sola scriptura

[Traverse]

Traverse…understand your point but don’t agree. It’s in scripture that Christ established one Church: one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.

The early church attests to this fact. There are even more quotes from the 400’s, 500s, 600s, 700s, 800s, 900s …and on. Christ said he would be with his Church always until the end of time, guiding it to ALL truth… Now how could he be guiding his Church to ALL TRUTH for 2000 years and then someone comes along and says “I have the Truth” and another Church? Actually, this has now been said thousands of times… this would make Christ contradict himself and it would make him a liar as his “invisible church” could not find, know or understand the Truth. Every pastor for himself…

“See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Christ Jesus does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles. Do ye also reverence the deacons, as those that carry out the appointment of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude also be; by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Smyrneans, 8:2 (c. A.D. 110).

“[N]or does it consist in this, that he should again falsely imagine, as being above this [fancied being], a Pleroma at one time supposed to contain thirty, and at another time an innumerable tribe of Aeons, as these teachers who are destitute of truly divine wisdom maintain; while the Catholic Church possesses one and the same faith throughout the whole world, as we have already said.” Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1:10,3 (A.D. 180).

”Whence you ought to know that the bishop is in the Church, and the Church in the bishop; and if any one be not with the bishop, that he is not in the Church, and that those flatter themselves in vain who creep in, not having peace with God’s priests, and think that they communicate secretly with some;** while the Church, which is Catholic and one, is not cut nor divided, but is indeed connected and bound together by the cement of priests who cohere with one anothe**r.” Cyprian, To Florentius, Epistle 66/67 (A.D. 254).

“Concerning those who call themselves Cathari, if they come over to the Catholic and Apostolic Church, the great and holy Synod decrees that they who are ordained shall continue as they are in the clergy. But it is before all things necessary that they should profess in writing that they will observe and follow the dogmas of the Catholic and Apostolic Church; in particular that they will communicate with persons who have been twice married, and with those who having lapsed in persecution have had a period [of penance] laid upon them, and a time [of restoration] fixed so that in all things they will follow the dogmas of the Catholic Church….” Council of Nicaea I (A.D. 325).

I agree! What you may be overlooking is that in the first century, even while the bible was being completed, divisions were already happening. The apostles were already warning against divisions among the church. By the time the council of nicaea occurs over two hundred years pass, which is unfortunately plenty of time for the church to be split and some branch (catholic) to claim it is THE church even if it’s not.

I’m not saying that happened, I am currently studying this myself. But I want to inform you that I agree with your claim that the church would have to be around and Christ with the church this whole time without another showing up and saying “oh we have the truth by the way” when they haven’t’ even existed. But there is currently a logical point based on scripture to show that divisions were happening earlier so a church calling itself catholic two hundred years later might not necessarily actually be THE church.

This is something that is assumed as a possibility based on my views at looking at the catholic church in its current form, which claims to be unchanged, and seeing what appear to be scriptural errors in its teaching. With my own experience I cannot definitively point to a place in history and say “look, see.” Maybe I have to, but that is the matter I am currently investigating myself and part of the reason I’m on this forum.

 

[Gaelic_Bard]

I am not sure I understand. What is the natural reason you appeal to? I cannot understand how it is natural for me to assume because Paul is a rabbi that he saw Christ? I cannot see how to link it unless I first believe Scripture. Hence the circle.

Not because Paul was a rabbi, no. Because he was a well respected rabbi, who hunted down and persecuted the very minority he would later become one of. What I am stating is the nature of his conversion lends credence to his written testimony of seeing Christ. This is confirmed by the response of the apostles. It’s not a circle because I do not have to believe that the Scriptural account is inspired at this point. It just has to be an accurate account, verified independently of the Scriptural account. But if that account is true, it means the Scriptural account has apostolic authority.

We can use evidence outside of the canon itself to determine the canon. Sola scriptura does not argue otherwise. Obviously, a ruler (a canon) cannot measure itself, because you would need to already have a ruler in order to measure a ruler. This isn’t the argument we make, so we avoid circularity by pointing to witnesses outside what is written, to testify to the truth of what is written.

I am not sure Roman Catholics are any better off here. If Catholics make the argument that outside of the church being infallible, we cannot know truth, then indeed, you are using a ruler to measure itself (the church measuring the church), since the claim is made that sources outside of the church cannot give any degree of certainty. It depends on how Cartesian the Catholic is

Actually no. That is what is pretty neat. We do not need to know what Apostolic Succession and its scope before accepting the authority. The authority is accepted in the natural sense of assenting to the student after the teacher. We then know the scope of authority or definition of Apostolic Succession in the FAITH sense from the Apostolic Successors themselves i.e. like when a medical specialist says X is my field and Y is not.

