Protestant belief in Sola Scriptura

[seascale]

There seems to be a lot of dancing around the real issues here. Allow me to share why I have a very hard time accepting the notion that the Church has taught infallibly. There are multiple examples I have, but I will give one: The Church teaching concerning prayers to the saints is clearly contrary to the entire thrust of Scripture. Allow me to explain.

History is the story of God’s pursuit of man. The greatest story of all, the Gospel story, is of God bringing men into fellowship with Himself. God is not needful of fellowship with man, of course, but it is His good pleasure. Before the fall of man this fellowship was unbroken and God spoke directly to Adam. After the fall, however, sin entered the picture, violating God’s righteousness, and creating separation between God and man. Yet God’s pursuit of man continued unabated. God made a covenant with Abram to this end and we know the tumultuous history of Israel. Under this old covenant, there was still separation between God and man, but through animal sacrifices and the Levitical priesthood, the nation of Israel had access to God. Yet even the high priest only entered into God’s presence, the holy of holies in the temple, once a year. A veil separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple and between God and man. The fellowship God desired was incomplete and so He sent His Son to make a new covenant. When Christ commended His spirit to God on the cross the veil in the temple was torn. Man was still sinful, but was now covered by the righteousness of Christ thereby restoring fellowship between God and man. With the veil gone, man had direct access, for the first time since the fall of mankind, to God. The Levitical priesthood, through which man once went in order to have fellowship with God, was replaced by the Great High Priest: Jesus Christ himself. To this end, the Apostle Paul writes: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way as we are - yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:15, 16) So close is this fellowship, in fact, that God even gave Christians the gift of His Holy Spirit to dwell within us. His spirit communes with ours and "…the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." (Romans 8:26, 27)

The thrust here is that petitioning of the saints seems contrary to the theme of history and all that God has wrought. The Catholic doctrine provides for a bypass of Christ. I understand Christ is still inextricably involved in the process, but the Christian ultimately directs their petition to someone other than Christ under this paradigm. Yet God would have direct fellowship with man rather than, if you will, through-the-vine fellowship. Imagine a husband and wife who communicate even 50% of the time through their children. How close would that relationship be? Time spent in prayer to God is time spent with God. Without good communication and quality time no relationship of value can truly be established.

Christians are always complaining they do not have enough time to pray as they would like. If those moments are precious few, why would we use them for anything other than fellowship directly with God?

 

[Mea_Culpa]

If the Holy Spirit continues to guide the apostolic successors *in the same way *He guided the apostles writing the New Testament, then why has the canon been closed?

Because the Catholic Church declared it closed.

I would argue the canon has been closed because only those writings of the apostles are, in fact, infallible.

Only those writings declared part of the canon of Scripture by the Catholic Church are infallible.

It seems to me the early Church fathers were careful to distinguish between their own authority and that of the Apostles.

Polycarp: “Wherefore, forsaking the vanity of many, and their false doctrines, let us return to the word which has been handed down to us from the beginning”

At the time of Polycarp, there was no New Testament - he was talking about Sacred Tradition, transmitted through the Church.

Clement I: “Ye are fond of contention, brethren, and full of zeal about things which do not pertain to salvation. Look carefully into the Scriptures, which are the true utterances of the Holy Spirit. Observe that nothing of an unjust or counterfeit character is written in them.”

This is from The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. Thank you for bringing it up. It was written approximately in 60 AD by Clement, who is held to be the third successor of Peter as Bishop of Rome. The Church at Corinth was experiencing problems with dissension, jealousy, etc., so they appealed to Clement for guidance. The letter starts out:

The Church of God which sojourns at Rome, to the Church of God sojourning at Corinth, to them that are called and sanctified by the will of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ

What we see here is that the Church at Rome, and the Bishop of Rome, was already, as of 60 AD seen by the other churches as the place to look to for guidance. The See of Peter was seen from the beginning of the Church as having a special place, a pre-eminence.

