Protestant Theologian Karl Barth on Sola Scriptura

[Wannano]

That’s not what he said and nobody here believes that.

This forum as a whole is extremely well behaved, unlike some of the anti-Catholic forums I have seen.

I have gone back over several posts from Topper in this thread and I arrive at the conclusion that it is in fact what he is saying…maybe not in one sentence but it seems evident in the thrust of his vigorous exclamations not only to me but with almost all others here. In the CARM forum I also feel the anti-Catholic sentiment that I dislike as well. What you feel there, I feel here on this thread. I am comforted to know that no one else here believes it.

I want to clarify that I was not stating that I find Catholics horrible and mean in fact I am impressed with most here. Us non-catholics do have to realize that we are guests here and that your Church does claim to be the one true and only church but if you want us all to see the light hold it up so it illuminates the path, don’t bash us over the head with the lantern.

 

[Lenten_ashes]

I have gone back over several posts from Topper in this thread and I arrive at the conclusion that it is in fact what he is saying…maybe not in one sentence but it seems evident in the thrust of his vigorous exclamations not only to me but with almost all others here. In the CARM forum I also feel the anti-Catholic sentiment that I dislike as well. What you feel there, I feel here on this thread. I am comforted to know that no one else here believes it.

I want to clarify that I was not stating that I find Catholics horrible and mean in fact I am impressed with most here. Us non-catholics do have to realize that we are guests here and that your Church does claim to be the one true and only church but if you want us all to see the light hold it up so it illuminates the path, don’t bash us over the head with the lantern.

OK, just to clarify I think most of us feel as though mainstream protestant Christians have much truth and bear much fruit. I was personally introduced to the Lord through a wonderful protestant minister and I am forever grateful.

My dislike is of Sola Scriptura as I hate how it has torn apart Christendom. This is not what Jesus wanted as he prayed for unity.

Pax

 

[Son_of_Niall]

I have gone back over several posts from Topper in this thread and I arrive at the conclusion that it is in fact what he is saying…maybe not in one sentence but it seems evident in the thrust of his vigorous exclamations not only to me but with almost all others here. In the CARM forum I also feel the anti-Catholic sentiment that I dislike as well. What you feel there, I feel here on this thread. I am comforted to know that no one else here believes it.

I want to clarify that I was not stating that I find Catholics horrible and mean in fact I am impressed with most here. Us non-catholics do have to realize that we are guests here and that your Church does claim to be the one true and only church but if you want us all to see the light hold it up so it illuminates the path, don’t bash us over the head with the lantern.

CARM, which is run by fundamentalists, is no more representative of Protestants, than Fisheaters is of the Catholic faith.

 

[Son_of_Niall]

If I were looking to join Catholicism I would not be drawn to it by what you write here about the competition.

He’s been told that on several occasions by Catholics themselves.

 

[JustaServant]

Hi Just,

Thanks for your response.

I agree that there are varying degrees of agreement with the Church, as I pointed out in an earlier post. The 20% is really only some kind of a rough average. Some are ‘closer’ and some are further away from the teachings of the Church.

Let’s look at the number of Sacraments as an example though. Some communities hold to their being 2 Sacraments and some hold to none. To my knowledge, none of them hold to the full 7 that we and the Orthodox to and have the same understanding of what a Sacrament really is.

I believe almost all Protestant communities hold to two Sacraments (though they would call them Ordinances), which are Baptism and the Lords Supper. Though all seven are important, those are the most important two. It was though investigating that importance that I found my way back to the Catholic Church.
Even fundamentalists hold to two Sacraments (Ordinances). So, another example of how Catholic teaching has been preserved even in the most anti-Catholic communities.
I personally see God’s Hand in that.

 

[JonNC]

CARM, which is run by fundamentalists, is no more representative of Protestants, than Fisheaters is of the Catholic faith.

Jon

 

[JustaServant]

Hi Just,

Thanks for your response.

You mention the Baptists. I have some really wonderful Baptist Christian friends and we really love to go round and round on these issues. From what I can tell, the various Baptist communities tend to make their own decisions on matters of doctrine and practice. This is not to say that they don’t hold to a general set of doctrinal beliefs, but the fact is, as I understand it,** they are not required to**.
God Bless You Just, Topper

Yes they are.
The Doctrinal Statements are required to be believed in every Baptist church.
I used to be one./

 

[JustaServant]

Hi Just,

Thanks for your response.

