Non-Catholics: How do you know that the words of Jesus are true?

[benhur]

Ok, that would be putting a different intention on things.

We should do ALL things for God’s glory, yes! Amen.

Yet, ‘alone’ can be used deceptively, no?

For example, we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and soul and Him only shall we serve. But this doesn’t exclude serving the needs of our neighbor.

Or doesn’t Paul acknowledge that we ought to give honor to some and double honor to other’s?

So the whole ‘alone’ business and jargon can be a bit of a scapegoat, I think.

Well thank you for the amen brother. However do not get you knock on “only” for God’s glory. Helping your neighbor does not negate that but the end remains, as Jesus said, so that others will see your good works and glorify God.

 

[benhur]

WHAT!!! another definition of SS?

Guess what I left out of my post ? Started righting this " “with 30,000 denominations we have as many definitions of SS” but did not know how to end so I then erased it. I was thinking of ending it with, “Not”, or tongue in cheek say," it helps to wiggle out of obvious problems with SS".

I like the this facetious definition, " all you need is your bible and curl up into a ball and you are all set till His return". Can’t get any more “bible alone” than that. Pretty strict definition, right?

Blessings

 

[mek42]

So with any of these ancient texts, they were written within a generation of the event.

Surely folks who knew these texts were a lie would have stepped forward, yes?

And again, who lied and why?

This is true.

Are allegorical passages lies?

 

[mek42]

Well, ben, your paradigm apparently is that you don’t need a Church to tell you what’s theopneustos.

So that means that if you don’t need the Church, neither do these folks:

lasttrumpet.org/paul_false_apostle.htm

They claim that the epistles of Paul are NOT theopneustos.

Do you believe they have the authority to do so?

Well, if Paul was doing his work today, he wouldn’t be able to post his letters here due to the rules about personal revelation.

 

[icamhif]

WHAT!!! another definition of SS?

I don’t believe in Sola Scriptura. Period. Clear?

Edit: That’s strange. You meant to quote benhur, when my username appeared above his words.

Edit 2: Ah, now I know why.

 

[icamhif]

These subtle questions are getting beyond my paygrade (I did a Masters equiv in Theology/Ch History).

I think the philosophic scaffolding and concepts required to tread carefully between the two great anathema’s of Judaism only started to be wheeled in by the time John wrote his Gospel. He clearly borrowed concepts of Greek philosophy (“Logos”) to explain how it was not anathema to say that a man could be claim to be the Creator of the Universe without:
(a) denying monotheism (there is only one God, not two or three)
(b) that God is pure Spirit

If Jesus ever came out and directly claimed to be, like God, the eternally existing Creator of the Universe, he would have been written off as a miracle working madman without followers. He was afterall stoned simply for implicitly claiming to be a prohphet. Hence the cryptic divinity claims in the NT… which may well have been formulated much less cryptically by John only at the end of his life and placed on the lips of Jesus in his Gospel.

Personally I believe the foundation of Christianity is really the Resurrection, not Jesus’s substantial unity with the Godhead. Obviously the Resurrection heavily contributed to the eventual explicitation and open preaching of Jesus’s complete one-ness with the OT Godhead at Nicea.

However, considered in isolation, the Resurrection of itself would not seem to essentially demand unity with the Godhead of the one resurrected. Indeed, it seems it was not originally interpretted that way but was first used to affirm Jesus’s Messianic claims.

What the leading apostles thought personally (if in their heart of hearts they eventually understood Jesus’s very confusing actions/words on this point) must have been extremely difficult to preach directly to the crowds (esp friendly Jews). How exactly would one preach that Jesus was God (as we understand that correlation now) and not be accused of polytheism and be anathematised and rejected?
How would one reject such an accusation…that is why Nicea was 300 years in the making.
Only then could the Trinity be asserted without also logically asserting polytheism.

I think that’s a good explanation.

 

[PRmerger]

Inspiration and reliability are two different issues. That is probably why we’ve been talking past each other.

Right.

You can know the texts are reliable using historical criteria.

You can ONLY know the texts are inspired because…

of…

the…

Catholic Church.

 

[PRmerger]

Correct. Only the Catholic Church teaches it has been perfectly led in all things on faith and morals by the Holy Spirit.

No, ben.

You’ve been here long enough that you shouldn’t be so poorly representing the Catholic position.

The Church has NEVER professed that she “has been perfectly led in all things on faith and morals by the Holy Spirit”.

That she has the fullness of truth is NOT the same thing as being “perfectly led”.

She may be imperfect, but she is still that which has the fullness of God’s revelation.

 

[PRmerger]

WHAT!!! another definition of SS?

I know, right?!!