In the same letter, Clement writes:

The Apostles received the gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ; and Jesus Christ was sent from God. Christ, therefore, is from God, and the Apostles are from Christ. Both of these orderly arrangements, then, are by God’s will. Receiving their instructions and being full of confidence on account of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and confirmed in faith by the word of God, they went forth in the complete assurance of the Holy Spirit, preaching the good news that the Kingdom of God is coming. Through countryside and city they preached; **and they appointed their earliest converts, testing them by the spirit, to be the bishops and deacons of future believers. ** Now was this a novelty: for bishops and deacons had been written about a long time earlier. Indeed, Scripture somewhere says: “I will set up their bishops in righteousness and their deacons in faith.”

Clement is here summarizing how the Church grew from its Apostolic roots - that it is through the Church and the bishops and deacons that the deposit of faith will be passed on from generation to generation. The authority of the Apostles is passed down to their successors - it’s called Apostolic Succession. Part of what was passed down was written down and became Sacred Scripture - and everything in Sacred Scripture is true, as Clement says. But not everything that is true is in Sacred Scripture. The fullness of the truth is to be found in the Body of Christ - The Catholic Church, of which Clement was one of the first Popes.

 

[Mea_Culpa]

There seems to be a lot of dancing around the real issues here. Allow me to share why I have a very hard time accepting the notion that the Church has taught infallibly. There are multiple examples I have, but I will give one: The Church teaching concerning prayers to the saints is clearly contrary to the entire thrust of Scripture. Allow me to explain.

History is the story of God’s pursuit of man. The greatest story of all, the Gospel story, is of God bringing men into fellowship with Himself. God is not needful of fellowship with man, of course, but it is His good pleasure. Before the fall of man this fellowship was unbroken and God spoke directly to Adam. After the fall, however, sin entered the picture, violating God’s righteousness, and creating separation between God and man. Yet God’s pursuit of man continued unabated. God made a covenant with Abram to this end and we know the tumultuous history of Israel. Under this old covenant, there was still separation between God and man, but through animal sacrifices and the Levitical priesthood, the nation of Israel had access to God. Yet even the high priest only entered into God’s presence, the holy of holies in the temple, once a year. A veil separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple and between God and man. The fellowship God desired was incomplete and so He sent His Son to make a new covenant. When Christ commended His spirit to God on the cross the veil in the temple was torn. Man was still sinful, but was now covered by the righteousness of Christ thereby restoring fellowship between God and man. With the veil gone, man had direct access, for the first time since the fall of mankind, to God. The Levitical priesthood, through which man once went in order to have fellowship with God, was replaced by the Great High Priest: Jesus Christ himself. To this end, the Apostle Paul writes: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way as we are - yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:15, 16) So close is this fellowship, in fact, that God even gave Christians the gift of His Holy Spirit to dwell within us. His spirit communes with ours and "…the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." (Romans 8:26, 27)

The thrust here is that petitioning of the saints seems contrary to the theme of history and all that God has wrought. The Catholic doctrine provides for a bypass of Christ. I understand Christ is still inextricably involved in the process, but the Christian ultimately directs their petition to someone other than Christ under this paradigm. Yet God would have direct fellowship with man rather than, if you will, through-the-vine fellowship. Imagine a husband and wife who communicate even 50% of the time through their children. How close would that relationship be? Time spent in prayer to God is time spent with God. Without good communication and quality time no relationship of value can truly be established.

Christians are always complaining they do not have enough time to pray as they would like. If those moments are precious few, why would we use them for anything other than fellowship directly with God?

Besides being wrong - what does any of this have to do with sola scriptura?

 

[Mea_Culpa]

In response, I would like to quote from another author, Norman Geisler. In response to Akin’s challenge (actually, not to Akin specifically, but to the challenge in general) Geisler writes:

"…the Bible, like any normal human communication, needs no interpretive framework superimposed on it. All it needs is good exegesis, that is, reading the meaning out of it that the author put into it…In other words, the Bible simply needs historical-grammatical exegesis…

“Further…even if outside sources are used as an aid in understanding (such as understanding words and cultural setting), these need not be infallible to be helpful. Using such sources is a daily and common practice by both laypersons and scholars. It is sufficient for everyday life. It is used to understand road signs, news reports, and books. Housewives, courts, and judges employ it. There is nothing special, uncommon, or infallible about it. Yet it is sufficient for life and death matters. It provides an adequate and sufficient means for discovering truth without either claiming to be or being infallible…Why then is an infallible guide (other than the Holy Spirit) needed when approaching Scripture? The fact is there is no such need. Indeed, historically, we can compare the results of this sola Scriptura method with the results of the early Fathers, and the results are the same on all the basic doctrines of the Christian Church. This should be no surprise because the commonsense, everyday (historical-grammatical) method is the same one used by the early Fathers when they derived the essential doctrines of the faith from Holy Scripture.”

