Question for SS believers:

[emeraldisle]

How do you “use” sola scriptura? Is it that everything you believe has to be specifically contained in scripture, or nothing you believe can be negated by scripture?

Is it better to look at a “true” photograph to see what a person looks like or is better to look at an artists(one who has never seen the person they are drawing) picture of a person to know what the person looks like.

The written Word of God is His “true” truth given to us but other writings/ideas outside of the written Word of God are just mans theories/guesses.

I’ll keep reading Gods written Word to know Him and His unchanging truth. Also I will test what people say against what God has said in His written Word.

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[justinthemartyr]

Is it better to look at a “true” photograph to see what a person looks like or is better to look at an artists(one who has never seen the person they are drawing) picture of a person to know what the person looks like.

The written Word of God is His “true” truth given to us but other writings/ideas outside of the written Word of God are just mans theories/guesses.

I’ll keep reading Gods written Word to know Him and His unchanging truth. Also I will test what people say against what God has said in His written Word.

.

This does not hold water.

The bible itself, the entire canon, all 73 books, were given to the world by God through Sacred Tradition, which is outside of scripture.
God made it evident from the very book you hold, that the book you hold does not hold all Truth for the Christian, and that it took the church he built to hand us the inspired list of books called the Bible.

In fact, your Bible most likely does not contain 7 OT deuterocanonical books, which all Bibles held for the first 1546 years of Christianity, which means you hold to the OT canon of scripture decided by a mere man named Martin luther.

Therefore scripture alone is not your authority, but an inadequate set of books that are PART of the Bible, but not all of it as revealed by God in 382ad when it was originally canonized by the one visible church that can trace herself back to the apostles themselves. You most likely look at the scriptures through the reformers lens, which is the wrong prescription, if you know what I mean.( ie. sola scriptura was an invented doctrine of martin luther, never heard of or preached by anyone previous to him) therefore it is a tradition of man, not a Sacred Tradition of God.

This lens was not known of previous to 1521ad.

 

[bookgirl32]

Is it better to look at a “true” photograph to see what a person looks like or is better to look at an artists(one who has never seen the person they are drawing) picture of a person to know what the person looks like.

The written Word of God is His “true” truth given to us but other writings/ideas outside of the written Word of God are just mans theories/guesses.

I’ll keep reading Gods written Word to know Him and His unchanging truth. Also I will test what people say against what God has said in His written Word.

.

Okay EI, I’ll ask you again, how do you know that any of scripture is the true photograph?

 

[bookgirl32]

sorry I was refering to this question.

how can you not believe that the Bible is sufficient and still believe that protestants are lead to salvation?

I don’t see how the Catholic Church can say that sola scriptura (not solo scriptura) doesn’t work and still say that those in reformed churches are breathern and in imperfect communion with Rome.

Who said anything about not believing that the Bible is sufficient? Where do you get that by not believing sola scriptura we don’t believe that the Bible is sufficient? It’s ONLY sufficient (or necessary) we’re talking about.

Someone else had a really good post about this on this thread, I’ll find it and quote it.

 

[bookgirl32]

The Catholic church teaches that the bible is materially sufficient, but not formally sufficient.
That is that everything a Christian needs for salvation is contained in scripture but not in a way that you don’t need an outside source to interpret it.

 

[JTBT]

This does not hold water.

The bible itself, the entire canon, all 73 books, were given to the world by God through Sacred Tradition, which is outside of scripture.
God made it evident from the very book you hold, that the book you hold does not hold all Truth for the Christian, and that it took the church he built to hand us the inspired list of books called the Bible…
Therefore scripture alone is not your authority,

Sola Scriptura doesn’t mean “NO truth exist outside of scripture” it means that Scripture is sufficient. you are building the Strawman of solo scripture and then tearing into it. why can no one here accept the meaning of sola scriptura?
I’ll say it again
"how can the Catholic Church say that sola scriptura isn’t true and still say that those in reformed churches are breathern and in imperfect communion with Rome."

as far as the OT goes we use the same books that the Jews of Jesus day used.

 

[bookgirl32]

Sola Scriptura doesn’t mean “NO truth exist outside of scripture” it means that Scripture is sufficient. you are building the Strawman of solo scripture and then tearing into it. why can no one here accept the meaning of sola scriptura?

“Scripture is sufficient” means that it’s sufficient, and that’s it. You’re still claiming that it is the only necessary, correct?

I’ll say it again
"how can the Catholic Church say that sola scriptura isn’t true and still say that those in reformed churches are breathern and in imperfect communion with Rome."

Because they believe many things that ARE the same, that ARE truth, but not everything.

as far as the OT goes we use the same books that the Jews of Jesus day used.

Yes, and how did they know they were the scripture God approved?

 

[JTBT]

Who said anything about not believing that the Bible is sufficient? Where do you get that by not believing sola scriptura we don’t believe that the Bible is sufficient?

b/c that is what sola scriptura is about.

 

[bookgirl32]

As for “only the necessary is needed”, but other things can be “revealed truth”, does anyone believe that God revealed something that isn’t really necessary? It’s like saying, “Oh, God, I guess you wanted us to know that too, since it’s truth, but we don’t really have to, so we’ll ignore it.”

 

[bookgirl32]

b/c that is what sola scriptura is about.

No, it’s about you thinking it’s the only necessary sufficient, which it doesn’t claim.

 

[JTBT]

As for “only the necessary is needed”, but other things can be “revealed truth”, does anyone believe that God revealed something that isn’t really necessary? It’s like saying, “Oh, God, I guess you wanted us to know that too, since it’s truth, but we don’t really have to, so we’ll ignore it.”

why don’t you tell me what sola scriptura means?