I realize analogies break down, but this does not hold true even in the secular medical field. If a medical specialist discovers an amazing cure, it doesn’t logically follow that the student who implements it is as great an authority on the subject as the one who originally discovered the cure.

Actually, this is another good question. The thing to note is that the Church’s claim for infallibility is not PRIMARILY from Scripture. The infallibility of the Church is defined in the following way after you accept Apostolic Succession

1. Succession is true (as argued above through natural reason) thus we listen to them to learn about Christ

Natural reason is a good thing, but it is not divine revelation. Once you begin stating what must be logically true, we start making assumptions about what Christ must or must not do. i.e., if Jesus instituted the apostles then he must have meant apostolic authority to continue in an unbroken succession through bishops, even though there is little revealed evidence that that is the case. It’s an argument from silence.

So in all of this, the Catholic first assents to the Church. Then it accepts Scripture, Infallibility or any other Dogma because the Church is the one that Christ has given the authority to teach (not an article of faith per-se but from that practical reason of teacher->student).

The Church then shows that its claim is also supported in Scripture as it teaches.

The question you raised is exactly why many Protestants find it hard to accept Papal infallibility for an example.

Aside from the logical problems, there’s it not showing up in church history for a millennium after the apostles, but that’s a different issue

They look at the Church quoting Scripture and they see it as the Church interpreting it in a favorable way for itself to justify itself. The issue is that the Church cannot be justified primarily by using Scripture as you correctly pointed out. A circular argument cannot prove anything.

So the authority of the Church has always been the primary thing any Christian had to first assents to because it is the only thing that naturally follows after the authority of Christ.

Here is the dilemma, as I see it, and maybe you can clarify exactly what your position is in response to the following scenarios.

Obviously, church is infallible>church infallibly determines canon>church says canon says church is infallible>church is infallible has already been discussed. Now, if you as an individual Christian say “I believe, based on independent evidence, outside of Scripture or church authority, that Jesus rose from the dead, verified his claim to be God, and therefore I know Scripture is inspired and Scripture says that Jesus instituted an infallible church, which based on historical data indicates this is the present day Catholic Church and thus, the CC is infallible, etc.” that would not be a circular argument. However, your position would be ultimately based on the same argumentation employed by Protestants. You are saying you can determine what revelation is (Christ’s resurrection) apart from the sole authority of the church (which we say), and you can then sufficiently interpret the data to come to the conclusion of the claims of the CC…i.e., private, fallible interpretation can lead you into truth. You would then not be able to turn around and make the same argument against Protestants, who use a method you yourself just used.

If you’re saying “I believe Christ rose from the dead, etc.” based on the authority of the church, it’s still a circular argument. church is infallible>church says Christ rose from the dead and instituted an infallible church>church is infallible.

 

[Porknpie]

I agree! What you may be overlooking is that in the first century, even while the bible was being completed, divisions were already happening. The apostles were already warning against divisions among the church. By the time the council of nicaea occurs over two hundred years pass, which is unfortunately plenty of time for the church to be split and some branch (catholic) to claim it is THE church even if it’s not.

I’m not saying that happened, I am currently studying this myself. But I want to inform you that I agree with your claim that the church would have to be around and Christ with the church this whole time without another showing up and saying “oh we have the truth by the way” when they haven’t’ even existed. But there is currently a logical point based on scripture to show that divisions were happening earlier so a church calling itself catholic two hundred years later might not necessarily actually be THE church.

This is something that is assumed as a possibility based on my views at looking at the catholic church in its current form, which claims to be unchanged, and seeing what appear to be scriptural errors in its teaching. With my own experience I cannot definitively point to a place in history and say “look, see.” Maybe I have to, but that is the matter I am currently investigating myself and part of the reason I’m on this forum.

Traverse,

Could you share what church you have attended in the past and currently? This would help us understand you a bit more…helps understanding more of what you know and believe…tx.

I love Southern California…all except the traffic.

 

[Traverse]

Sure thing, Pork. I would refer you to the new Church of Christ thread that was recently created.