So, the followers of sola scriptura reach the same conclusions as the Church Fathers? I don’t think so. One example is the Eucharist. Universally, the Church Fathers saw the Eucharist as the real body and blood of Jesus. For example, St. Justin Martyr says

For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus.

Or course, anybody reading John ch. 6 would reach the same conclusions - that the Eucharist is the real flesh and blood of Jesus. The problem is that most followers of the false doctrine of sola scriptura don’t believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. They read the words in Scripture, but make them mean something else - even though from the beginning the Church Fathers saw the Eucharist as the Real Presence.

So, to say that sola scriptura leads to the same essential doctrines as those espoused by the Church Fathers is a lie. Followers of sola scriptura pick and choose from Sacred Scripture to justify whatever doctrines they have invented.

 

[simspt]

I was responding to those Catholics who make the claim that the Catholic Church created the New Testament. Newton did not create gravity. He simply recognized it for what it was. The same is true with the Church and the canon. I would caution against statements which have the appearance of placing too much confidence in man. I would rather explicitly attribute it all to God. If we do not make this distinction clearly, the object of our faith (God) is displaced (by confidence in man), whether formally or just in practice.

For many years I regarded the New Testament writings as the greatest thing God had ever given us. However I eventually realized that belief did not look at the testimony of the Scriptures themselves. The greatest thing God has given us is a call to a people moved by the Holy Spirit to respond to his Son Jesus Christ who has called into being a Church, a community and therefore in a sense we must put the Bible in its place. Obviously the Bible is an extraordinarily important witness, a unique witness, a witness that preserves Jesus for us. But still there were Christians before there was a single NT book. Christianity did not start to exist with the New Testament. We must have a priority of what God wanted. For example the Gospels are the tradition of the Church about Jesus. We say Jesus said and did things but how do we know this? Because people went out and preached them and they adapted the message as the Church has had to and continues to do today. These were a people of a different time and culture that the Church asked how to make what Jesus did in Palestine meaningful to them. The Apostolic preachers were already doing this and the Evangelists did it further when they wrote down the Gospels. The Gospels are the TRADITION offered to us as a basis for faith and morals. IT IS A DISTORTION to claim you don’t need a communicating Church because this written word has frozen once and for all Jesus. He is a living person in a living Church.

 

[simspt]

In response, I would like to quote from another author, Norman Geisler. In response to Akin’s challenge (actually, not to Akin specifically, but to the challenge in general) Geisler writes:

"…the Bible, like any normal human communication, needs no interpretive framework superimposed on it. All it needs is good exegesis, that is, reading the meaning out of it that the author put into it…In other words, the Bible simply needs historical-grammatical exegesis…

“Further…even if outside sources are used as an aid in understanding (such as understanding words and cultural setting), these need not be infallible to be helpful. Using such sources is a daily and common practice by both laypersons and scholars. It is sufficient for everyday life. It is used to understand road signs, news reports, and books. Housewives, courts, and judges employ it. There is nothing special, uncommon, or infallible about it. Yet it is sufficient for life and death matters. It provides an adequate and sufficient means for discovering truth without either claiming to be or being infallible…Why then is an infallible guide (other than the Holy Spirit) needed when approaching Scripture? The fact is there is no such need. Indeed, historically, we can compare the results of this sola Scriptura method with the results of the early Fathers, and the results are the same on all the basic doctrines of the Christian Church. This should be no surprise because the commonsense, everyday (historical-grammatical) method is the same one used by the early Fathers when they derived the essential doctrines of the faith from Holy Scripture.”

I have great respect for Norm Geisler. He is a Evangelical philosopher who has been influential to many conservative Christians. However to compare the Church Fathers and their teachings and some how claim support for his method of interpretation of the Bible is unconvincing. The Church Fathers repetitively referred to Church authority in response to defending teachings. All basic doctrines?? The Eucharist is not a basic doctrine? Evangelicals using the Catholic Fathers of the Church to support their anti-Catholic position is probably not the most historically convincing option. Most Evangelicals do not know much about Church history or if they do seem to not be very objective with the data.

