Not of Scripture??

[eleusis]

Does anyone have a magic list of Protestant beliefs or practices and of them are any considered binding on the faithful, which are not found in scripture such as:
Solo Fide
Solo Scriptura
and Altar Calls

My BAPTIST buddy at work says there is no way baptism is required for salvation. He said he thinks this because the thief who was with Christ went to heaven that same day.

But anyway a list of this kind of stuff would help me in a discussion I am working on .
Thanks much

 

[Lisa4Catholics]

Hey, it’s me again. I will get right to it. Coincidentally, there is such a thing as babtism by desire.Like, for example someone is going through RCIA and is an adult unbabtised and dies before the Easter Vigil, the mere desire will suffice. I think that is the point with the good theif. Nevertheless, I will look up the information and send it to you. God Bless, Lisa

 

[John_Russell_Jr]

Take a look at the following link. It covers all the questions about baptism, and all the other sacraments too. Read and print it out. You will find it ver useful. Just click on the links.

catholic.com/library/sacraments.asp

 

[Catholic4aReasn]

eleusis:

My BAPTIST buddy at work says there is no way baptism is required for salvation. He said he thinks this because the thief who was with Christ went to heaven that same day.

He has read Mark 16:16?

Mark 16:16 "He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved;

In Christ,
Nancy

 

[Katholikos]

eleusis:

Does anyone have a magic list of Protestant beliefs or practices and of them are any considered binding on the faithful, which are not found in scripture such as:
Solo Fide
Solo Scriptura
and Altar Calls

My BAPTIST buddy at work says there is no way baptism is required for salvation. He said he thinks this because the thief who was with Christ went to heaven that same day.

But anyway a list of this kind of stuff would help me in a discussion I am working on .
Thanks much

Your buddy, being Baptist, does not know that there are three forms of baptism: of water, of blood (martyrdom), and of desire.

Lk 23:43 RSV: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Paradise doesn’t mean heaven. Jesus didn’t go to heaven until the Resurrection – three days later. He went to “preach to the spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:19), sometimes called the Bosom of Abraham – i.e., to the abode of the Old Testament righteous ones who were awaiting the Messiah to open the gates of heaven for them. The good thief went there also, according to Luke. This is the place we refer to when we recite the Apostles Creed – “he descended into hell (mistranslation), the third day he rose again from the dead” . . .

Former Baptist Stephen K. Ray (author of Crossing the Tiber, Upon This Rock, and producer of many Catholic videos available at Ignatius Press) has a long list of unbiblical Protestant beliefs at his website. I have collected an even longer list, but it’s being put on CD by a friend in Ohio at the moment and is not available to me.

Ray’s site is www.catholic-convert.com.

JMJ Jay
Ex-Southern Baptist, ex-agnostic, ex-atheist, ecstatic to be Catholic!

 

[flameburns623]

Catholic4aReasn:

He has read Mark 16:16?

Mark 16:16 "He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved;

In Christ,
Nancy

The verse concludes, “he who has not believed will be damned”. From which, collated with other verses which are believed relevant to the topic, indicates that it is failure to believe which leads to damnation, irrespective of the lapse of baptism.

Which is pretty much how the other items mentioned by ‘eleusis’ go: Peter issued something very like ‘altar calls’ in his sermons in Acts. ‘Sola Fide’ and so forth are said to be ‘deduced’ from Scripture just as the doctrine of the Trinity is deduced therefrom.

 

[Shibboleth]

You need to understand that certain aspects of Protestantism are not directly stated in scripture.

Look at the concept of the Trinity.

All that the Bible states on the issue is that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and that God is one. A theory tries to reconcile and explain the issue and this is where we get the concept of the Trinity – otherwise known as The Athanasian Creed. I begins as follows.

“Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic * faith. Which faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, . . .”

The Lutheran Church abides by this creed. This leads one to ask the question – but the Trinity is not explicitly stated in the Bible how can you hold this to be true? Well, on a very very minute level we cannot because the theory itself was not directly inspired by God. We can however conclude that the Theory is based off the inspired word of the Gospel and we believe that the ascertation made about it is correct. This is what we have done and this is why we abide by the Trinity explaination.