 

[Eufrosnia]

Not because Paul was a rabbi, no. Because he was a well respected rabbi, who hunted down and persecuted the very minority he would later become one of. What I am stating is the nature of his conversion lends credence to his written testimony of seeing Christ. This is confirmed by the response of the apostles. It’s not a circle because I do not have to believe that the Scriptural account is inspired at this point.

Outside of Scripture, who ever reports in detail about St. Paul though?

Also, I am still not sure what rule you are indicating as practical reason. For me to see someone convert hardly gives me credence to believe in them seeing Jesus. I know many a people who converted to other radical religions. I certainly don’t think they saw the respective deity for conversion. It seems more intuitive to me to take the skeptical step toward conversion.

Why is conversion such a special thing that I actually have to accept his claim that he saw Jesus?

I am not sure Roman Catholics are any better off here. If Catholics make the argument that outside of the church being infallible, we cannot know truth, then indeed, you are using a ruler to measure itself (the church measuring the church), since the claim is made that sources outside of the church cannot give any degree of certainty. It depends on how Cartesian the Catholic is

Well this is again a confusion. Right now, whether it be Catholic or Christian, the circles have to terminate at Christ. Because that is the only grounding point we have for first accepting an authority regarding the transcendent using practical reason.

Then from that point on, we need to further use practical reason. It is not a jump in logic to say after establishing that Christ is authoritative and is a rabbi, we have our best chance of learning about him by listening to the Church. In a strictly reasonable perspective, Christ was the pioneer of the field and the Apostles are the students. The Apostolic successors are students certified by the students and so forth. There is no circle here because you accept the authority based on Christ.

The specific details of how the Church’s authority works is then accepted based on the original faith one put on the authority of the Church.

I realize analogies break down, but this does not hold true even in the secular medical field. If a medical specialist discovers an amazing cure, it doesn’t logically follow that the student who implements it is as great an authority on the subject as the one who originally discovered the cure.

Actually it does. Perhaps the medical field is a bit hard for you to see unless you understand how the certification works. But basically, a doctor is certified not by an engineers but other doctors. Similarly, the Phd, the highest degree in a field is awarded not by someone with something higher than a Phd but by someone with a Phd. This idea of knowledge propagation is quiet consistent with our experiences.

What you are confusing is what I said before was not a passing down of authority. i.e. a Professor who has a group of undergraduates who implement his cure. Are the students now authoritative as the Professor, No! This is why not all Christians by simple virtue of being instructed in the faith is not an Apostolic Successor.

Natural reason is a good thing, but it is not divine revelation. Once you begin stating what must be logically true, we start making assumptions about what Christ must or must not do. i.e., if Jesus instituted the apostles then he must have meant apostolic authority to continue in an unbroken succession through bishops, even though there is little revealed evidence that that is the case. It’s an argument from silence.

This might seem quiet surprising to you but reason has to precede faith. Let me explain.

In our search for the transcendent/supernatural, all men and women start at zero (perhaps with some intuitive idea that there is something greater than themselves). Once again logically, it is clear that we cannot find the transcendent unless the transcendent makes itself known to us. Or if there is a God, we can’t know about him unless he reaches down to us.

So this means that the life of a searcher is based on using reason to find out who seems to have this divine revelation and authority to teach it.

Aside from the logical problems, there’s it not showing up in church history for a millennium after the apostles, but that’s a different issue

Interestingly, it could have been the case that it did not have a clear manifestation till yesterday. That doesn’t matter because the idea of accepting teaching based on the idea that “was it taught then?” requires authority to accept.

In other words, it is not clear that we have to only listen or assent to that which existed at the time of the Apostles.

As for history, you are aware that Rome did enjoy primacy according to the accounts of many Church fathers?

(Continued to Part 2)

 

[Eufrosnia]

(Continued from Part 1)

Here is the dilemma, as I see it, and maybe you can clarify exactly what your position is in response to the following scenarios.

Obviously, church is infallible>church infallibly determines canon>church says canon says church is infallible>church is infallible has already been discussed. Now, if you as an individual Christian say "…

If you’re saying “I believe Christ rose from the dead, etc.” based on the authority of the church, it’s still a circular argument. church is infallible>church says Christ rose from the dead and instituted an infallible church>church is infallible.

I think the “terminating the circle” might be the confusing thing here.