As for what you call “the extreme end of Bible-only”, I don’t think it is any of the established communities. A few years ago I read a report which indicated that** roughly 20% of the Protestants in the US are now, basically limited to mostly being ‘home churchers’**, which means that they are very much into Private Interpretation, without being ‘encumbered’ by a community affiliation. That seems like a very high percentage but that is what it said. I have a very good friend who almost falls into that category. While he belongs to a community which is several iterations away from the Church, he spends a LOT of time reading TONS of old school Bible commentaries and is convinced that there are some sort of secrets in the Bible that can be discovered by sorting out some sort of ‘code’ in the order of the letters on the text. There are ‘mysteries’ in the Bible and he thinks that HE is going to discover them. Needless to say, his beliefs are very far from his Catholic roots. Our discussions on these kinds of things are very difficult because of terminology and the fact that half the time, I have no idea what he is talking about. His beliefs are MUCH further from the beliefs of Lutheranism than mine are from Lutheranism. I doubt that they would understand where he is coming from either. In addition, he tends to place a very low importance on doctrine. As devoted as he very much is to Christ, unfortunately, I think that he is very far from the Truth with regard to doctrine.

God Bless You Just, Topper

Bold mine. I’d love to know where those statistics originated, because that is simply not true. “Home churches” are certainly in a VERY small minority.

 

[JustaServant]

I guess I was raised in a church that sees placing bets as gambling and not an activity that a Christian should desire to be involved in. However, as you point out my church is based on false teaching and cannot possibly have any value or truth so if I were you I wouldn’t concern yourself with my opinion. To be honest, Topper, there is something I cannot figure out. If you are so convinced you have everything down pat and correct why do you even bother bashing Protestant teaching and experience. If Jesus is not a the head of anything Protestant as you say is obvious and proven then you have nothing to worry about. To smash and bash like you seem to like to do makes me wonder what you really need to convince yourself of. If I were looking to join Catholicism I would not be drawn to it by what you write here about the competition.

Sometimes people who come from a more extreme type of religion bring that extremism with them when they join another religion. The key word is ‘extreme’.
I was the same way when I joined CAF in 2007, coming from fundamentalism. There is a certain amount of ‘anger’ and zeal that must be worked out. Having other Catholics steer me correctly, over time, I was able to overcome that. The only alternative would have been to join the forever angry Catholic traditionalists.
The key word is ‘extremism’. It produces no fruit and repels rather than attracts.

 

[Topper17]

Hi Wanna,

Thanks for your response.

I guess I was raised in a church that sees placing bets as gambling and not an activity that a Christian should desire to be involved in. However, as you point out my church is based on false teaching and cannot possibly have any value or truth so if I were you I wouldn’t concern yourself with my opinion. To be honest, Topper, there is something I cannot figure out. If you are so convinced you have everything down pat and correct why do you even bother bashing Protestant teaching and experience. If Jesus is not a the head of anything Protestant as you say is obvious and proven then you have nothing to worry about. To smash and bash like you seem to like to do makes me wonder what you really need to convince yourself of. If I were looking to join Catholicism I would not be drawn to it by what you write here about the competition.

First of all, I thought I made it clear that I don’t see the gambling analogy as appropriate. Hoping to offer a better explanation of how I came to the conclusions than I did initially, I laid out a step by step logic chain that resulted in my understanding that the Church is exactly what it claims to be. In addition, I suggested that if you wanted to disagree, you should take issue with one or more of the logic steps that I posted. Yet, it seems that rather than doing that, you chose to discuss the topic of me and my personal failings.

Where, specifically, did my logic go off the rails Wanna? If I am as far off base as you seem to think, and have laid out exactly how I came to the conclusions that I have, it would seem that you would be able to identify where my logic has failed.

If I have come to the “wrong conclusion”, and I am sure that many think I have, and I have also laid out exactly the process by which I came to this ‘wrong conclusion’, then it only makes sense that those people who think I am wrong SHOULD be able to point out exactly where I went off track. At which step did I defy logic?

God Bless You Wanna, Topper

 

[Picky_Picky]

Hi Wanna,

Apparently I have not explained my reasoning well enough, so I will give you a more complete explanation.

First of all, it was you who used the term ‘gambling’ to describe the way that I have made my decision. To me its more like placing a bet that the sun is going to come up again tomorrow. It is THAT obvious.