 

[inkaneer]

I hate to belabor the point, but according to Aquinas, if the Church teaches something that is not in the Bible, then we shouldn’t believe it (only in so far as they tell us those things which the apostles and prophets have left in their writings). Notice the word only: “We believe the successors of the apostles and prophets only in so far as they tell us those things which the apostles and prophets have left in their writings.”

I will concede that this shouldn’t be taken as excluding concepts that are clearly conveyed, though not explicitly stated, in Scripture (such as the Trinity).

So tell us then what doctrines does the church teach that are not conveyed in Holy Writ. Is it the immaculate Conception? I think that is more clearly conveyed in scripture than the Trinity. Is it the Assumption? That too is conveyed in scripture. Are either of them explicitly stated? No, but then our understanding of the Trinity is not explicitly stated as you acknowledge. In fact a reading of scripture would not result in an understanding of the Trintity as we know it because our understanding is expressed in Greek philosophical terminology that is completely foreign to the scriptures. Lastly Thomas Aquinas was a great theologian as was Cyril, Augustine and a number of other early church writers. But as great as they were they were not infallible. In fact, Aquinas made a number of errors in his writings such as determining that the soul entered a fetus at the “quickening”. But I am sure that were Aquinas alive today he would say that there is nothing inherent in the Doctrine of the Assumption that contradicts Holy Writ.

 

[inkaneer]

There seems to be a lot of dancing around the real issues here. Allow me to share why I have a very hard time accepting the notion that the Church has taught infallibly. There are multiple examples I have, but I will give one: The Church teaching concerning prayers to the saints is clearly contrary to the entire thrust of Scripture. Allow me to explain.

History is the story of God’s pursuit of man. The greatest story of all, the Gospel story, is of God bringing men into fellowship with Himself. God is not needful of fellowship with man, of course, but it is His good pleasure. Before the fall of man this fellowship was unbroken and God spoke directly to Adam. After the fall, however, sin entered the picture, violating God’s righteousness, and creating separation between God and man. Yet God’s pursuit of man continued unabated. God made a covenant with Abram to this end and we know the tumultuous history of Israel. Under this old covenant, there was still separation between God and man, but through animal sacrifices and the Levitical priesthood, the nation of Israel had access to God. Yet even the high priest only entered into God’s presence, the holy of holies in the temple, once a year. A veil separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple and between God and man. The fellowship God desired was incomplete and so He sent His Son to make a new covenant. When Christ commended His spirit to God on the cross the veil in the temple was torn. Man was still sinful, but was now covered by the righteousness of Christ thereby restoring fellowship between God and man. With the veil gone, man had direct access, for the first time since the fall of mankind, to God. The Levitical priesthood, through which man once went in order to have fellowship with God, was replaced by the Great High Priest: Jesus Christ himself. To this end, the Apostle Paul writes: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way as we are - yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:15, 16) So close is this fellowship, in fact, that God even gave Christians the gift of His Holy Spirit to dwell within us. His spirit communes with ours and "…the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." (Romans 8:26, 27)

The thrust here is that petitioning of the saints seems contrary to the theme of history and all that God has wrought. The Catholic doctrine provides for a bypass of Christ. I understand Christ is still inextricably involved in the process, but the Christian ultimately directs their petition to someone other than Christ under this paradigm. Yet God would have direct fellowship with man rather than, if you will, through-the-vine fellowship. Imagine a husband and wife who communicate even 50% of the time through their children. How close would that relationship be? Time spent in prayer to God is time spent with God. Without good communication and quality time no relationship of value can truly be established.

Christians are always complaining they do not have enough time to pray as they would like. If those moments are precious few, why would we use them for anything other than fellowship directly with God?

That is because the protestant idea of what is church ends with physical death. That is why protestants will pray to a fellow member of their denomination to interceed for them with God but will not pray to a heavenly saint to do the same thing. But to Catholics, Church does not end with physical death. Church is the Body of Christ and the saints in heaven are definitely in the church. Thus Catholics who are not hampered by physical death as protestants can ask the heavenly saints to interceed for them. Not only do Catholics have a greater prayer circle than any protestant, Catholics got a more effective one too for scripture says the prayer of a righteous man availeth much and who is more righteous, a heavenly saint or a sinner on earth?

