Sola Scriptura from the Protestant - not Catholic - View

[bogeydogg]

I look forward to hearing from you. And I again sincerely thank you for participating. I don’t say this in a bragging way, but I think this discussion is progressing quite well.

Regards,

All very good points and I see what you mean. Yes the NT was always canon but was not recognized as such in a widely accepted uniform way until the Bishops and the Councils made it so. O have to concede that point or reject what I believe about Scripture. Because i do believe God governs His Church through faithful men to believe otherwise is to subscribe to chaos.

Also I agree we cannot know what was in the Paul when he wrote Romans especially given his tone is very similar to Clement when he wrote to Corinth. Or the letters of Polycarp. All these men clearly expected to be obeyed and they expected it because of the position granted them by God. Again I have to concede the point or reject Scripture altogether.

Sorry I have been gone so long both kids got baptized I am putting a show together and I am sick… its been crazy

God Bless

 

[bogeydogg]

Furthermore, The Bible sprang from the Church established by Christ. Therefore, the Bible is the book of the Church rather than the Church being the church of the Bible.

That’s fair.

And incidentally I am running into trouble with my Lutheran minister over the nature of men and original sin because i favor Augustine and he favors Luther. I argue that Luther is quoting Gottscalc (who was condemned as a heretic) but that most of what Clavin said was that he took Luther seriously and extrapolated from Luther to his doctrines which I largely do not agree with at all.

When I pointed this out he said that we listen to Luther and not Calvin.

Now I have two problems with this.

1. I was raised a Mormon so I have a pretty severe allergy to being told to not question things written by a man.
2. If we are to believe that it is OK for Luther to leave the Church but not to go as far as Clavin then who gets to draw the line?

So you see it come back to authority doesn’t it?

God Bless

 

[Tiberius1701]

So you see it come back to authority doesn’t it?

Indeed it does. And that, my friend, is why so many of us adult converts (and reverts) found our way back to Rome. As St. Cyprian of Carthage reminds us, unity is found in the Chair of Peter…

 

[bogeydogg]

Interesting definition.

But suppose someone disputes that in cases of dispute the source to which to turn finally is scripture? How do we resolve this dispute? Where does scripture say that in cases of dispute, the source to which to turn finally is scripture?

Sorry I totally missed it.

I have been crazy busy for the last two weeks so please pardon my delay.

Ya know I’ve been asking myself this same question… see above posts.

I guess my answer would be that Scripture is self authenticating but then of course any heretic could claim Divine Authority so I don’t believe that. Sticky wicket huh? I have never believed in self authentication and yet I can read my own posts and see that logically that’s where I have been going all the while insisting I have not been doing that. You can’t deny Church Authority concerning Scripture and at the same time claim authority based on Scripture being God’s Word because then you are building castles in the air.

God Bless

 

[bogeydogg]

I truly hope an SS adherent will respond to the seven questions I posed above.

Regards,

Lately I have had a lot of conversations with my friends about grace, specifically in the Sacraments. You see I believe in the absolute authority of the Sacrament and in the Table is the Body and Blood and that even if we receive this as being a symbol or something else we have never the less received what the sacrament is ordained to be.

Therefore we can eat and drink condemnation on ourselves by receiving what is holy as though it were common and thus profane the Body of Christ and so condemn ourselves.

As I thought about this I found myself arguing more and more that in order to rightly receive the Sacrament we must rightly receive right teaching. Well how could that ever be done apart from the Church? And so if we accept the Church’s authority to administer the Sacrament then in what other areas might we also desire to recognize the Authority of the Church?

I believe the Church can forgive sins because the Bible tells me Christ ordained it to be so. I believe the Church can give me the Body and Blood of Christ because the Bible tells me the Church can do so. I believe in Apostolic succession and your earlier point about the Canon is very good.

Considering the OT…

I have serious questions about the assumption that the entirety of the OT is inspired. I believe the Pentateuch was written by Moses and probably shortly after the exodus up until it was completed (I think by Joshua) shortly after his death.

