Question for former Protestants

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David

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Hello all,
When you were Protestant how would you have answered this question? Why isn’t the canon of Scripture a tradition of men?

Peace
David
 
To be honest? I wouldn’t have addressed the question at all but began to accuse you of adding books to your bible, and then spouted how the King James 1611 Authorized version was the only true bible. Then I would have said something to the effect of God helped the protestant reformers see what were really scripture, and then denied vehemently that the very notion WAS tradition.
 
I have NO idea. It was this question that tore me AWAY from Christianity for some time so… 🤷 I asked it of myself and had no answer and so tossed the Bible aside and began to live my own version of Christianity…
 
David said:
Hello all,
When you were Protestant how would you have answered this question? Why isn’t the canon of Scripture a tradition of men?

Peace
David
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In all my 20 years in the Assemblies of God I never once heard that the books of the Bible were chosen by the Catholic Church. Never. The Bible had simply fallen out of heaven, as far as we were concerned. The Apostles wrote the NT and it was preserved by the “real Christians” who managed to rid it of the “bad books” and restore it to the purity of the early Church, we were told.

We were taught that everything Catholics believed, except the very few pearls scattered amongst the dung of Catholicism, was a “tradition of men” invented to ensnare Catholics and keep them bound in servitude to the pope. I kid you not. I hope the rhetoric has modified over the years, but the very word “tradition” meant “lie” to me then. I was ignorant on so many levels I can’t begin to describe it.
 
I never considered it. The Bible was God’s holy Word, I didn’t care where it came from. I did accuse the CC of adding books, though. My problem was that I had no connection to the early church, I thought the same was true everywhere. It was only on my journey to Rome that I realized how wrong I was on many ideas, historically speaking.
 
When I first asked myself that question I started turning to Catholicism. I never was able to answer it. I also noticed that when I asked other non-Catholic Christians they had no answer, and the subject made them uncomfortable.

That’s me. Thankyou to the posters who have given the answer, or non-answer, that they had in their denomination. Very interesting.
 
Della said:
In all my 20 years in the Assemblies of God I never once heard that the books of the Bible were chosen by the Catholic Church. Never. The Bible had simply fallen out of heaven, as far as we were concerned. The Apostles wrote the NT and it was preserved by the “real Christians” who managed to rid it of the “bad books” and restore it to the purity of the early Church, we were told.

We were taught that everything Catholics believed, except the very few pearls scattered amongst the dung of Catholicism, was a “tradition of men” invented to ensnare Catholics and keep them bound in servitude to the pope. I kid you not. I hope the rhetoric has modified over the years, but the very word “tradition” meant “lie” to me then. I was ignorant on so many levels I can’t begin to describe it.
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I’m dealing with this exact issue with my son-in-law. He is 28 years old and raised Assemblies of God (his mom was a Catholic until her parents left the church when she was 16). To him “Tradition” is a dirty word. He has been married to our daughter for a little over two years, and (at this point) has lead her to his church. I do, however, thank God for putting him in my life, because he has (unwittingly) been instrumental in my faith “reversion”. I also believe that God put me in his life to open his eyes to the fullness of the Catholic faith. He is a work in progress, but I can see cracks beginning to form. He is very much a fundamentalist and has a very strong faith in Jesus Christ. It only stands to reason that he will find his way to the only Church founded by Christ, Himself.
 
For me the turning point was when someone asked me, when Jesus talked about the seat of Moses… did he tell them to throw away the tradition and ignore the Pharisees?

It blew my mind to realize that Jesus said to follow what they did and not what they said, that even though they were hypocrites, the Jews were still supposed to follow the authority of the Seat of Moses. It wasn’t long after that I was seeing Catholicism in a different light.
 
Before I was theologically (Roman) Catholic (I’m still Protestant for a while, sadly), I probably would’ve thought that God made the canon in a way that didn’t contradict other books, but that argument doesn’t hold water. I really didn’t think about it until I understood justification by faith alone was wrong. Then everything kind of clicked.
 
The everyday Protestant is not well educated on matter of Systematic Theology of this nature. We tend to stay away from tradition and treat it as dirty because of the Catholic Church’s death grib they have on them. i would say though that our defintion of tradition is different my definition is going to Grandma’s every Christmas and that because we do not change the canon every year that that makes it not a tradition. Also having the belief that all scripture is God breathed meaning it’s not from man but God.
 
kra130 said:
Also having the belief that all scripture is God breathed meaning it’s not from man but God.
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Who chose which scripture was God breathed though? Some of the reformers wanted to reject books like Revelation. Others wanted to add in books. There are many Gospels which were rejected by the Church as scripture. Who decides in a protestant circle what is scripture or not? We too believe Sacred Scripture is ‘God breathed.’ We just admit that men were guided by the Holy Spirit to determine which books were ‘God breathed.’ That’s tradition.
 
we know that Scripture was written by and compiled by man anyone who denies this doesn’t know what they are talking about. I agree with the Catholic church that it was compiled by men far more intelligent then us at the Council of Carthage in 397 AD and i know that some reformers wanted to do away with books and that Martin Luther hated James because he thought it contradicted Paul in Eph. i don’t call it tradition of man because i see it more as a tradition of God because he was the one who put it together he was the one who wrote it so it is his tradition.
 