 

[Philthy]

I still await an answer as to what he meant, then, when he said “we believe the successors of the apostles and prophets only in so far as they tell us those things which the apostles and prophets have left in their writings.” Aquinas specifically excludes oral tradition in this quote. It’s pretty black and white, and I am not hearing any convincing arguments to the contrary.

Black and white? What is black and white is that Aquinas devoted his entire life to the Catholic Church and was canonized a Saint by the same. The papacy and Magisterium were well established and if he even hinted anything contrary to the faith such as you propose, he would not have been canonized. You need to come to grips with that. Anyhow, to answer your question, I would say that he meant that when a successor teaches something contrary to Scripture we do not accept it. He most certainly did not say that since we have the writings of the apostles and prophets we have no use for the successors.

if the successors to the apostles and prophets are infallible, why wouldn’t we believe them regardless of whether they tell us those things which the apostles and prophets have left in their writings? It is a salient question to which no real answer has yet been provided.

I can think of a couple reasons:

1. they do not usually speak infallibly - only rarely. Just like the apostles did not always speak, act or write infallibly.
2. Scripture remains a part of God’s revelation and remains useful for judging the truthfulness of their teachings.

 

[Philthy]

If the Holy Spirit continues to guide the apostolic successors *in the same way *He guided the apostles writing the New Testament, then why has the canon been closed? I would argue the canon has been closed because only those writings of the apostles are, in fact, infallible.

And your argument would be immediately refuted by the fact that the Apostles didnt write all of the NT.

 

[hellopeople]

And your argument would be immediately refuted by the fact that the Apostles didnt write all of the NT.

Yes, it is even possible that the apostles did not write any of the NT (unless you consider Paul an apostle, which is something he considered himself).

 

[Philthy]

It seems to me the early Church fathers were careful to distinguish between their own authority and that of the Apostles.

I think this might be a little wishful thinking. This is certainly not the case with St. Clement, whom you chose to quote, and St Ignatious. Have you actually read their writings? Im no expert, but I remember a couple things that he said that directly contradict your claim. Some of Clements writings were considered for inclusion in the canon of Scripture, you know…

From Jurgens’ The Faith of the Early Fathers, Clement’s Letter to the Corinthians:
“If anyone disobey the things which have been said by Him through us, let them know that they will involve themselves in transgression and in no small danger.”[59,1]

That would be Clement claiming to speak for “Him”, ie God, Christ.

“You will afford us joy and gladness if, being obedient to the things which we have written through the Holy Spirit…in this letter.”[63,2]

That would be Clement claiming to have “written through the Holy Spirit”
Clement is not alone in this regard. Here’s a little more from St Ignatious’ Letter to the Philadelphians:

"I cried out while I was in your midst, I spoke with a loud voice, the voice of God:
“Give heed to the bishop and the presbytery and the deacons”….It was the Spirit who kept preaching these words: “Do nothing without the bishop, keep your body as a temple of God, love unity, flee from divisions…”[7,1]

Pretty radical stuff, huh? Anyhow, your claim that they “distinguished their authority” is a bit off the mark. Some of them, as demonstrated above, claimed to be speaking for God.

Here’s one last tidbit for you to consider from Ignatious. It seems our type of disagreements are nothing new!

" Indeed, I heard some men saying: “If I do not find it in the official records in the gospel I do not believe.” And when I made answer to them, “It is written!” they replied, “That is the point at issue.”

Kinda funny, huh? Some things never change…

Blessings!

 

[seascale]

Besides being wrong - what does any of this have to do with sola scriptura?

I’m glad you asked!

The Protestant says “Sola Scriptura” while the Catholic says the “Bible plus Tradition.” The Protestant objects and reminds the Catholic that Jesus railed against the traditions of men. The Catholic responds they only uphold the traditions of God and refers the Protestant to verses such as 2 Thessalonians 3:6, where believers are exhorted to pass along the tradition which they have received. The Catholic tells the Protestant that the traditions of the Catholic Church are these very same traditions spoken of in the New Testament. Since the content of those traditions is never described in the New Testament, however, both the Catholic and Protestant must take it on faith that the two traditions are one and the same or else reject the claim.