So no, not everything that we follow is explicitly stated in the Bible, we cannot and do not – from a Protestant Point of View – have the ability to create something that is at Par with, Contradicts, or Supersedes the Scriptures.*

 

[Dan-Man916]

eleusis:

Does anyone have a magic list of Protestant beliefs or practices and of them are any considered binding on the faithful, which are not found in scripture such as:
Solo Fide
Solo Scriptura
and Altar Calls

My BAPTIST buddy at work says there is no way baptism is required for salvation. He said he thinks this because the thief who was with Christ went to heaven that same day.

a couple of other things i would mention is worship on Sunday, and not the Sabbath (nowhere does the bible tell us that we are to switch the commandment to Sunday, the first day of the week. )The Apostles did this as Tradition.

I would also add that the 27 books of the NT are binding on the faithful yet nowhere does the bible say that this is the list, there are no others.

also, the 66 books of the OT are nowhere defined for them.
The supposed “council” of Jamnia of the jews after the destruction of the temple in 70AD did not settle the hebrew canon as some people contend. Protestants may say that Jamnia decided on 66 books for the Hebrew bible.
If they assert this, ask them why they are submitting to a jewish council after the resurrection.
Protestants have no way of logically explaining why the books of the bible are there. What about the other “gospels”. I beleive that there were almost 200 separate books that claimed apostolic authorship. It was only the Catholic Church that was able to properly discern what books were inspired and which were not.

How about the celebration of Christmas and of Easter.
None of these are commanded in the bible yet what Christian denomination is not going to celebrate them.

When they say that there is nothing in the books that says they can’t do these things, then you have just opened up the door to explain to them that they have just agreed with the Catholic position of Sacred Tradition because that is exactly what tradition is.

 

[Shibboleth]

Dan-Man916:

a couple of other things i would mention is worship on Sunday, and not the Sabbath (nowhere does the bible tell us that we are to switch the commandment to Sunday, the first day of the week. )The Apostles did this as Tradition.

I would also add that the 27 books of the NT are binding on the faithful yet nowhere does the bible say that this is the list, there are no others.

also, the 66 books of the OT are nowhere defined for them.
The supposed “council” of Jamnia of the jews after the destruction of the temple in 70AD did not settle the hebrew canon as some people contend. Protestants may say that Jamnia decided on 66 books for the Hebrew bible.
If they assert this, ask them why they are submitting to a jewish council after the resurrection.
Protestants have no way of logically explaining why the books of the bible are there. What about the other “gospels”. I beleive that there were almost 200 separate books that claimed apostolic authorship. It was only the Catholic Church that was able to properly discern what books were inspired and which were not.

How about the celebration of Christmas and of Easter.
None of these are commanded in the bible yet what Christian denomination is not going to celebrate them.

When they say that there is nothing in the books that says they can’t do these things, then you have just opened up the door to explain to them that they have just agreed with the Catholic position of Sacred Tradition because that is exactly what tradition is.

You are forgetting the one big word, "Infallability.’ Christ made it so that we need to keep the Sabbath so that is why we can worship on Sunday. But we could also do it on Monday or every third day after a full moon. Nothing in Protestantism can infallably bind worship to Sunday.

 

[Dan-Man916]

shibboleth,

of course. i was just pointing out that protestants worship on Sunday without biblical mandate to do so.

 

[Katholikos]

‘Sola Fide’ and so forth are said to be ‘deduced’ from Scripture just as the doctrine of the Trinity is deduced therefrom.

But when were they “deduced”? And who “deduced” them?

Regarding the origin of Sola Fide: QUOTE **His [Martin Luther’s] ‘thunderbolt’ idea that faith alone was sufficient for salvation came, in his own words, as “knowledge the Holy Spirit gave me on the privy in the tower.” ** END QUOTE.

Source: TRIUMPH, The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church – A 2000-Year History by H.W. Crocker III, Forum, 2001, p. 237, quoted from William Manchester, A World Lit by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance (Little, Brown & Company, 1993), p. 140.

Crocker is a renowned Civil War historian and recent convert to Catholicism from Anglicanism.

Luther “found” Sola Fide in the Scriptures for the first time in the tower of the Wittenberg monastery, while studying the book of Romans (specifically in Romans 1:17), in the winter months between 1512 and 1513.

Sola Fide was a concept unknown to Christ, his Apostles, and to all Christians for the first 16 centuries of Christian history.