Truthfully I never paused once to consider why I believe this. But of course the answer a man in a church told me so. I feel a little silly right now because I am thoroghly persuaded the Bible is true but had never seen that Church Authority and Scriptural Authority are intertwined almost like a left and right hand being held together upholding the faith of the whole Church. I just never stopped to ask myself.

The journey i am on is one of stumbling I admit that. I have basically kept reading my Bible as I bounced from denomination to denomination always becoming uncomfortable with teachings I felt contradicted Scripture. I have recently had a stumble with my pastor on a issue he is quite inflexible about which i believe the Lutheran Church believes wrongly.

I guess the point is I am not convince enough to cross the Tiber but I am very willing to listen and have my mind changed… God willing.

God Bless

 

[Tiberius1701]

You might want to try posting in non-Catholic section. In my experience, most SS’s dont’ come over here to Apologetics. I have had many of them tell me that they thought they were restricted to the NC part of the forum.

Guanophore, this is why he posted it here and not in the NC section:

I guess the point is I am not convince enough to cross the Tiber but I am very willing to listen and have my mind changed… God willing.

There are a million SS threads there that degenerate, often within the first page, to neither side listening to what the other is saying. Here, in the Catholic section, those non-Catholics who browse are much more likely to honestly consider the Church’s teaching on this and other subjects. They may not yet agree, but they do agree to listen.

 

[Salvatore123]

bogeydogg,

I SINCERELY thank you for returning, my friend!!!

And I DO like your responses

My next post was going to be what I called the “third path” that adherents to SS subscribe to, and it is, ironically, the one you named a few posts above: Self-Authentication.

I cannot post it right now because I am doing a project, but I will tonight.

I hope you recover soon from your illness, I congratulate you on your baptisms, and I hope your show goes well.

You said: "I guess the point is I am not convince enough to cross the Tiber but I am very willing to listen and have my mind changed… God willing.

God Bless"

bogeydogg - God Bless YOU!!, my friend.

I truly, sincerely, thank you for taking the time to read everything I and others have written. I was hoping that you and other SS adherents would at least LISTEN TO/READ what we have had to say about SS. Although I would be very pleased if you found your way to our faith, I would never tell you that you are “crazy” for not becoming Catholic. That is a journey you must make yourself, but with encouragement and, in my humble opinion, with reasoned “argument” that we Catholics are not as crazy as some people make us out to be , you might be swimming sooner than you think

I look forward to posting my last two points: the third path dealing with “self authentication” and the final point dealing with the verse most cited by SS adherents: 2 Timothy 3:15-17.

bogeydogg - I truly began to smile when I began reading your responses. As soon as I saw what you said and “conceded” on the issue of ULTIMATE authority when it came to biblical canon (something most SS adherents, and, unfortunately, Catholic apologists ignore when discuss SS - something I have always thought should be the starting point), you made my day.

Even if you have not yet “turned the corner”, you DO sound as though you listened to what we have written so far and you sound as though you believe they make sense. Your posts have REALLY made me happy that I continued to post even though no one appeared to be reading.

Welcome back, my friend.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Bogeydogg,

Yes, just who gets the draw the line?

One of the things I have found is that lines really get draw both frequently and in different directions. Part of the problem is Luther’s doctrine on SS - which effectively created a free-for-all when it comes to interpretation. When Luther and Calvin saw what was happening - common people freely interpretating Scripture and doing what they wanted to do these former Catholics were not amused. Here is a link: historyguide.org/earlymod/peasants1525.html

Here is an interesting site - with real insights into the role of Federick of Saxony as seeing Luther as his ticket to keep his money in his own pocket. davidmacd.com/catholic/orthodox/protestant_reformation.htm

I think what you find is that the decisions are made more from political and social expedience rahter than from a genuine doctrine. Issues such as a genuine interpretation of Scripture residing with the Pople and the Bishops united with him were totally rejected by Luther - but, Scriputre was no more written for a 16th Century German than it was for a 21st Century American. It takes time and effort to understand the Scriptures - and not something one can do correctly because, “It sounds good to me!” This goes a long way to explain why there are 30,000+ Protestant denominations.