When the Pharisees confronted Christ about his disciples not following the traditions of the elders, Christ explained exactly what was wrong with their traditions: “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3) Christ then goes on to explain how the Pharisees nullified God’s law through their traditions. My explanation, using the example of prayers to the saints, shows what I believe to be a nullifying of God’s commands. I also firmly believe that if the Catholic Church operated on Sola Scriptura, then there never would be this notion of prayers to the saints.

So, I mentioned how the notion of praying to the saints places a degree of separation between the supplicant and God. There is another reason, I believe, why this tradition is contrary to the whole of the Bible. In particular, I find objectionable on the grounds of faith. Prayer, of course, requires faith. More specifically, it requires faith in God. We know that God places a high premium on faith because, as we are told in Hebrews 11:6, “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” If I may digress for a moment, notice this ties in with the previous discussion in that God desires fellowship with man (as evidenced by the fact that He wants man to seek Him and when man does earnestly seek Him, He in turn rewards man). Back to the present argument, in what do we have faith? That God is able to answer our prayers? Yes, but much more than that, that He hears us and is a good Father who will respond (“anyone who comes to him must believe…that he rewards those”). St. James says it thusly: “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.” (James 1:5-8) This principle is given also by Christ Himself in Matthew 21:21, 22.

Somebody responded to me by referencing James 5:16 (“The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much”) in defense of the Catholic doctrine. Yet as Christians, we are righteous. Not intrinsically, but under the blood of the Lamb (for Christ is our righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30)). Moreover, we have Christ and the Holy Spirit, the very embodiments of righteousness, who intercede on our behalf. To believe this, however, requires a faith in God, that what He has done through Christ is adequate and complete. If someone fears their prayer will be ineffective, then they lack faith that God will reward those who earnestly seek Him. If someone fears their prayer will not be received or heard by God, then they lack faith that the blood of Christ is sufficient to restore direct fellowship with God. In essence, the idea of the communion of saints, removes the requirement of faith. The petitioner is relying on the relationship of the petitioned to God rather than their own relationship, through Christ, with God. Finally, the petitioner is relying on the faith of the petitioned to obtain a favorable response from God. The doctrine makes for a convenient escape clause, but appears contrary to the requirements of God: that we have faith in Him and in what He has done for us through Christ’s sacrifice.

 

[seascale]

At the time of Polycarp, there was no New Testament - he was talking about Sacred Tradition, transmitted through the Church.

Agreed, but they already had many (probably all) of the books which make up the New Testament (they just hadn’t been combined into a single canon at that point). In addition, the entire gospel message can be found in the Old Testament. The New Testament is merely the account of its fullfillment.

Here’s some interesting trivia which shows how the early Fathers esteemed the writings of the apostles (and their close associates, as was the case with Luke): If you take the writings of only seven of the major Fathers from Justin Martyr to Eusebius, you will find 36,289 citations of New Testament Scripture. In fact, together they quote in their works the entire New Testament with the exception of eleven verses (most of which are from 3 John).

Cool, huh?

 

[seascale]

So, to say that sola scriptura leads to the same essential doctrines as those espoused by the Church Fathers is a lie.

You and I will disagree on this, but I do not believe transubstantiation is an essential doctrine. Also, I think it is worthwhile to point out that Protestants, Orthodox, and Catholics all affirm the early Church councils. The contention of Protestants is that the Catholic Church began to imbibe some false ideas shortly after the time of Constantine.

Followers of sola scriptura pick and choose from Sacred Scripture to justify whatever doctrines they have invented.

I know this is the crux of the debate, and so I await a coherent response to the explanation I have given concerning why Protestants believe in the real spiritual presence of Christ in the elements, but not in transubstantiation.

 

[seascale]

We say Jesus said and did things but how do we know this? Because people went out and preached them and they adapted the message as the Church has had to and continues to do today. These were a people of a different time and culture that the Church asked how to make what Jesus did in Palestine meaningful to them.

Maybe (I hope) I am misunderstanding you, but no, the message of the gospel does not need to be “adapted.” It is a timeless message that transcends race and culture. It is meaningful to people because it addresses our human condition, upon which race and culture have no bearing.