JMJ Jay

 

[Katholikos]

flameburns623:

Which is pretty much how the other items mentioned by ‘eleusis’ go: Peter issued something very like ‘altar calls’ in his sermons in Acts…

christianitytoday.com/history/features/ask/2003/may2.html

**When and why did the custom of conducting altar calls begin?
**Steven Gertz answers your questions
Posted May 2, 2003
Your question is tied to the history of revival and revivalism. George Whitefield, who historians identify as the key preacher of the Great Awakening, refused to speculate on how many of his listeners had been converted. “There are so many stony-ground hearers which receive the word with joy,” Whitefield said, “that I have determined to suspend my judgment till I know the tree by its fruits.” Revivals were the sole work of the Holy Spirit, and the test of time either confirmed or disproved these conversions.

But as the nineteenth century dawned, popular American Methodist preachers wanted a method to help them determine who of their listeners had been converted. Anglican churches featured an altar in front of the communion table, and ministers often encouraged parishioners to come to the altar if they needed prayer or encouragement. Methodist preachers inherited this tradition but changed its purpose, calling rather those “under conviction” to come forward to the altar. In 1801, for example, itinerant Methodist preacher Peter Cartwright told women at a camp meeting that if they promised “to pray to God for religion,” they might take a seat at the altar. Cartwright further accused parents who discouraged their children from “going to the altar” of hindering their salvation.

The altar call gained popularity in the 1830s with the preaching of Charles G. Finney. Finney rejected Calvinistic teaching that human nature was irreparably depraved; he believed only men’s wills, not their natures, needed to be converted. His “new measures,” then, set out to make regeneration as easy as possible. “A revival is not a miracle,” Finney wrote. “It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means.” In other words, preachers might create revival if they used proven methods, chief of these being the “anxious bench” or “seat of decision.” “The object of our measures is to gain attention,” Finney said, and for that “you must have something new.”

Prominent evangelists since Finney’s time, most notably D.L. Moody and Billy Graham, have continued to make use of the altar call. But if Moody used Finney’s method with enthusiasm, he was careful to avoid implying that a minister can “cause” salvation—whatever the methods used. “It is not our strength we want,” he told his volunteer counselors. “It is not our work to make them believe. That is the work of the Spirit … I cannot convert men; I can only proclaim the Gospel.”

Steven Gertz is editorial coordinator of Christian History.

posted by Jay Damien

 

[Shibboleth]

Katholikos:

But when were they “deduced”? And who “deduced” them?

Regarding the origin of Sola Fide: QUOTE **His [Martin Luther’s] ‘thunderbolt’ idea that faith alone was sufficient for salvation came, in his own words, as “knowledge the Holy Spirit gave me on the privy in the tower.” ** END QUOTE.

Source: TRIUMPH, The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church – A 2000-Year History by H.W. Crocker III, Forum, 2001, p. 237, quoted from William Manchester, A World Lit by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance (Little, Brown & Company, 1993), p. 140.

Crocker is a renowned Civil War historian and recent convert to Catholicism from Anglicanism.

Luther “found” Sola Fide in the Scriptures for the first time in the tower of the Wittenberg monastery, while studying the book of Romans (specifically in Romans 1:17), in the winter months between 1512 and 1513.

Sola Fide was a concept unknown to Christ, his Apostles, and to all Christians for the first 16 centuries of Christian history.

JMJ Jay

I am not putting this up to argue with Kath on the subject because we will inevitably say that the quotes mean different things.

I am just putting them here to give the Lutheran point of view as it stands. From our perspective we believe that Luther did coin the term Sola Fide but we do believe that it has both scriptural support and historical support.

“We are not entitled to such license, I mean that of affirming what we please; we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet; we necessarily fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings.” St. Gregory of Nyssa (On the Soul and the Resurrection NPNF II, V:439)

“What is the mark of a faithful soul? To be in these dispositions of full acceptance on the authority of the words of Scripture, not venturing to reject anything nor making additions. For, if ‘all that is not of faith is sin’ as the Apostle says, and ‘faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God,’ everything outside Holy Scripture, not being of faith, is sin.” Basil the Great (The Morals, p. 204, vol 9 TFOTC).

“We are not content simply because this is the tradition of the Fathers. What is important is that the Fathers followed the meaning of the Scripture.” St. Basil the Great (On the Holy Spirit, Chapter 7, par. 16)

Neither dare one agree with catholic bishops if by chance they err in anything, but the result that their opinion is against the canonical Scriptures of God. St. Augustine (De unitate ecclesiae, chp. 10)

For concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the Faith, not even a casual statement must be delivered without the Holy Scriptures; nor must we be drawn aside by mere plausibility and artifices of speech. Even to me, who tell you these things, give not absolute credence, unless you receive the proof of the things which I announce from the Divine Scriptures. For this salvation which we believe depends not on ingenious reasoning, but on demonstration of the Holy Scriptures. St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechetical Lectures, IV:17, in NPNF, Volume VII, p. 23.)