 

[Reuben_J]

Because Christ spent 3 years trying to preach Truth and gave us a Church.

If you don’t want to be part of the Church He established, why be a Christian at all?

It ought to be supremely important to follow the right teachings He taught.

Right now, with the tens of thousands of Christian denominations, you don’t know what Christ wants you to believe on:

• Abortion
• Attend weekly services, don’t have to go to Church
• Baptism (sprinkling? Immersion? Infant? Adult? Sacrament? Ordinance? In Jesus’ name only? Using Trinitarian formula?)
• Charity or no charity (help one another or let them help themselves?)
• Church leadership, or no leadership
• Death/Soul Sleep
• Did Jesus use wine or grape juice at the Last Supper
• Divorce
• Drinking allowed, drinking not allowed
• Head coverings or no head coverings
• Health and wealth gospel
• Hell, or no hell
• Homosexuality
• Is God‘s Holy Name Jehovah
• Judge others, don’t judge others
• Lord’s day on Saturday or Sunday
• Music or no music (Singing or no singing)
• Once saved, always saved
• Ordination
• Predestination
• Rapture
• Sola scriptura/private interpretation
• The Eucharist (Communion)
• Tongues (some believe others are not saved if they don’t speak in tongues)
• Trinity vs. Unitarianism
• What’s a sin, what is not a sin
• When to celebrate the Lord’s Day
• Women pastors, no women pastors

Agreed, and my thought too. Eventually one needs the Church, not just any churches or ecclesiastical bodies, but the Church that was left behind by Jesus Christ, with uninterrupted line of apostolic succession, believing in the words he said that the Gate of Hell will not prevail against it. Admittedly we are spoilt for choice today with thousands of churches to choose from, all claim to being the true one but I believe that the Catholic Church is the one still standing despite the challenges that she has to go through.

 

[PRmerger]

Are allegorical passages lies?

Explain how this works, mek.

500 people “allegorically” see Jesus after he died?

Or 4 people, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John “allegorically” describe his resurrection and 500 witnesses come forth and say, “Yes, this did indeed happen ‘allegorically’, folks!”

Does that sound plausible to you?

 

[PRmerger]

Well, if Paul was doing his work today, he wouldn’t be able to post his letters here due to the rules about personal revelation.

The rules aren’t against personal revelation. They are against asserting something that is personal revelation and claiming it to be part of the Word of God.

Paul’s letters ARE indeed the Word of God…

so he would be absolutely fine to post them here.

 

[Reuben_J]

It’s a really interesting question RJ.
What I observed below in Catholic Biblical scholarship was limited to the average follower of Jesus and even the Gospel writers.
Sometimes we only realise. and fully understand the actions and words of our loved ones many years after they have died. I know that to be true for my father. Cannot this true of Church teaching too - the meaning was always there at the time but we can be too immature, too distracted with life, too self obsessed to see or get it until later - usually at the cost of much reflection and suffering.
This is what I understand by “implicit.”

Thanks for the clarification. I asked because you said this in your post #1050 and I guess I jumped into conclusion.

Blue Horizon: These titles/phrases, allegedly spoken by Jesus, are unlikely fully consonant with what we mean today by saying “Jesus is God.” Yes John certainly presents Jesus as claiming to be greater than Abraham hence the stoning. (The same was attempted in Nazareth when he merely suggested that he was a prophet.) But what sort of person he was understood to be claiming to be - that is another issue.

Personally I did not doubt that the Gospel writers would mean what they write and knew what they were writing. Yes, probably they were unsure initially but much of those were cleared off after the resurrection. A good example was the walk to Emmaus where everything was explained to them, Lk 24:32 “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

Even some of the great Christian dogmas were not explicitly clear in the Early Church - they were implicit and took time to be widely understood and affirmed.

Yes the nuns taught us everything was black and white from year Resurrection.

Surely we need to move beyond such simplistic thinking which behooves children but perhaps not adults.

I don’t expect you to agree, but it is acceptable for Catholic scholars to hold such a position and it likely better respects what the average follower/Christian actually understood in the first century or two in the Early Church. … let alone in Jesus’s own lifetime.

It also explains why sincere and educated Catholics on both sides fiercely debated the Divinity of Jesus for 300 years.

I believe the deposit of faith was settled by the apostles during their time, the Church later only had to put them into appropriate words. Yes, it was true that there might be dissenting voice but the Church prevailed, surely because of her charism as a Church given to her by Jesus.

Reuben

 

[icamhif]

Right.

You can know the texts are reliable using historical criteria.

You can ONLY know the texts are inspired because of the Catholic Church

Ahhh! I wish you had just said “the Church,” so that I could simply say “Yes! I agree, wholeheartedly!” But I’m not that far, yet. I’m still deciding between four Churches that have Apostolic Succession (see my signature).