First, Christ’s death and resurrection is historical fact (which you seem to agree). We do not accept this by faith because the Church says it. In fact, if the resurrection was not historical, Christianity as far as Catholics are concerned are doomed. So the resurrection is grounded in history. BUT, from this we cannot know if Christ is the son of God or anything else. We just know that the person Jesus has authority over the supernatural. Why? Because he was killed. Physically speaking, he couldn’t do anything to himself to revive himself. BUT, he rose from the dead. So it means that he did something supernatural to himself. In other words, he controls it. Since no one else has done it, we know he has a unique form of control and hence knowledge regarding the transcendent. It is this that initially drives us to him.

Then the person simply treats him as a pioneer of a field of study (in this case that of the Transcendent) if you will and ends up at Apostles and Apostolic Successors and from what they define, the Church.

The Protestants in this sense are different. They already claim things that they came to know from the Bible back to the Resurrection Ex:

1. Jesus was the son of God, what kind of method would he have used?
2. The Holy Spirit can guide people. Could he have guided people to write the Bible?

All the claims above do not follow from practical reason just by seeing Christ rise from the dead. Also, it is not clear intuitively that the Bible is the word of God. Hence, if there is no practically reasonable way of passing down the authority of Christ further, the knowledge of whoever Christ might be is lost.

Now in my own personal investigation in to this, I do not see any other alternative than the practically reasonable idea of accepting student from teacher with respect to passing the authority from Christ forward. One could come up with perhaps some elaborate scheme but then one has to ask if that was ever intuitive to anyone who lived at the time.

If I came to Athens and said that Christ the rabbi rose from the dead, and I was known as a student of Christ, then depending on how much they believed/knew the resurrection to be true, they will listen to me because I am a student. But it is not clear how else I would be able to teach about Christ in an authoritative way. In the same way, for someone like Luke to ask his gospel to be read, it is not clear how he would be able to do that unless he claimed that he was a student of the first Apostles and was a certified Apostle himself.

It is also somewhat interesting to note that Paul met with the same problem. Even though he was picked by Christ, people start to think that he was not an Apostle or did not have the authority. But in his rebuttal, he mentions how his message was certified by the Apostles so that he knew he was not running in vain. He does mention a lot more other things but which one do you think immediately catches the attention of the reader in the practical sense? Everyone obviously knew of Paul’s conversion but they doubted him. So no matter how much he speaks about it, that won’t change matters. BUT, when he mentions that he is indeed certified by the Apostles as someone Christ had chosen to proclaim his word, people know the discussion is over. Paul has authority.

In this way, the Church has been recognizing those Christ had chosen to be his Apostles since the first. In acts itself, Judas gets replaced the same way.

Anyway, all of that is just support from Scripture. It is not the reason you first assent. Your first and initial assent to the church is from the practical reason of identifying it as the authority put in charge by Christ the rabbi to do his work. Once you give that initial assent through REASON, you accept the claims such as “Jesus is the son of God”, “Bible is the Word of God”, “Infallibility” by faith.

“Infallibility” in this sense is a definition of the scope of the authority of the church. This is just like when a doctor highlights his scope. No one feels suspicious about a doctor if he says I am a heart surgeon. The only reason one tends to feel suspicious with respect to the church is because they sometimes forget that the initial assent that “this is the authority I must trust regarding the transcendent” was one of practical reason. In other words, we don’t believe the church because it says it is infallible. Rather, we already believe the church from practical reason. The declaration on infallibility simply helps us understand how much certainty we can have on various teachings of the church.

To give you another analogy, it is like trusting a Particle physicist. When we want to learn something in the field, we know he is the one we must trust. The physicist can then say that I can make these claims with 100% certainty but these sort of claims I cannot say for sure. No one tells the physicist then that they are lying and simply saying things to bolster his authority, right? We as lay people would just accept. Why? Because we already knew from practical reason that it is the physicist we must trust as the authority regarding physics. We don’t get offended when he says his ability and his limitations but we benefit from it.

 

[Gaelic_Bard]

Outside of Scripture, who ever reports in detail about St. Paul though?

While there are no contemporary non-biblical sources for Paul (and why would there be?), we do have the ecclesiastical record. Its a post-contemporary non-biblical source.

Also, I am still not sure what rule you are indicating as practical reason. For me to see someone convert hardly gives me credence to believe in them seeing Jesus. I know many a people who converted to other radical religions. I certainly don’t think they saw the respective deity for conversion. It seems more intuitive to me to take the skeptical step toward conversion.