I believe that Christ wants us to know his teachings accurately. Being True God, He therefore must have designed a means by which we can know FOR SURE what those teachings are. In other words, he could not possibly have designed a means for us to know His Absolute Truth which would result in massive confusion about his Teachings.

Sola Scriptura has resulted in that massive confusion and so, it cannot possibly be a teaching of Christ, or the Apostles, or Scripture. As we have seen, even Protestant scholars admit that Sola Scriptura was not part of Christian teaching in the early Church, and that Sola Scriptura was a 16th century development.

Sola Scriptura, by its results, has proven itself to be something that Christ could NOT have sanctioned or designed.

For me, that eliminates ANY of the Sola Scriptura communities as being bearers of the FULL Truth. And yet, that does not automatically mean that the Catholic Church is what it says it is. So, what is next? Eastern Orthodoxy, which has FAR fewer individual competing Churches, is, on the surface at least, a possibility as being what Christ intended. However, even though their disunity is practically nothing compared to the Sola Scriptura communities, it still reveals or indicates that it is NOT something that Christ would have designed for us ALL to have Unity. This leads directly to the Roman Catholic Church, but while the failure of the Reformation communities and the Orthodox to maintain Unity proves them to be false, it still does not prove that the Catholic Church is what it claims to be.

In order to determine if the Roman Catholic Church is what it claims to be, it is necessary to compare its teachings to Scripture and also to logic and reason, and then, finally to the teachings of the Early Fathers. What I discovered, is that the teachings of the Catholic Church match up FAR better with Scripture than that of the Reformation communities. Logic and reason also favors a Church which actually HAS been able to hold an internal Unity of belief, and in fact, actually HAS a mechanism by which that unity of doctrine can and WILL be maintained. Lastly, in spite of the proof texting of many, the Early Fathers exhibit Catholic beliefs and not Protestant teaching.

So many people who come from the Reformation communities look at Catholic arguments about Scripture, reason and Church history and automatically dismiss them without a fair hearing, because, they are convinced that it is THEIR particular communion which ‘does it best’. That being the case, it seems that possibly the place to start is whether that particular communion, or Protestantism, really is True.

With all that being said, the only way that the Reformation communities can claim that their beliefs are ‘more Scriptural’ than the teachings of the Church is by the use of their Personal Interpretation, which has already been proven to NOT be a teaching of Christ.

So, rather than having ‘gambled’, which was a term that you applied to my decision process, I see it more as following a set of undeniable certainties. What I would consider to be a ‘gamble’ would be to stay in a communion which is known to be based on a false means of understanding Scripture and establishing doctrine.

If you think that this line of reasoning is faulty, then please explain specifically and exactly why and then we can discuss those specifics.

God Bless You Wanna, Topper

I’ve no wager in this argument )) but it seems to me your logical advance can be halted at the first step. If Jesus, as True God, wanted to be sure that His teachings are recognised as those of the True God He would not have chosen any of the methods you describe, since the world is “in massive confusion” about the very existence of God, or, if He does exist, who He is, or what His teachings are. In short He clearly did not intend to provide us with certainty.

 

[Lenten_ashes]

CARM, which is run by fundamentalists, is no more representative of Protestants, than Fisheaters is of the Catholic faith.

Carm is run by Calvinists. If you read their Statement of Faith I would dare say most protestants have zero objections to it.

carm.org/statement-faith

 

[Randy_Carson]

I guess I was raised in a church that sees placing bets as gambling and not an activity that a Christian should desire to be involved in. However, as you point out my church is based on false teaching and cannot possibly have any value or truth so if I were you I wouldn’t concern yourself with my opinion. To be honest, Topper, there is something I cannot figure out. If you are so convinced you have everything down pat and correct why do you even bother bashing Protestant teaching and experience. If Jesus is not a the head of anything Protestant as you say is obvious and proven then you have nothing to worry about. To smash and bash like you seem to like to do makes me wonder what you really need to convince yourself of. If I were looking to join Catholicism I would not be drawn to it by what you write here about the competition.

When an evangelical goes to the mall or door-to-door for the purpose of evangelizing, he is in the position of “offending” the non-believer who hears that he is a sinner in need of redemption.

When a Catholic confronts that same evangelical with the historical and scriptural evidence which support the Papacy, the Eucharist, oral confession, etc., the Catholic is also in the position of having to present an “offensive” message to those who have not heard it.