“The holy and inspired Scriptures are fully sufficient for the proclamation of the truth. St. Athanasius (Against the Heathen, I:3)

“The holy and inspired Scriptures are fully sufficient for the proclamation of the truth. St. Athanasius (Against the Heathen, I:3)

“Let the inspired Scriptures then be our umpire, and the vote of truth will be given to those whose dogmas are found to agree with the Divine words.” St. Gregory of Nyssa (On the Holy Trinity, NPNF, p. 327).

 

[Katholikos]

flameburns623:

The verse concludes, “he who has not believed will be damned”. From which, collated with other verses which are believed relevant to the topic, indicates that it is failure to believe which leads to damnation, irrespective of the lapse of baptism.

Proof-texting the Scriptures invariably leads to interpretation errors.

I’ve already posted the origin of the fallacy of Sola Fide, *Faith Alone. *

There is only one correct interpretation of the Scriptures. The meaning the Sacred Writers put into them is the meaning we should get out of them. To do that, we have to read the Scriptures with the mind of the Church.

The Catholic Church is the People of God, the New Israel (Gal 6:16), the new House of Jacob (Lk 1:32-33). The leaders of the Church were the authors of the New Testament. The living, organic Church was teaching before, during, and after its members wrote the NT. The authors wrote what they believed and what they had already taught orally to the local churches they had formed. All the NT writers belonged to the Church and were its leaders. They were the Church. They founded communities and taught them the Faith long before they wrote a word of what later became the NT.

The NT is a collection of writings – a large part of it are the letters written in response to problems that arose in the early local churches. It is not an instruction book in Christianity as Protestants try to make it. It is a record of the spiritual life of the newborn Catholic Church during the first 100 years or so of its existence. Period. It is the cherished family album of the Catholic Church.

The Church wrote, then later selected, collected, and canonized 27 of her many writings and named them the NT. She canonized the 46 writings of the Greek Septuagint that she had inherited as Scripture from Jesus and the Apostles. Then she put her two collections of writings together and named them ta biblia – the books – the Bible. She was nearly 400 years old at the time.

The Church had certain rules of admission for the canon. If a writing did not conform to her teaching, it was rejected. So any interpretation of the NT Scriptures that does not comport with the teaching of the Catholic Church is a misinterpretation.

JMJ Jay

 

[Shibboleth]

Katholikos:

Proof-texting the Scriptures invariably leads to interpretation errors.

Protestants do not disagree with this statement. Our sinful and imperfect nature makes it impossible for anyone to interpret Scripture infallably.

Likewise we agree that the NT books outside of the Gospel is for the most part a collection of letters that dealt with problems in the new and burgeoning church. However, our faith in the NT Scriptures comes out of our faith in Jesus and the Gospel. The Gospel informs us of the future power and writings of the Apostles as inspired.

Where everything breaks apart is with the disagreement over future infallibility with regards to apostolic succession.

Lutherans and other Protestant Churches do acknowledge other writings as important, such as the Nicene and Athanasian Creed. However, we abide by them because we feel that there is direct reference to their findings in scripture.

 

[Katholikos]

Shibboleth:

So no, not everything that we follow is explicitly stated in the Bible, we cannot and do not – from a Protestant Point of View – have the ability to create something that is at Par with, Contradicts, or Supersedes the Scriptures.

Nothing the Catholic Church teaches contradicts or supersedes the Scriptures, Protestant allegations notwithstanding. Sacred Apostolic Tradition is equally the Word of God and is “on a par” with the oral Sacred Apostolic Tradition that got written down and canonized as the NT (2 Thess 2:15). The Church didn’t come out of the NT; rather, the NT Scriptures came out of the Catholic Church.

Please provide your “inspired list of Scriptures” that belong in the Bible. Without an “inspired table of contents” you can’t say which writings are Scripture and which are not. Well, you can say it, but you have no authority for the writings you include or reject – other than Luther, of course, and we know his history. You accept his rejection of 7 writings plus parts of Esther and Daniel from the OT, but not his rejection of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation from the NT. I guess you figure he was half right.

JMJ Jay

 

[Katholikos]

Shibboleth wrote:

The Gospel informs us of the future power and writings of the Apostles as inspired.