 

[seascale]

So tell us then what doctrines does the church teach that are not conveyed in Holy Writ. Is it the immaculate Conception? I think that is more clearly conveyed in scripture than the Trinity.

I would certainly have to disagree with this. We see in the Scriptures that Mary was highly favored of God, but that is a long ways away from being without sin. The implication isn’t even there! David was also favored by God, but we all know he sinned.

There are passages, such as Galatians 4:6 (“And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”) and Ephesians 2:18 (“For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.”) which show a very clear and explicit relationship between the three parts of the Trinity. They even indicate something of the relationship between them. Based on verses such as these, they were able, at the Council of Nicaea to form the portion of the creed where we proclaim: “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord the Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son.” (though “and the Son” wasn’t added until the Third Council of Toledo in 589AD)

 

[seascale]

That is because the protestant idea of what is church ends with physical death.

Not sure where you got that idea. We don’t believe you can commune with the dead, but we do understand the concepts of the church militant and the church triumphant.

That is why protestants will pray to a fellow member of their denomination to interceed for them with God but will not pray to a heavenly saint to do the same thing.

I trust you misspoke. We do not pray to eachother. We pray to the Trinity alone. We do pray with each other, just as Catholics do.

Not only do Catholics have a greater prayer circle than any protestant, Catholics got a more effective one too for scripture says the prayer of a righteous man availeth much and who is more righteous, a heavenly saint or a sinner on earth?

See my response to this (post #249)

 

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I can think of a couple reasons:

1. they do not usually speak infallibly - only rarely. Just like the apostles did not always speak, act or write infallibly.

So, you mean to tell me Catholics are only required to believe those things which have been pronounced by the Catholic Church infallibly? I know this is not true. Nowhere does the Catholic Church encourage its laity to be “cafeteria Catholics.” No, as a Catholic you are supposed to accept all Catholic doctrine.

1. Scripture remains a part of God’s revelation and remains useful for judging the truthfulness of their teachings.

Sorry, but I doubt there are many Catholics who would challenge the Magisterium, let alone the Pope. The RCC teaches that if you believe a Catholic doctrine to be in error, then the fact is you are in error! If you evaluate a Catholic doctrine against Scripture and find that doctrine to be contrary to Scripture, then your choices are to shut up about it, or present yourself for execommunication. Yes, yes, I know, the RCC tends to be much more gracious than that, as evidenced in its treatment of the likes of Nancy Pelosi and the now deceased Ted Kennedy. But the point is that you don’t have a leg to stand on. Your not even supposed to be judging the truthfulness of their teachings because it is not your prerogative, according to the Catholic Church.

 

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From Jurgens’ The Faith of the Early Fathers, Clement’s Letter to the Corinthians:
“If anyone disobey the things which have been said by Him through us, let them know that they will involve themselves in transgression and in no small danger.”[59,1]

Is this from his First Epistle to the Corinthians? If so, I cannot find it. Please provide a specific reference.

Clement is not alone in this regard. Here’s a little more from St Ignatious’ Letter to the Philadelphians:

"I cried out while I was in your midst, I spoke with a loud voice, the voice of God:
“Give heed to the bishop and the presbytery and the deacons”….It was the Spirit who kept preaching these words: “Do nothing without the bishop, keep your body as a temple of God, love unity, flee from divisions…”[7,1]

Once again, please provide a specific reference (i.e. which epistle and chapter is this from). I cannot find this quote in my copy of his writings (it may be a translation difference, who translated the copy you are using?).

Here’s one last tidbit for you to consider from Ignatious. It seems our type of disagreements are nothing new!

" Indeed, I heard some men saying: “If I do not find it in the official records in the gospel I do not believe.” And when I made answer to them, “It is written!” they replied, “That is the point at issue.”

Kinda funny, huh? Some things never change…

Agreed. As Ecclesiastes says, there is nothing new under the sun. What is odd to me, however, is that if the primacy of the pope was firmly in place from the beginning, then why weren’t all of the heretics (Arius, Nestorius, etc. etc. etc.) simply thrown out of the Church? Why bother to convene a council? The pope could have simply uttered an infallible clarification that showed the heretics to be wrong and that would have been the end of the story.