God bless

That’s fair.

And incidentally I am running into trouble with my Lutheran minister over the nature of men and original sin because i favor Augustine and he favors Luther. I argue that Luther is quoting Gottscalc (who was condemned as a heretic) but that most of what Clavin said was that he took Luther seriously and extrapolated from Luther to his doctrines which I largely do not agree with at all.

When I pointed this out he said that we listen to Luther and not Calvin.

Now I have two problems with this.

1. I was raised a Mormon so I have a pretty severe allergy to being told to not question things written by a man.
2. If we are to believe that it is OK for Luther to leave the Church but not to go as far as Clavin then who gets to draw the line?

So you see it come back to authority doesn’t it?

God Bless

 

[Salvatore123]

The third “path” of the SS adherents seems to be the one followed by Calvin (ironically, in a break from Luther): Self-authentication or self-attestantion.

Under this path, a book of scripture is so powerful, beautiful, elevated, inspired, overwhelming, that it simply MUST be scripture. The infamous protestant preacher Charles A. Briggs said: “If men are not won by the holy character of the biblical books, it must be because for some reason their eyes have been withheld from seeing it.”

Now think about that for a minute . . . a book that is so powerful by its nature that simply by reading it, the reader will automatically conclude that it is God’s word!!!

But it does not stop there. The protestant who follows this approach claims that in addition to his OWN “view”, the “Holy Spirit” assures him that the book he just read is, indeed, scriptural.

Ironically (at least to me), although this is probably the most favored argument of SS adherents, it is the LEAST logical, dependable, and supportive of the doctrine its followers claim it supports.

A. First, as with the other two “paths” I mentioned before, who determines the people who are going to read books and conclude that they either are or are not biblical? The protestant, at this point, if he denies the Holy Spirit working through his Catholic Church clearly established on earth by Christ, MUST acknowledge it will be a fallible man or men. Thus, violation of SS number 1.

B. Second, this approach goes even further than Luther because it permits countless individuals to determine the books that should be part of the biblical canon. Luther said HE could do it by using the second path of “does the book preach Christ”. Calvin and Reformed Protestants claim that one does not need to look if it preaches Christ - one need only look to how the book “reads” and how it “feels” based on the Holy Spirit’s “voice” inside of them that tells them the answer to “is it biblical or not?”

I always uses these two books as examples. And I always say at the outset - I am NOT denigrating God’s word in any manner whatsoever. But if anyone can read Philemon to me and demonstrate how this particular book is “powerful, beautiful, elevated, inspired, overwhelming” . . . I am all ears. I admit it is inspired because the Catholic Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, tells me that it is. But I simply cannot conclude that, nor would I have concluded that, by reading it.

Now, read the classic Imitation of Christ by St. Thomas a Kempis. This is not only one of the best selling Christian books of all time, it is also one of the most beautiful. If God’s hand guided Micheangelo when he painted the Sistine Chapel and sculpted La Pieta, then God’s hand surely guided the author’s hand of Imitation of Christ. But that does not make it inspired. Why? Again - because the Catholic Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit tells me that it is not.

So again, under this path, one resorts to relying on one’s “senses” in determining if a book is inspired by God. Now how reliable can that be? Where in the bible does it say that the simple reading of smaller books will determine the smaller books that should be in big book? Not there . . . so violation of SS number 2.

C. This one provides protestants with the biggest problem of all: if a book of scripture is so obvious upon simple reading, why did so many protestants disagree on the canon of the bible during the Protestant Revolt? James, Revelation, and Esther did nothing for Luther. Yet, they were apparent to Calvin.