What Gospel?

What Bible? Whose canon? Read my first post on the thread by this name on the apologetics forum.

The Apostles didn’t write the NT. We don’t even know how many of the Twelve could read and write! Jesus didn’t tell them to write; he told them to teach. And teach they did!

The Church wrote the NT as the Agent of the Holy Spirit – the Apostles were her leaders. A few of them wrote (three?) – John, Peter, and (?) maybe Matthew. Much of the NT is anonymous. The Catholic Church added the authors’ names. St. Paul wrote a huge chunk of it, but he wasn’t one of the Twelve. The Gospels don’t tell us to read a book.

There was no NT and no Bible for the first 4 centuries of Christianity. That’s what makes Sola Scriptura such a ludicrous doctrine.

JMJ Jay

 

[Katholikos]

Shibboleth wrote:

Where everything breaks apart is with the disagreement over future infallibility with regards to apostolic succession.

So Christ meant that first generation Christians could know the truth that would set them free (John 8:32), but that later generations of Christians couldn’t be sure? That one could be sure that the Apostles (and maybe St. Paul) would teach the truth, but Sts. Timothy and Titus wouldn’t have this same guarantee of truth when they taught faith and morals? And after Timothy and Titus, Linus and Clement? And after Linus and Clement . . .?

Then, forget Christianity. I’ll have no part of any ‘do-it-yourself,’ relativistic religion. My mind rebels against the idea of being my own Pope. That’s why I left Protestantism and eventually became an atheist (though I knew nothing of Apostolic Succession and Popes at the time).

JMJ Jay

 

[Katholikos]

Shibboleth:

I am not putting this up to argue with Kath on the subject because we will inevitably say that the quotes mean different things.

I am just putting them here to give the Lutheran point of view as it stands. From our perspective we believe that Luther did coin the term Sola Fide but we do believe that it has both scriptural support and historical support.

Sola Fide has neither historical nor scriptural support except as the concept is read into them [eisegesis]. It was not taught by Jesus and the Apostles.

The quotes from the Fathers from Shibboleth’s post are not repeated here because of space constraints.

Shibboleth, if you had you read the entire body of writings of St. Athanasius and St. Basil and the others you quoted, you’d know that they were not Sola Scriptura believers. You and others are proof-texting the Early Church Fathers the same way Protestants proof-text the Scriptures – you give a distorted view of the Fathers’ beliefs. If you were sincere in wanting to know their position, you’d have read them holistically – you’d read all of what they have to say about the Scriptures and Sacred Tradition, examine the context of what they’re teaching, and not just pick out a line or two, that in isolation you believe proves your point.

Here’s some of what St. Basil wrote that you didn’t quote: "Of the beliefs and practices whether generally accepted or enjoined which are preserved in the Church, some we possess derived from written teaching; others we have delivered to us in a mystery to the apostles by the tradition of the apostles; and both of these in relation to true religion have the same force (On The Holy Spirit, 27).

Also from St. Basil, “For I hold it apostolic to abide by the unwitten traditions. ‘I praise you,’ it is said [by Paul in 1 Cor 11:1] ‘that you . . . keep the traditions just as I handed them on to you,’ and 'Hold fast to the traditions that you were taught whether by an oral statement or by a letter of ours [2 Thess 2:15]” (On the Holy Spirit 71).

Here’s a snippet from St. Athanasius: [T]he very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning was preached [orally] by the apostles and preserved by the Fathers. On this the Church was founded; and if anyone departs from this, he neither is nor any longer ought to be called a Christian (Ad Serapion 1:28).

That’s enough to make my point. You presented a distorted view of the teaching of these Early Church Fathers by your selective quotes. One liners taken out of context do not make a theology.

JMJ Jay

 

[Katholikos]

Shibboleth,

Sola Fide was Luther’s doctrine, revealed to him in the 16th century by the Holy Spirit (so he thought) while he was on the privy. (See my earlier post for documentation.)

Representatives of 61.7 million of the world’s 64.5 million Lutherans (94.3%) in the Lutheran World Federation signed the Lutheran-Catholic Joint Declaration on Justification in 1999. The salient part of the agreement reads: “Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.”

The LWF essentially came to a Catholic POV on this issue of Justification. Sola Fide had its origin in Luther’s now five-centuries-old misunderstanding of Catholic doctrine.

I take it that your particular Lutheran group was not a signer?

Good article here: firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9912/articles/dulles.html

Peace be with you,

JMJ Jay