But other than that detail, we agree!

Hallelujah!

(Please no Catholicism vs. Orthodoxy debate. That’s for another thread, and I’m currently not in the mood for that.)

 

[PRmerger]

Ahhh! I wish you had just said “the Church,” so that I could simply say “Yes! I agree, wholeheartedly!” But I’m not that far, yet. I’m still deciding between four Churches that have Apostolic Succession (see my signature).

But other than that detail, we agree!

Hallelujah!

(Please no Catholicism vs. Orthodoxy debate. That’s for another thread, and I’m currently not in the mood for that.)

Fair enough.

It is an institution, borne from the Holy Spirit, given to the Apostles and their successors, which gave you this 27 book canon of the NT.

You submit to her authority on this.

She was infallible when she discerned this.

Amen! :

 

[rcwitness]

Ahhh! I wish you had just said “the Church,” so that I could simply say “Yes! I agree, wholeheartedly!” But I’m not that far, yet. I’m still deciding between four Churches that have Apostolic Succession (see my signature).

But other than that detail, we agree!

Hallelujah!

(Please no Catholicism vs. Orthodoxy debate. That’s for another thread, and I’m currently not in the mood for that.)

Well, that’s kind of an interesting thing…

The Scriptures were received/collected, separated from books which were not to be believed as Scripture and venerated as inerrant when the Church was united and acknowledged an Apostolic office with primacy in the Bishop of Rome.

And the denominations, who all profess SS, are divided on Teaching and interpretation. All under the banner of believing in the Word of God because they can interpret it the way that they want to.

It is as though Jesus, in His wisdom, knew this so He established His Eucharist as the means to bring His people together. You can’t interpret His body and Blood… and you can’t manipulate His Eucharist. You can only eat worthy or unworthy.

 

[D0UBTFIRE]

These subtle questions are getting beyond my paygrade (I did a Masters equiv in Theology/Ch History).

I think the philosophic scaffolding and concepts required to tread carefully between the two great anathema’s of Judaism only started to be wheeled in by the time John wrote his Gospel. He clearly borrowed concepts of Greek philosophy (“Logos”) to explain how it was not anathema to say that a man could be claim to be the Creator of the Universe without:
(a) denying monotheism (there is only one God, not two or three)
(b) that God is pure Spirit

If Jesus ever came out and directly claimed to be, like God, the eternally existing Creator of the Universe, he would have been written off as a miracle working madman without followers. He was afterall stoned simply for implicitly claiming to be a prohphet. Hence the cryptic divinity claims in the NT… which may well have been formulated much less cryptically by John only at the end of his life and placed on the lips of Jesus in his Gospel.

Personally I believe the foundation of Christianity is really the Resurrection, not Jesus’s substantial unity with the Godhead. Obviously the Resurrection heavily contributed to the eventual explicitation and open preaching of Jesus’s complete one-ness with the OT Godhead at Nicea.

However, considered in isolation, the Resurrection of itself would not seem to essentially demand unity with the Godhead of the one resurrected. Indeed, it seems it was not originally interpretted that way but was first used to affirm Jesus’s Messianic claims.

What the leading apostles thought personally (if in their heart of hearts they eventually understood Jesus’s very confusing actions/words on this point) must have been extremely difficult to preach directly to the crowds (esp friendly Jews). How exactly would one preach that Jesus was God (as we understand that correlation now) and not be accused of polytheism and be anathematised and rejected?
How would one reject such an accusation…that is why Nicea was 300 years in the making.
Only then could the Trinity be asserted without also logically asserting polytheism.

I found this very helpful, thanks!

 

[mek42]

Explain how this works, mek.

500 people “allegorically” see Jesus after he died?

Or 4 people, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John “allegorically” describe his resurrection and 500 witnesses come forth and say, “Yes, this did indeed happen ‘allegorically’, folks!”

Does that sound plausible to you?

The historical evidence that the Gospels were not written by the Apostles for whom they are named does seem plausible to me, which makes them hearsay rather than eyewitness accounts.

 

[adf417]

I don’t believe in Sola Scriptura. Period. Clear?

Edit: That’s strange. You meant to quote benhur, when my username appeared above his words.

Edit 2: Ah, now I know why.

Yeah I am seeing a lot of that on this thread and don’t know why. Sorry about that.

Peace!!!

 

[PRmerger]

The historical evidence that the Gospels were not written by the Apostles for whom they are named does seem plausible to me, which makes them hearsay rather than eyewitness accounts.

The above is a nonsequitur.

Could you please answer the questions I posed?
It’s important for you to do this because I don’t think you’ve actually thought your position through.