Why is conversion such a special thing that I actually have to accept his claim that he saw

People die for their beliefs all the time. How often do they die for something they know to be objectively false? Especially when they have nothing to gain by it?

Well this is again a confusion. Right now, whether it be Catholic or Christian, the circles have to terminate at Christ. Because that is the only grounding point we have for first accepting an authority regarding the transcendent using practical reason.

Agreed.

Then from that point on, we need to further use practical reason. It is not a jump in logic to say after establishing that Christ is authoritative and is a rabbi, we have our best chance of learning about him by listening to the Church. In a strictly reasonable perspective, Christ was the pioneer of the field and the Apostles are the students. The Apostolic successors are students certified by the students and so forth. There is no circle here because you accept the authority based on Christ.

Here is where the paradigm shifts. You say “listening to the Church,” I say “listening to the apostles who lay the foundation for the Church.” The church is not the apostles. And no where do they vest anyone else with their specific authority! And where do you draw the line? What do apostles do that bishops dont do? Perform miracles? Revelation? Judge the 12 tribes? And why is that not completely arbitrary?

What you are confusing is what I said before was not a passing down of authority. i.e. a Professor who has a group of undergraduates who implement his cure. Are the students now authoritative as the Professor, No! This is why not all Christians by simple virtue of being instructed in the faith is not an Apostolic Successor.

This might seem quiet surprising to you but reason has to precede faith. Let me explain.

I agree. Faith does follow reason. But revelation precedes both.

In other words, it is not clear that we have to only listen or assent to that which existed at the time of the Apostles.

We sure do unless you want to say revelation continued past the apostles in contradiction of Jude 3 (and the teachings of your own church).

As for history, you are aware that Rome did enjoy primacy according to the accounts of many Church fathers?

Primacy, yes. Its bishop being the vicar of Christ, head of the church on earth and infallible ex cathedra, who wields the spiritual and temporal swords whom every bishop on earth must be ordained by? Positively, absolutely not. Not even conceived of.

 

[stewstew03]

…
Primacy, yes.

Good.

Its bishop being the vicar of Christ, head of the church on earth and infallible ex cathedra, who wields the spiritual and temporal swords whom every bishop on earth must be ordained by? Positively, absolutely not. Not even conceived of.

Do you deny that Jesus delegated authority to Peter?

 

[Eufrosnia]

While there are no contemporary non-biblical sources for Paul (and why would there be?), we do have the ecclesiastical record. Its a post-contemporary non-biblical source.

Even if there were sources, even contemporary, what makes us think that Paul converting gives him any authority by virtue of the conversion itself. I mean, I don’t see any practical reasoning behind it at least. After all as I said, many convert from one religion to the other all the time.

People die for their beliefs all the time. How often do they die for something they know to be objectively false? Especially when they have nothing to gain by it?

There are multiple issues here. But what you say is only telling that Christ has authority or Christ’s resurrection is true. Paul certainly didn’t die for the cause that he saw Christ. Rather, he died for the claim of the resurrection.

That being said, the fact that he even died does not convey anything about his authority, yes? I mean, you might die for the faith, but it certainly does not mean you had authority, right?

Here is where the paradigm shifts. You say “listening to the Church,”…Perform miracles? Revelation? Judge the 12 tribes? And why is that not completely arbitrary?

I am not sure what you mean here. The issue is not what the first Apostles did or didn’t do. We do not assent based on that. Our assent is completely based on practical reasoning. Do you realize this important point?

The authority of the Apostles and Bishops are the same.

It also occurred to me that you mention this notion many times now

“was it there in the early church? is not, its invalid”

The above is a problematic position because the claim itself must first be grounded in faith. It is not intuitive that it is what you should do. Only thing intuitive is that you must assent to the Apostles and their successors. At least, regardless of whether YOU assent or not, do you agree that the assent is reasonable?

I agree. Faith does follow reason. But revelation precedes both.

Not in terms of coming to know it in our earthly lives. Revelation cannot precede reason because reason is what tells you something is revelation and something is not. Revelation cannot tell you that it is revelation. That is circular. One cannot claim that revelation is identifiable by intuition because clearly, that is not the case in the real world.

We sure do unless you want to say revelation continued past the apostles in contradiction of Jude 3 (and the teachings of your own church).

Jude 3 is a book in the Bible. You cannot argue for anything from Jude 3 unless you already have a way to arrive at the Bible. This is usually the mistake Protestants make.

