone had a good idea by the time of the councils what was scripture then why did they occur? We need to remember that not everyone was a Christian and those who were not were trying to bring in books that were not scripture so a list was needed to stop this, and for offical purposes in the Roman Empire a list was also needed (so when they printed books and such). What the council did was codify what was already know by believers. There were a few minor disagreements, but that is essencialy it. They gave the lsits their authority. The scriptures didn’t need it to be scripture, but they gave it to them.”

The truth of the matter is that without the canon there was no way for Christians to know which books contained error and which ones didn not, many Christian churches had accepted books that were not inspired and that actually contained false teachings. Heresies began to spring up and many people were being mislead. There was both doubt and confusion among some of the most prominent Bishops of the time. It was very important for Christianity (not simply the Roman Empire), to have a final authoritative canon; and that once the matter was settled would eliminate all difficulty. It wasn’t the work of non-Christians or Emporers that created the need for a canon as he suggests, that is only an attempt by him to dismiss the important role that the Church must fill.

There are other problems in his argument but these are the two that jumped out at me. Good luck and God bless.
 
Thank you so much Mart, I am sure to include your responses in my reply. May God bless you and keep you strong in your faith.
 
Also, I almost forgot to thank you The Mutant. I read quickly and just saw Martino’s name. I thank you very much and may God also give you his peace and love.
 
You should see the Documents of Vatican Council II
and search for “canon.”

[
DEI VERBUM
Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation

Second Vatican Council

DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION
ON DIVINE REVELATION
DEI VERBUM
SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED
BY HIS HOLINESS
POPE PAUL VI
ON NOVEMBER 18, 1965](http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/v2revel.htm)

Chapter II HANDING ON THE REVEALED WORD OF GOD

Chapter III SACRED SCRIPTURE, ITS INSPIRATION AND DIVINE INTERPRETATION
 
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