But the fallible authority could not verify what is true. You are right, it may end the debate, but it does not lead to faith with certainty where the believers can claim to worship God as He desires, in spirit and in truth.An infallible authority could end the dispute if it was worded in such tight legalize that no further ambiguities remain.
But then again a fallible authority could also end disputes if those underneath the authority were Biblically in submission to those whom the Lord has over them.
You might consider what Luther himself stated, with regard to the Book of Revelation:Actually, I would like to partially retract what I said upon adding a word to my google search and finding this document.
Now to be fair, at first reading this doesn’t sound exactly like “removing a book from the Bible”. However I do need time to study the link and try to understand it to the best of my ability. think through the implications and ask stupid questions. I ain’t exactly a theologian you know.
My first question would be what is the current status today (this document is dated you know). I do find it strange that I have found no links of outrage on the internet over Lutherans having removed books from the Bible.
My Pastor of the Church I now attend was ordained in the Assembly of God…Yes, but who ordained him to be pastor? In NT ecclesiology, ordination required apostolic succession. Luther was a Catholic monk who had no authority to ordain anybody. He had a lawful superior which he disobeyed to start his own church. In so doing, he appendicized Hebrews, so I suppose disobedience to Heb 13:17 was not a problem for him. Luther said in his preface to hist appendicized Hebrews: “Up to this point we have had to do with the true and certain chief books of the New Testament. The four which follow [Hebrew, James, Jude, and Revelation] have from ancient times had a different reputation.” Thus, in Luther’s own words, he does not consider these books to be “true and certain chief books of the New Testament.” He described the Epistle of James as “an epistle of straw.” Luther stated of his appendicized James in his preface, “it is flatly against St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture.”
I will review these links of course…but I suspect they still have underlying implicit assumptions on how God reacted to the theological split we call the reformation that I am unwilling to commit to.It is a case of different understanding of authority. The earliest Christians submitted to the authority of the lawfully ordained pastors of the Church, with St. Peter as the “chief pastor” (cf. Protestant sources here, here and here ) of the ekklhsia kaq olhV (Acts 9:31), or Catholic Church, even when it pertained to questions about which books were divinely inspired Scripture. Prophecy is not a matter of personal interpretation. Use any “metric” you like, but no Christian Church before Protestantism held to a 66-book Bible with an abbreviated Daniel and Esther. The facts speak for themselves. Your question involved the “evidence.” I pray you look into it.
The Great Schism was of a different character from the Protestant Reformation. The Eastern Churches retained Apostolic teaching and Holy Orders because they understood that the Church is not an imaginary fellowship of all “true” believers but a body-and-soul union ordained by Jesus Christ “that they all might be one.”Obviously the one church that Jesus established split ecclesiastically. First the east/west split and then the Protestant reformation.
Of course in any split, one side will retain the original lineage while the other side will not. This is by definition is what happens in an ecclesiastical split.
The original Protestants did not make “assumptions.” They had to create the un-biblical ecclesiology of a non-corporate fellowship of “true” believers to fill in the gap left by the abandonment of Apostolic Succession.The assumption of the Catholic is that because it is their side that retains the original lineage, therefore, it is their side that possesses the “fullness of truth”. The Catholics assume that even though the church split ecclesiastically, their side remains the one true church.
The Protestants of course make different assumptions.
It seems pretty clear to me that you DO know but you’re not ready to deal with what it means. BTDT: took 40 years!What I do not know with any degree of certainty is how God feels. I can not open up my Bible and find a verse to the effect that “In the case of an ecclesiastical split in my church, this is how I will react”. Both sides claim that God is on their side, but in the final analysis neither side can prove it. Or really offer up that convincing evidence either way.
No reasonable Catholic person would deny that the Church was in desperate need of serioius shaping-up in the 15th Century. AWFUL!
- Concerning the ecclesiastical split we call the Reformation, both sides were wrong. Sort of like an ugly divorce. That is why Luther did this…or Luther did that arguments are not totally convincing. I have never been that big of a fan of the Germanic reformers.
Preach it, Brother!
- Christianity in the final analysis is still a personal faith. God still loves people, and wants individuals to come to a personal knowledge of Jesus. There are still large areas around the globe where knowledge concerning Jesus is minimal (see the muslim world, India, southeast asia, Japan).
The Holy Spirit is notorious for not staying inside the house. Your issues are farther along the spectrum than that. Your issues center on whether or not you will settle for the fallout of grace or whether you will embrace the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in the Church He promised to build upon the rock of Peter. For me, it came down to the witness of history. Having identified that body which traces its historical and theological lineage to the upper room, and having acknowledged Apostolic Succession as a sine qua non of any authentic true particular Church, I was stuck with the following: “If you acknowledge Apostolic Succession, and Peter is not in your house of bishops, **what **kind of game are you playing?”
- God will work with any ecclesiastical organization that declares the message of Christ and is actively involved in spreading this message in parts of the world that have had minimal exposure to it.