The argumentation assumes that you already know what Jude 3 means and you already know that the Bible is the Word of God. That is incorrect. Unless you first assent to the church, you don’t know if anything is the word of God.

Now if you say that “Yes I accept the Church, but reading this passage after that seems to indicate the Church is wrong”. The issue with that is the fact that if you assent to the church, you must also assent to the fact that the Church is the final interpreter of Scripture.

Now to give you the Church’s interpretation of it, it states that all public revelation ceased at the Apostolic Age. So there will never be new public revelation. This has been decreed by the Church. The Church uses that passage to support its decree. Also, it is why we as Catholics know for sure that Mormons or Muslims are on the wrong path about their claims.

What you might have mistaken is that the Church continues to provide Divine Revelation to the faithful. It never claims that and neither does it do that. It merely teaches it and claims to be able to teach it infallibly. To take an example from Scripture itself, the Church doesn’t write new Scripture. It declares it to the faithful in a definitive way and teaches it as its final interpreter.

Primacy, yes. Its bishop being the vicar of Christ, head of the church on earth and infallible ex cathedra, who wields the spiritual and temporal swords whom every bishop on earth must be ordained by? Positively, absolutely not. Not even conceived of.

As I said before, Christianity falls or stands on whether you can assent to the Church. Why? Because otherwise you cannot drive forward the authority of Christ to anything else. There is simply no way to justify anything as the word of God let alone Jesus is the son of God. Do you realize this important point?

Because if you tried to justify the first Apostles as the ones giving the word of God, the natural question would be why them? I can understand if you meant that they had the most accurate biography of Jesus but that being the Word of GOD itself? That is not intuitive.

Usually at this point, you have to argue for something more. Perhaps something like “The Holy Spirit guided them”. The problem here is that before accepting the Bible as the word of God, no one would know about the existence of such a Holy Spirit or what the Holy Spirit is capable of. Then there is also the issue of interpreting the text itself.

So the way I see it, your best bet to learn about Christ has to be to assent to the Apostles and their successors in the same way a student who wants to learn Relativity assents to physicists.

As I asked before, do you at least agree that what I am saying here is reasonable?

P.S. I think you might have missed my second post (Post #622) to you in which I tried to provide a more detailed explanation.

 

[Isaiah45_9]

Here is where the paradigm shifts. You say “listening to the Church,” I say “listening to the apostles who lay the foundation for the Church.” The church is not the apostles. And no where do they vest anyone else with their specific authority! And where do you draw the line? What do apostles do that bishops dont do? Perform miracles? Revelation? Judge the 12 tribes? And why is that not completely arbitrary?

You lost me here Gaelic.

How can you say that the Apostles lay the foundation of the Church without delegating authority?

How is the Church to function? Why the Pastoral letters? Why the laying of the hands?

In your paradigm, the Church has no authority.

 

[SteveVH]

I agree! What you may be overlooking is that in the first century, even while the bible was being completed, divisions were already happening. The apostles were already warning against divisions among the church. By the time the council of nicaea occurs over two hundred years pass, which is unfortunately plenty of time for the church to be split and some branch (catholic) to claim it is THE church even if it’s not.

There has never been any gaurantee that people are not going to leave the truth for a lie. Yes, there were those that had their own ideas, apart from the teachings of the early Church, and they were called heretics. The Church is charged with guarding the deposit of faith given to it by the Apostles. There have been dissenters since the beginning, but only the Catholic Church (I include the EO here) still remains. It has outlived every other human institution. No other Christian community can make that claim.

I’m not saying that happened, I am currently studying this myself. But I want to inform you that I agree with your claim that the church would have to be around and Christ with the church this whole time without another showing up and saying “oh we have the truth by the way” when they haven’t’ even existed. But there is currently a logical point based on scripture to show that divisions were happening earlier so a church calling itself catholic two hundred years later might not necessarily actually be THE church.

Name another Church other than the Catholic or Orthodox Churches that has been around since the beginning. You have to narrow it down to those two choices at a minimum.

This is something that is assumed as a possibility based on my views at looking at the catholic church in its current form, which claims to be unchanged, and seeing what appear to be scriptural errors in its teaching.

Why don’t you name those purported “scriptural errors” and then tell us by what authority you claim them erroneous.

With my own experience I cannot definitively point to a place in history and say “look, see.” Maybe I have to, but that is the matter I am currently investigating myself and part of the reason I’m on this forum.

John Henry Newman did the same thing and ended up in the Catholic Church. You might want to read some of his stuff. Its excellent.

