Objective Truth in Scripture

[Bwsherman]

If you are correct in stating that they have weak legs to stand on, I would like to hear from a Protestant point of view how one would justify this situation. Also, if the Church is not right in her claiming that she alone can interpret scripture. That is to say that she indeed is not “the pilar and foundation of Truth”. (1 Tim 3:15). How can anyone who is not Catholic accept teachings that stem from the Church? I really do not mean to sound rude or crass, but I would just like to understand the other side’s point of view.

Pax

 

[mercygate]

Mercygate come on now.Mary is never called the new Eve in scripture. This is purely an RCC doctrine and was never taught in the early church.

Justin Martyr (around 100 A.D.) in the Dialog Against Trypho & Irenaeus of Lyons (before 200) in Adversus Haeresis, both delineate the concept of Mary as “undoing” the sin of Eve. The idea is taken up consistently in the patristic period.

This logic is used to defend the error that is made in Genesis 3:15. It goes something like this: The RCC recognizes that Jesus defeats Satan and that Genesis 3:15 is an allusion to our great savior. But we the RCC see it as an allusion to the entire virgin birth. Given Mary’s cooperation with GOD to give birth to Jesus she indirectly participates in our salvation. That’s called the title of co-mediatrix. Instead of just saying that a copy error was made from the Latin to English they can’t. Why? Because a Pope has already declared it doctrine so it has to be defended.
PEACE

I’m not sure which doctrine you are referring to. But I checked this statement. It is not a copy error. It’s a matter of translation from Hebrew, where the meaning can be “he, she, or it.” Jerome used “she” but my source states that he uses the masculine form elsewhere. Moreover the *Nova Vulgata – *the current official edition of the Latin Bible for the Catholic Church – uses “ipse” (him). So the teaching does not depend on the pronoun. There is no confusion that Christ is the ultimate conqueror of the serpent or that he is the seed.

 

[ralphinal]

If you are correct in stating that they have weak legs to stand on, I would like to hear from a Protestant point of view how one would justify this situation. Also, if the Church is not right in her claiming that she alone can interpret scripture. That is to say that she indeed is not “the pilar and foundation of Truth”. (1 Tim 3:15). How can anyone who is not Catholic accept teachings that stem from the Church? I really do not mean to sound rude or crass, but I would just like to understand the other side’s point of view.

Pax

If I were you, I would contact Bengal_Fan. He is exceptionally knowledgeable about all things non-Catholic. He also has a good deal of understanding of the Catholic Faith. He might be best able to answer this.

I know that it is easy to accept some of what we teach even if you do not accept it all. You just say where you think we got off track. The ones that I do not understand are the ones who think that EVRYTHING we do is from satan. How they pick and choose, I do not know.

 

[mercygate]

Well I agree with your points. But again you can’t say that only the RCC possesses the absolute infallible truth. To say that you have to be more than reasonable, otherwise it’s just opinion. Protestants believe in the resurrection as well. But the main point here is not the things both sides agree on. It’s in the points of disagreement. Someone might protest for good reasons and could in fact be right.

To the point I made to you earlier. There is an error in Genesis 3 in the RCC Bible. Now that doctrine has been written based on that error, does that mean the truth still resides within the RCC. Absolutely not. That would be like a school teaching 2+2=5 because someone made a copy error and still asserting that it is the absolute infallible truth. If someone deviated from that and started teaching that 2+2=4 they would be called protestant. Based on the original statement the infallible truth would still reside within the school teaching 2+2=5.

I have enjoyed pursuing this challenge. Here is the note accompanying the passage in the Douay-Rheims translation:

D-R (with note) I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.

(note) 15* “She shall crush”… Ipsa, the woman; so divers of the fathers read this place, conformably to the Latin: others read it ipsum, viz., the seed. The sense is the same: for it is by her seed, Jesus Christ, that the woman crushes the serpent’s head. *
The NAB (approved lectionary for the RCC in the US) reads as follows:

NAB: I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel."

While I appreciate the challenge and the knowledge I have gained from chasing all this down, it IS rather tiresome to go through all of this and end up right back where we started before the red herring swam past.