Actually my only point was examining obvious characteristics of any ecclesiastical schism. One side will retain the lineage and one side will lose it. Just like in a divorce, one side gets the house, the other side has to move out (well maybe neither side gets the house and it is sold).The Great Schism was of a different character from the Protestant Reformation. The Eastern Churches retained Apostolic teaching and Holy Orders because they understood that the Church is not an imaginary fellowship of all “true” believers but a body-and-soul union ordained by Jesus Christ “that they all might be one.”.
The original Protestants did not make “assumptions.” They had to create the un-biblical ecclesiology of a non-corporate fellowship of “true” believers to fill in the gap left by the abandonment of Apostolic Succession.
mercygate;1504906:
Actually I don’t know; it all depends on what metrics are used.I was thinking more of implicit assumptions that exist 450 years later in the back 'n forth arguments everyone makes.
mercygate;1504906:
It seems pretty clear to me that you DO know but you’re not ready to deal with what it means. BTDT: took 40 years!
If the governing metric were lineage I would be signing up for RICA tomorrow. But if the governing metric were Christlikeness and Character through history, another story. Too often the people that showed true Christlikeness were the ones both the Catholic and Reformed were killing.
But history is history and the record of organized Protestantism is not that much better. Maybe the best governing metric is more local relative to the community I am in…
But history is rarely clearcut. When I was last in Nagasaki Japan, there is a wonderful memorial to 29 or so Catholic martyrs who were crucified for spreading the gospel at the same time as the reformation. Google “Nagasaki Catholic Martyr” and you will read their wonderful stories.No reasonable Catholic person would deny that the Church was in desperate need of serioius shaping-up in the 15th Century. AWFUL!
So go figure. In the same time period, the Catholic Church was 1) burning the anabaptists, (2) anathematizing the Protestants via the wonderful gift of infallability at Trent, and (3) getting martyred for spreading the gospel in Japan.
of any authentic true particular Church, I was stuck with the following: “If you acknowledge Apostolic Succession, and Peter is not in your house of bishops, **what **kind of game are you playing?”Your issues center on whether or not you will settle for the fallout of grace or whether you will embrace the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in the Church He promised to build upon the rock of Peter. For me, it came down to the witness of history. Having identified that body which traces its historical and theological lineage to the upper room, and having acknowledged Apostolic Succession as a sine qua non
I came to the Church dragging and whining every inch of the way
Well first of all I haven’t even figured out what exactly the Catholic Church is saying to me.
The more I feel it saying to me “We got the fullness of truth, you don’t, you are heretics, and you should leave your deficient church and become part of the One True Church…under the anathemas of Trent and the curse of St. Peter and St. Paul (if you don’t buy into the assumption of Mary)” hmmm…the more I just might resist and demand proof.
But if pitch is a little softer like “If God has you where you are, by all means stay, but why not give us a look, even if for on down the line. We do after all have the history, and you will find we really agree on the essentials”…who knows…now I have always been loyal to a fault to where I am at…but we probably will move in either 1 or 5 years.
Actually, looking back at my own journey, I went through the usual choke over the “anathemas” of Trent until I sat still and absorbed what the anathemas were addressing. I now get this kind of warm-fuzzy feeling when I read the documents of Trent . . .. . .
But history is rarely clearcut. When I was last in Nagasaki Japan, there is a wonderful memorial to 29 or so Catholic martyrs who were crucified for spreading the gospel at the same time as the reformation. . . .
So go figure. In the same time period, the Catholic Church was 1) burning the anabaptists, (2) anathematizing the Protestants via the wonderful gift of infallability at Trent, and (3) getting martyred for spreading the gospel in Japan.
Don’t worry about it; the Holy Spirit has a way of sorting things out.Well first of all I haven’t even figured out what exactly the Catholic Church is saying to me.
When I was an Episcopalian, I never had a problem about being a heretic. I KNEW I was, according to the Catholic position, and did not see any particular problem in the Church using the term.The more I feel it saying to me “We got the fullness of truth, you don’t, you are heretics, and you should leave your deficient church and become part of the One True Church…under the anathemas of Trent and the curse of St. Peter and St. Paul (if you don’t buy into the assumption of Mary)” hmmm…the more I just might resist and demand proof.
I’m like a guy. I was won over by the no-nonsense-tell-it-like-it-is strength of the doctrine and the compelling force of the tradition (kicking, whining, screaming) because I sure wasn’t won over by the charm of my Catholic friends, who mostly were clueless about the majesty of what they had ingested since infancy with their cornflakes, nor was I drawn by the beauty of the music on Sunday (gag!).But if pitch is a little softer like “If God has you where you are, by all means stay, but why not give us a look, even if for on down the line. We do after all have the history, and you will find we really agree on the essentials”…who knows…now I have always been loyal to a fault to where I am at…but we probably will move in either 1 or 5 years.
exactly! i know my faith is 100% true. but trying to convince non-believers is a whole other ball game.No, you can’t. But as others have said, this is not really the point. You cannot make somebody change their opinion, however right in fact you may be.
There is a scientific maxim that a theory holds until it is disproved. That’s why the strident anti-catholics spend so much time trying to disprove Catholicism. They’ll look at any reason to say it’s wrong.
So, don’t waste your time on conclusive proofs in favour.