 

[PRmerger]

Jude 3 is a book in the Bible. You cannot argue for anything from Jude 3 unless you already have a way to arrive at the Bible. This is usually the mistake Protestants make.

http://www.worldliterarycafe.com/sites/default/files/images/facebook_like_button_big.jpeg

 

[Porknpie]

Sure thing, Pork. I would refer you to the new Church of Christ thread that was recently created.

Traverse,

Below is the “What We Believe” from your current church. Thank you for the link. It’s getting late and I don’t have time for a full reponse to everything below…perhaps someone else will comment, but I’ll just say that this is a Sola Scriptura thread. If I read this as it is written, you need to be on a Solo Scriptura thread.

Do you believe in Solo Scriptura?

Do you want to start a Solo Scriptura thread?

And where in the written Word of God teach Solo Scriptura?

And if you are only going by the bible, how do you know that the books that you have are inspired and infallible? … and that the number of books in your bible is correct? Where does the bible give you an index?

With Charity…

Pork

The Church of Christ of Ontario is made up of people who have been drawn together for worship and service by a common faith in Jesus Christ. We wish simply to be called Christians, and we make it our goal to live up to all that such a glorious name represents.

As individuals, we share a fellowship with Christians all over the world. When we were saved, the Lord added us to His church (Acts 2:47). The Head of the church is Christ; its headquarters is in heaven (Eph. 1:20-23).

As a local church we are self-governing; that is, we do not answer to or follow the direction of any man or council of men outside of the congregation. We adhere to no human creed. We are free to study, teach and work as the Bible leads us. The Scriptures alone tell us what is good for us to do (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

**Since the scriptures are our only guide in religious matters, it is our desire to do everything the scriptures teach, and nothing else. **

 

[CopticChristian]

That being said, the fact that he even died does not convey anything about his authority, yes? I mean, you might die for the faith, but it certainly does not mean you had authority, right?

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I am not sure what you mean here. ****The issue is not what the first Apostles did or didn’t do. We do not assent based on that. Our assent is completely based on practical reasoning. Do you realize this important point?

The authority of the Apostles and Bishops are the same.

It also occurred to me that you mention this notion many times now

“was it there in the early church? is not, its invalid”

Not in terms of coming to know it in our earthly lives. Revelation cannot precede reason because reason is what tells you something is revelation and something is not. Revelation cannot tell you that it is revelation. That is circular. One cannot claim that revelation is identifiable by intuition because clearly,**** that is not the case in the real world. ****

Now if you say that “Yes I accept the Church, but reading this passage after that seems to indicate the Church is wrong”.

What you might have mistaken is that the Church continues to provide Divine Revelation to the faithful. It never claims that and neither does it do that. It merely teaches it and claims to be able to teach it infallibly. To take an example from Scripture itself, the Church doesn’t write new Scripture. It declares it to the faithful in a definitive way and teaches it as its final interpreter.

As I asked before, do you at least agree that what I am saying here is reasonable?

P.S. I think you might have missed my second post (Post #622) to you in which I tried to provide a more detailed explanation.

Eufronasia,

May I add to your comments…

Gaelic makes several comments that indicate the difficulty the map in his head has in changing, ie their is complete resistance to any understanding. The map, based on a Bible Translation, that he cannot prove is Scripture, coupled with Protestant Oral Tradition is fixed causing everything to be filtered and expressed with distortions seen as follows.

he says

Here is where the paradigm shifts. You say “listening to the Church,” I say “listening to the apostles who lay the foundation for the Church.” The church is not the apostles.

There is cognitave dissonance in the mind concerning the Chruch. Where two or three are gathered…? What is the map of the Church in the mind of Gaelic. A group of People with a Bible translation is the church but not the Apostles.

Note the distinction when offering you a criticism. Gaelic has to conform to reality not the map in his head when referencing the OHCAC. He is making progress as he indicates “your Church”.

We sure do unless you want to say revelation continued past the apostles in contradiction of Jude 3 (and the teachings of your own church).

Now note the following

You say

This might seem quiet surprising to you but reason has to precede faith. Let me explain.

He says

I agree. Faith does follow reason. But revelation precedes both.

You respond

Not in terms of coming to know it in our earthly lives. Revelation cannot precede reason because reason is what tells you something is revelation and something is not. Revelation cannot tell you that it is revelation. That is circular. One cannot claim that revelation is identifiable by intuition because clearly, that is not the case in the real world.