I actually had a protestant argue this to me: Luther simply made a mistake, and it was “discovered” that he made a mistake because by looking into his past, his “zeal” for the truth simply prevented him from recognizing the obvious. Well isn’t that the same sort of historical investigation that I “destroyed” in discussing the first SS “path”? And again, you are violating SS because you are relying on fallible people who are conducting fallible historical research on a fallible person to reach a fallible conclusion about what a fallible man might have been thinking 500 years ago. Violation of SS number 3.

cont’d next post

 

[Salvatore123]

cont’d from last post

D. bogeydogg - this one should be especially recognizable by you, given the fact that you said you were raised Mormon:

Remember: this “path” requires that one read a book to determine if it is scriptural and one will “feel” whether it is scriptural by its impact on you, and the Holy Spirit will either confirm or deny your “feeling”. A couple of problems, however . . .

(a) How do you know you have been given every book to read that may or may not be scriptural for you to make your determination? The protestant of today will say this theory works by having every book of the current canon placed before him, along with other works, read them, and then automatically say that only those books in the canon inspire him whereas the others do not. But this is akin to telling the person playing the shell game that the ball will be under the slightly indented shell every time, the shells are moved, and then the person is asked where is the ball. The same applies with the bible. The canon has already been established, so it is obviously quite easy for one to say that X, Y, and Z are biblical - if they are already in the canon - and say that A, B, and C are not, if they are NOT in the canon. It appears to be deductive, but it isn’t because you already know what the conclusion is before you begin to deduce!

(b) What happens when a Mormon knocks on your door, hands you the Book of Mormon, and tells you that if you read that book, it will “leap out at you” as inspired, just as surely as the alreadly canonized biblical books do? If you get that “feeling”, won’t YOU be adding to a canon that has been set for over 1600 years? And with due respect, and borrowing some modern “lingo” and inserting a bit of levity: “who left you in charge of the bible?”

See what happens when one relies on one’s “feelings” to determine what is and is not scriptural?

This final story is a bit funny in how it ends. John Bunyan, the famous author of Pilgrim’s Progress, wrote an autobiography in which he said: “One day after I had been so many weeks oppressed and cast down, as I was now quite giving up the Ghost of all my hopes of ever attaining life, that sentence fell with weight upon my spirit, ‘Look at the generations of old, and see: did ever any trust in the Lord and was confounded?’ At which I was greatly lightened, and encouraged in my Soul”.

He searched his bible (protestant OT canon, of course) to find a similar passage and could not find it. Continuing his search, he found it - in the Catholic OT canon in one of the deuterocanonical books - Sirach, specifically, Sirach 2:11-12, which reads: “My children behold the generations of men: and know ye that no one hath hoped in the Lord, and hath been confounded. For who hath continued in his commandment, and hath been forsaken? or who hath called upon him, and he despised him?”

So you see, it could happen to the best of us. But it would NOT be biblical, because it would have NOT been done by someone with authority from God - the Catholic Church in council under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

bogeydogg, and others, I will conclude my major points on SS with the verse from 2 Timothy I cited earlier.

I hope, before I have a chance to do so over this coming weekend, you will comment on this particular post - especially considering it touches on Mormonism indirectly.

 

[john_aurelius]

Ïnteresting debate guys,

thought I might add that as Scripture must be interpreted the Calvinists (i.e. Presbyterian Church) have a formula that states that the Scrupture is the Supreme Standard and that it is understood in the light of the Subordinate Standard (in their case the Westminster Confession of Faith).

 

[Salvatore123]

Hello John,

Thank you for posting.

I started the thread taken it back even further than interpretation of scripture.

I wanted to know, using SS as a doctrine, WHAT is scripture?

In other words, for any given book, who authored it, when was it authored, who determined it was God’s word, when was that determination made, and by whose authority was that determination made?

My premise was basically that all Catholics believe God, through the Holy Spirit, was the author of all Sacred Scripture.

With that as a given, I then asked (using my own “invented” phrase) by what “delivery mechanism” were the books of the OT and NT canon given to man. In other words, other than the Ten Commandments (if one believes in the literal interpretation of the bible that God personally wrote the commandments onto two tablets and gave them to Moses), how were the books of the bible given to man by God?

Most SS arguments start with what I, personally, thought were too many assumptions by both sides that only led to disagreement before one even got into how the bible came into being. That occurred LONG before discussing if the bible was sufficient for man’s salvatation and was anything else needed.