 

[emeraldisle]

Okay EI, I’ll ask you again, how do you know that any of scripture is the true photograph?

16All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

17That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. 2 Tim 3:16-17

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. John 14:26

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[JTBT]

Okay EI, I’ll ask you again, how do you know that any of scripture is the true photograph?

do you believe the Catholic Church the interpreter of scripture? how do you know? b/c they said so? the “how do you know” card can be played both ways.

 

[bookgirl32]

16All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

17That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. 2 Tim 3:16-17

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. John 14:26

.

Yes, that’s great. What I meant was, how do you know it’s truth?

 

[bookgirl32]

do you believe the Catholic Church the interpreter of scripture? how do you know? b/c they said so? the “how do you know” card can be played both ways.

Except for the fact that the canon of scripture, the Bible, was not established for about 250 to 300 years after Jesus. So . . . the teaching authorities, at that point, were the only revelation, period. Then it was those teaching authorities that established the canon. Then there’s the fact that the Church can trace itself back to these teaching authorities. The point is, the Scriptures are a PART of, a written form of, the teaching authority of this Church.

 

[bookgirl32]

why don’t you tell me what sola scriptura means?

Here, I quoted this from an earlier post in the thread, sola scriptura as understood by a Catholic:

Sola Scriptura does not mean that everything must be stated explicitly in the Bible. It does not mean that everything that may be believed must be in there. It does mean that nothing that we believe can be contradicted by Scripture, and it does mean that there is nothing we must believe for salvation that is not in Scripture. For example, an honest Protestant (i.e. one not imbued with anti-Catholic dogmatism) might say, “The assumption of Mary might be true. It is not explicitly or implicitly contradicted by Scripture. After all, Elijah himself was assumed into Heaven! But it is not taught in Scripture, and evidence for it is inconclusive. There is no reason to say that one must believe in the assumption for salvation.”

 

[SyCarl]

Except for the fact that the canon of scripture, the Bible, was not established for about 250 to 300 years after Jesus. So . . . the teaching authorities, at that point, were the only revelation, period. Then it was those teaching authorities that established the canon. Then there’s the fact that the Church can trace itself back to these teaching authorities. The point is, the Scriptures are a PART of, a written form of, the teaching authority of this Church.

The fact that the canon had not been set by a council or Pope did not seem to stop the early church fathers extensively quoting from the Scriptures as authoritative.

 

[Jaypeeto4]

Neither. As the article linked to above says says, "The Protestant position, and my position, is that all things necessary for salvation and concerning faith and life are taught in the Bible clearly enough for the ordinary believer to find it there and understand."

Which is patent nonsense.
Yes, all truth is in the Bible, either EXplicitly or IMplicitly,
but it is NOT all “clear,” and St. Peter, speaking by the Holy Ghost, said so verbatim. There are many things which the unstable and the untaught distort (wittingly or unwittingly, it doesn’t have to be deliberate distortion).
Luther, the father of Protestantism, was clearly an unstable man. He would flip flop on his interpretations from one issue of TABLE TALK to the next issue.
How clear is it?
Consider the Eucharist: Luther believed that scripture
teaches (and it does, by the way) the literal Real Presence of Jesus in the consecrated bread and wine.
Calvin, by contrast, taught that Jesus was there but ONLY spiritually, not with his glorified body under the appearances of bread and wine.
Zwingli, who also gleaned his doctrine from the “clear” teaching of scripture, denied any real presence, corporeal or spiritual, of Jesus in the Eucharist at all.
Many Protestants today take Zwingli’s position, that the Lords Supper is purely and ONLY symbolic.
What about Eternal Security? Luther said scripture clearly
did NOT teach it. Calvin said scripture DID teach it. Knox agreed with Calvin, from both of whom come the Presbyterian tradition.
What about baptism? Luther held that scripture clearly teaches baptismal regeneration. Calvin denied that, based on his reading of scripture, but still insisted that baptism was somehow a sacrament. For a long time, Luther denied that James, Jude, 2nd Peter, and Revelation were even PART of inspired scripture. Later on, he reversed himself and even wrote commentaries on some of the books he at first and for some time had rejected.
Scripture is not perspicuous. It is difficult. The reformers came along, yelling “Sola Scriptura” and at the same time jettisoning based on whim many of the church’s historic doctrines which are sometimes IMplicit in scripture, not EXplicit. Thus jettisoning the doctrinal tradition of the previous 1500 years, they came up with seriously conflicting theologies which resulted in the multi - denominationalism we see today.

 

[bpbasilphx]

Neither. As the article linked to above says says, "The Protestant position, and my position, is that all things necessary for salvation and concerning faith and life are taught in the Bible clearly enough for the ordinary believer to find it there and understand."

**What did the ordinary believer do before the invenetion of the printing press and publication of cheap vernacular versions of Scripture?

I’ll leave aside the obvious question about what “ordinary believers” did before the NT canon was codified.**

 

[ABostonCatholic]

Neither. As the article linked to above says says, "The Protestant position, and my position, is that all things necessary for salvation and concerning faith and life are taught in the Bible clearly enough for the ordinary believer to find it there and understand."

**What did the ordinary believer do before the invenetion of the printing press and publication of cheap vernacular versions of Scripture?

I’ll leave aside the obvious question about what “ordinary believers” did before the NT canon was codified.**

The ordinary believers you refer to followed the teachings of the apostles as best they understood them. Today our sure record of the teaching of the apostles is the New Testament.