 

[Randy_Carson]

I’ve no wager in this argument )) but it seems to me your logical advance can be halted at the first step. If Jesus, as True God, wanted to be sure that His teachings are recognised as those of the True God He would not have chosen any of the methods you describe, since the world is “in massive confusion” about the very existence of God, or, if He does exist, who He is, or what His teachings are. In short He clearly did not intend to provide us with certainty.

The unity of the Church was supposed to be a sign to unbelievers (cf. Jn 17:22-23).

The Great Schism of the Orthodox and the Protestant Reformation have done immeasurable harm to the witness of Christianity in the eyes of a lost world.

I can’t help but wonder if the rise of Islam and ISIS as well as the New Atheists are not due, in part, to these things.

 

[Son_of_Niall]

The unity of the Church was supposed to be a sign to unbelievers (cf. Jn 17:22-23).

The Great Schism of the Orthodox and the Protestant Reformation have done immeasurable harm to the witness of Christianity in the eyes of a lost world.

I can’t help but wonder if the rise of Islam and ISIS are not due, in part, to these things.

You are seriously blaming the Orthodox schism and Protestant Reformation for the rise of ISIS?
That is WAAAAAAAAY over the top.

 

[Randy_Carson]

You are seriously blaming the Orthodox schism and Protestant Reformation for the rise of ISIS?
That is WAAAAAAAAY over the top.

I am blaming our lack of unity.

Those are just two of the more egregious examples, and I’ve added the New Atheists to that list.

 

[Son_of_Niall]

Carm is run by Calvinists. If you read their Statement of Faith I would dare say most protestants have zero objections to it.

carm.org/statement-faith

No they’re not.
Having the words 'Divine Election in their doctrinal statement does not make them Calvinist. Fundamental Baptists (who reject Calvinism) have the same paragraph in their statements of faith. Also Calvinists do not use the words ‘Eternal Security’ and they certainly do not believe in the Rapture.
They are fundamentalist and MANY Protestants would object to sections of that statement.

 

[Son_of_Niall]

I am blaming our lack of unity.

Those are just two of the more egregious examples, and I’ve added the New Atheists to that list.

ISIS is certainly not made up of atheists.

 

[Lenten_ashes]

No they’re not.
Having the words 'Divine Election in their doctrinal statement does not make them Calvinist. Fundamental Baptists (who reject Calvinism) have the same paragraph in their statements of faith. Also Calvinists do not use the words ‘Eternal Security’ and they certainly do not believe in the Rapture.
They are fundamentalist and MANY Protestants would object to sections of that statement.

I volunteered for them for a long time so I might know what I am talking about

calvinistcorner.com/about.htm

Run by Calvinists who try to stay “neutral”

And if you believe their ‘neutrality’ I have some ocean front property in AZ to sell you.

 

[Wannano]

Hi Wanna,

Thanks for your response.

First of all, I thought I made it clear that I don’t see the gambling analogy as appropriate. Hoping to offer a better explanation of how I came to the conclusions than I did initially, I laid out a step by step logic chain that resulted in my understanding that the Church is exactly what it claims to be. In addition, I suggested that if you wanted to disagree, you should take issue with one or more of the logic steps that I posted. Yet, it seems that rather than doing that, you chose to discuss the topic of me and my personal failings.

Where, specifically, did my logic go off the rails Wanna? If I am as far off base as you seem to think, and have laid out exactly how I came to the conclusions that I have, it would seem that you would be able to identify where my logic has failed.

If I have come to the “wrong conclusion”, and I am sure that many think I have, and I have also laid out exactly the process by which I came to this ‘wrong conclusion’, then it only makes sense that those people who think I am wrong SHOULD be able to point out exactly where I went off track. At which step did I defy logic?

God Bless You Wanna, Topper

Thank you for your response Topper. I am promising to review your content with logical analysis in mind. I think I got derailed from seeing your logic by the sound of the oncoming train. You already have reply from Picky picky worth looking at. If I may Topper, I would suggest you soften your tone a bit, take a look at the logic someone else may be presenting as worthwhile before hitting the horn button and giving a blast.

In answer to your question of “at which step did I defy logic.” I have no immediate answer because I don’t think it is that simple and I need some time.

I know analogies always break down but here is something I have been thinking of. Think of Jesus’ original plan for salvation, His church, His communication in our lives as a train going down the tracks. Everything is planned perfectly and sails along smoothly if the tracks are not tampered with. But if someone, somewhere makes an even very minor adjustment to the width of those tracks the train will suddenly derail somewhere in the future. At what point is correction on the width of those tracks essential?