I, pretty much, wanted protestants to tell me how their bible came to be . . . literally.

I think it has made for some interesting discussion because as the primary (initially) defender of SS said in one of his latest posts (he seems to be seeing the flaws in SS), protestants consider X number of books to be in the bible simply because “a man in church told them so”.

Well, that was not sufficient for my purpose, and thus - this thread.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, John Aurelius,

Welcome to CAF!

Now, based upon your statement, would it be accurate to claim that the Westminister Confession of Faith (the Subordinate Standard) is effectively the ruling authority over Scripture for it determines how Scripture is to be understood?

God bless

Ïnteresting debate guys,

thought I might add that as Scripture must be interpreted the Calvinists (i.e. Presbyterian Church) have a formula that states that the Scrupture is the Supreme Standard and that it is understood in the light of the Subordinate Standard (in their case the Westminster Confession of Faith).

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Sam,

Great post!

I think it is this misplaced and misguided empahsis on ‘feeling’ the Holy Spirit - combined with the ‘poison pill’ of private interpretation that has lead so many to just continue on protesting against everything… beginning with earlier Protestant groups.

For me, the 30,000+ groups, sects, temples, tabernacles, assemblies and congregations - all different denominations and all claiming to be right is pretty good evidence that chaos is what is really being spread instead of God’s Word.

Imagine if you will that there was no US Supreme Court - and that the 50 states were somehow given the power to interpret the Federal Constitution as they chose. Does anyone think we would still have ‘One Nation, Under God’ - or something even more disorganized than the European Union? No one has claimed that God granted any special insight to any of the Justices - much less infallibility. Yet, their word is Law - literally - and, it is accepted.

Christ gave the Apostles - the First Bishops of the Catholic Church a special pledge as recorded in John 16:12-13 that said, in effect, more is coming and God will guide you.

**12
"I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.
13
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. **

SS rejects this - like it does so many other statements Christ made (Baptism is necessary for salvation, Christ is really present in the Eucharist, He delegated to some the power of God to forgive sin, Christ made Peter the leader of the Apostles - and gave him the Keys as a sign of this authority, and Christ, the Cornerstone, built His Church on the foundation of Peter - in an obvious effort to demonstrate that the Catholic Church is not held together with weak and sinful men - but, by the Power of God acting through them).

In my opinion, SS advocates are able to reject God’s revealed Word because it has a very human agenda it must first accomplish - and this is claiming that the Catholic Church (founded by Christ on Peter) is wrong and their particular denomination (founded on men) is correct. To actually make all of this work - requires a lot of rejection!

Christ’s teachings about His Chruch are rejected - if not there would be no Protestants

The Sacraments are rejected for physicial objects giving God’s Grace can’t be

The Early Church Fathers are rejected when they claim that the Pope and the Catholic Church are from God

Scripture itself is rejected both in the casting out of inspired books and in the invitation for personal interpretation that allows the actual words to mean whatever one wants them to mean.

Given man’s human nature - everyone can come up with their own agenda and splinter away from the group they started with based on a personal interpretation of Scripture.

Turly, as I see it, SS is a doomed system carrying the seeds of its own destruction with every further iteration.

God bless

The third “path” of the SS adherents seems to be the one followed by Calvin (ironically, in a break from Luther): Self-authentication or self-attestantion.

Under this path, a book of scripture is so powerful, beautiful, elevated, inspired, overwhelming, that it simply MUST be scripture. The infamous protestant preacher Charles A. Briggs said: “If men are not won by the holy character of the biblical books, it must be because for some reason their eyes have been withheld from seeing it.”

Now think about that for a minute . . . a book that is so powerful by its nature that simply by reading it, the reader will automatically conclude that it is God’s word!!!

 

[Kay_Cee]

Sorry I totally missed it.

I have been crazy busy for the last two weeks so please pardon my delay.

Ya know I’ve been asking myself this same question… see above posts.