kra130 said:
we know that Scripture was written by and compiled by man anyone who denies this doesn’t know what they are talking about. I agree with the Catholic church that it was compiled by men far more intelligent then us at the Council of Carthage in 397 AD and i know that some reformers wanted to do away with books and that Martin Luther hated James because he thought it contradicted Paul in Eph. i don’t call it tradition of man because i see it more as a tradition of God because he was the one who put it together he was the one who wrote it so it is his tradition.
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You are almost there. That is almost exactly the Catholic teaching on tradition. Tradition is not something made up by the church, it already exist. Tradition is revealed. That is Tradition is what God wants us to do, and we aren’t making it up, God is the one who put it together and wrote it. We believe our Tradition is the Tradition of God.
 
kra130 said:
we know that Scripture was written by and compiled by man anyone who denies this doesn’t know what they are talking about. I agree with the Catholic church that it was compiled by men far more intelligent then us at the Council of Carthage in 397 AD and i know that some reformers wanted to do away with books and that Martin Luther hated James because he thought it contradicted Paul in Eph. i don’t call it tradition of man because** i see it more as a tradition of God because he was the one who put it together he was the one who wrote it so it is his tradition**.
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Please see bmullins excellent reply above.

Also, how do you distinguish the “tradition of God” in the canon of the NT, from, arguably, the “tradition of man”, such as the primacy of Peter in the See of Rome? We Catholics believe that this is also a “tradition of God”. We also see the canon of the OT, including the deuterocanonicals, as a “tradition of God”.
 
I don’t really disagree i just don’t use the term tradition. Quite frankly i don’t see the point in putting a label on it there are some traditions in Catholicism that i don’t agree with (perpetual virginity of Mary, asking dead saint to intercede) and other that i do.
 
kra130 said:
I don’t really disagree i just don’t use the term tradition. Quite frankly i don’t see the point in putting a label on it there are some traditions in Catholicism that i don’t agree with (perpetual virginity of Mary, asking dead saint to intercede) and other that i do.
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Sacred Tradition is the whole deposit of the faith from the OT prophets through the oral and written teachings of the Apostles and the living Magisterium (all the bishops united) that Christ appointed through his Apostles. ST is not the small “t:” traditions of men–the things the Pharisees added to the Law, for example, rather it is the tradition passed down through the Apostles that St. Paul wrote about:

1Cor.11:2 I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you.

2Thes.2:15 So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.

It may interest you to know that Martin Luther firmly believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary and the intercession of the saints in heaven. Jesus himself told us that the “dead” are not dead:

Mt. 22:32 “`I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”

Mk. 12:27 “He is not God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.”

Elijah and Moses appeared with Jesus–if they were “dead” how could they have done that?

Matt.17:3 And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Eli’jah, talking with him.

Also St. Paul tells us:

Heb.12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,

And the dead are aware and do pray:

Rev. 6:9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne;
10 they cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?”

That’s just a small sampling for your researches. 🙂

Also, the Church teaches what it does about Mary in order to clarify or support its teachings about Jesus–who he was and is. It’s not to put Mary above Christ, but to put Mary in her rightful place in God’s plan of salvation. Knowing this, our approach Marian teachings is Christ-centered not Mary-centered. 🙂
 
I see your point on some of these your Hebrews quote is out of context it isn’t intended to be taken literally chapter 11 is all about the faithful who preceded and have sense passed on. It is meant as an encouragement to believers to run the race of faith with endurance looking at the heroes of the faith. the writer of Hebrews goes to great pains to make it clear that Jesus is our Great High Priest he is our intercessor and the one we pray through. I would suggest that having patron saints is saying that Jesus is not enough. We pray in the Holy Spirit through Jesus to God the Father. The quote in Rev does not say that they are praying for those still on the earth but rather asking when God’s judgement will come as well it is important to remember that Rev is prophecy and should not be taken literally in most cases. As for Mary that is the definition of tradition of man in that they felt the need to help protect Jesus as though he needs it. The Pharisee and religious leaders did the same thing with the Law putting a shroud around it to keep people from coming close to breaking any of the Laws.
 
kra130 said:
I see your point on some of these your Hebrews quote is out of context it isn’t intended to be taken literally chapter 11 is all about the faithful who preceded and have sense passed on. It is meant as an encouragement to believers to run the race of faith with endurance looking at the heroes of the faith. the writer of Hebrews goes to great pains to make it clear that Jesus is our Great High Priest he is our intercessor and the one we pray through. I would suggest that having patron saints is saying that Jesus is not enough. We pray in the Holy Spirit through Jesus to God the Father. The quote in Rev does not say that they are praying for those still on the earth but rather asking when God’s judgement will come as well it is important to remember that Rev is prophecy and should not be taken literally in most cases. As for Mary that is the definition of tradition of man in that they felt the need to help protect Jesus as though he needs it. The Pharisee and religious leaders did the same thing with the Law putting a shroud around it to keep people from coming close to breaking any of the Laws.
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I’m having a hard time following your inconsistencies. You admit the Canon of Scripture is a tradition of man. And then imply you dont believe in praying to saints because its a “tradition of man”.
I suggest we try to keep this on topic. The Canon of Scripture.
Praying to saints thread
Peace
David
 
i never called it a tradition of man but of God. i don’t believe in praying to saint because it is not found in scripture.
 
kra130 said:
i never called it a tradition of man but of God. i don’t believe in praying to saint because it is not found in scripture.
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You know what else isn’t found in scripture? Anything that says Scripture is the only authority a Christian should follow.
 
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