I guess my answer would be that Scripture is self authenticating but then of course any heretic could claim Divine Authority so I don’t believe that. Sticky wicket huh? I have never believed in self authentication and yet I can read my own posts and see that logically that’s where I have been going all the while insisting I have not been doing that. You can’t deny Church Authority concerning Scripture and at the same time claim authority based on Scripture being God’s Word because then you are building castles in the air.

God Bless

Wow.

I’ve been debating on this forum for years, and you’re the first Protestant I’ve seen who had the honesty and integrity to admit this to me.

God bless you on your journey, and may you continue to seek the Truth, wherever it leads.

 

[Salvatore123]

Tom,

Thanks, and I agree with you entirely. SS IS doomed to fall because of its own weight of illogic. But I nevertheless continue to press on because, as what is happening in this thread, I think we are seeing someone actually change one’s views right before our eyes.

And as Kay Cee just posted, I was dumbfounded to read the responses as well . . .

THIS is why I chose this forum to post this thread in. The non-Catholic forum, although it has its usefulness, seems to degenerate into bickering within a day or so and the decorum is lost. We seem to have managed to keep that going in this thread, and I hope we can continue.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Sam,

Now, don’t go and discount bickering in favor of decorum! To me this is part of the ‘market place of ideas’ and one that has not only an ebb and flow - but a genuine tumble the posters interact. Hopefully, such genuine interactions identify areas of conflict and leave open the door for how best to resolve them. Sometimes there are those that are just set in their ways - and have no intention of resolving anything. The challenge of course is to generate more light than heat.

There is a Jewish proverb that says, “If everyone pulled the same way, the world would tip over!”

God bless

Tom,

Thanks, and I agree with you entirely. SS IS doomed to fall because of its own weight of illogic. But I nevertheless continue to press on because, as what is happening in this thread, I think we are seeing someone actually change one’s views right before our eyes.

And as Kay Cee just posted, I was dumbfounded to read the responses as well . . .

THIS is why I chose this forum to post this thread in. The non-Catholic forum, although it has its usefulness, seems to degenerate into bickering within a day or so and the decorum is lost. We seem to have managed to keep that going in this thread, and I hope we can continue.

 

[Salvatore123]

Tom,

I don’t mind a good “back and forth” - I don’t like only “back” or only “forth”

 

[inkaneer]

Originally Posted by inkaneer

Furthermore, The Bible sprang from the Church established by Christ. Therefore, the Bible is the book of the Church rather than the Church being the church of the Bible.

That’s fair.

And incidentally I am running into trouble with my Lutheran minister over the nature of men and original sin because i favor Augustine and he favors Luther. I argue that Luther is quoting Gottscalc (who was condemned as a heretic) but that most of what Clavin said was that he took Luther seriously and extrapolated from Luther to his doctrines which I largely do not agree with at all.

When I pointed this out he said that we listen to Luther and not Calvin.

Now I have two problems with this.

1. I was raised a Mormon so I have a pretty severe allergy to being told to not question things written by a man.
2. If we are to believe that it is OK for Luther to leave the Church but not to go as far as Clavin then who gets to draw the line?

So you see it come back to authority doesn’t it?

God Bless

Yes it does come down to authority and wasn’t that Luther’s problem in the first place? I mean he had a problem with his parents exercizing their authority and he ran to the Augustinians but chaffed under their authority as well as the authority of the church so Luther accepted no authority except that of a book and he could control that “authority” by his interpretation. The book said what Luther wanted the book to say. Sounded like that was the ticket until others said the book said something different.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Inkaneer,

Excellent post:thumbsup:

God bless

Originally Posted by inkaneer

Furthermore, The Bible sprang from the Church established by Christ. Therefore, the Bible is the book of the Church rather than the Church being the church of the Bible.

Yes it does come down to authority and wasn’t that Luther’s problem in the first place? I mean he had a problem with his parents exercizing their authority and he ran to the Augustinians but chaffed under their authority as well as the authority of the church so Luther accepted no authority except that of a book and he could control that “authority” by his interpretation. The book said what Luther wanted the book to say. Sounded like that was the ticket until others said the book said something different.