So, the map of what the Christian world looks like in the mind of Gaelic tells him to believe and think and express

Revelation precedes Faith and Reason.

I would ask Gaelic, What is the Revelation that precedes Faith?..the mind of Gaelic should spin.

I offer this.

God is.
God creates.
Faith and Reason resides in Creation
Absent Creation is there a necessity for Faith and Reason?
Revelation is known by Faith not by Reason
Faith is a gift

Reason, is created, Faith is a gift and Revelation is percieved by Reason and Faith…as seen here…

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18“I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. 19“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”

Peter was created with reason and understood by a gift.

One question that Gaelic should answer is where does this Faith come from? The OHCAC teaches that all that can be known about God comes by Faith that is a gift and is received in Baptism.

Calvinist/Gaelic profess something to the effect that the elect are preached a Bible Translation that they cannot prove is Scripture and by magic they recognize their call and are awakened to salvation by Faith. Where does that Faith come from and why is it they have it?

 

[Traverse]

Traverse,

Below is the “What We Believe” from your current church. Thank you for the link. It’s getting late and I don’t have time for a full reponse to everything below…perhaps someone else will comment, but I’ll just say that this is a Sola Scriptura thread. If I read this as it is written, you need to be on a Solo Scriptura thread.

I wasn’t aware there was a difference other than spelling. Please enlighten me.

Currently there’s no need for me to answer your other questions until I understand fully the difference between sola and solo.

 

[CopticChristian]

I wasn’t aware there was a difference other than spelling. Please enlighten me.

Currently there’s no need for me to answer your other questions until I understand fully the difference between sola and solo.

Traverse,

I am sure you will get many responses. Here is an explanation in context.

calledtocommunion.com/2009/11/solo-scriptura-sola-scriptura-and-the-question-of-interpretive-authority/

Solo scriptura is, according to Mathison, an unbiblical position; proponents of sola scriptura should uphold the claim that Scripture is the only infallible authority, but should repudiate any position according to which individual Christians are the ultimate arbiters of Scriptural truth. In this article we argue that there is no principled difference between sola scriptura and solo scriptura with respect to the holder of ultimate interpretive authority, and that a return to apostolic succession is the only way to avoid the untoward consequences to which both solo scriptura and sola scriptura lead.

Both are Protestant inventions to stay in the Bible Translation without proof that it is Scripture as a rule of Faith.

 

[Porknpie]

I wasn’t aware there was a difference other than spelling. Please enlighten me.

Currently there’s no need for me to answer your other questions until I understand fully the difference between sola and solo.

Traverse,

Your church is saying very strictly “bible alone” then saying explicitly at the same time, “reject” those closest to Christ, reject Tradition, reject the Creeds. Your pastor is his own authority to understand scripture and is Pope. “Pope Boston”. Catholics say… nah to your Pastor… the Catholic Church is the authority to understand scripture, through Tradition passed on from Christ to the apostles as Christ promised to lead his Church to all Truth. You pastor’s bible was written for, by and about the Catholic Church…so it’s impossible that he holds the “fullness” of Truth (disbelief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist would be just one error that he has)

Here is an excerpt from the Called to Communion article below

Whereas **solo scriptura rejects the interpretive authority of the Church and the derivative authority of the creeds, **sola scriptura affirms the interpretive authority of the Church and the derivative authority of the creeds, except when they teach something contrary to one’s conscience, as informed by one’s own interpretation of Scripture.

Here again is what your Church believes

As individuals, we share a fellowship with Christians all over the world. When we were saved, the Lord added us to His church (Acts 2:47). The Head of the church is Christ; its headquarters is in heaven (Eph. 1:20-23).

As a local church we are self-governing; that is, we do not answer to or follow the direction of any man or council of men outside of the congregation. We adhere to no human creed. We are free to study, teach and work as the Bible leads us. The Scriptures alone tell us what is good for us to do (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

Traverse - here’s the 2 Timothy scripture. Below. Catholics AGREE 100% with this. Again, you are reading a Catholic book. But the verse says nothing about “Scripture Alone”. Nothing. And Paul was speaking largely at that time about the Old Testament. There was no bible at this time of his writing.

16 All scripture is inspired by God and is** useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

Your church also says this below…of course the problem, and a big one is that it is not in scripture and it is not found in the early church. Christ said go out and “preach the Good News” and St. Paul said to hold fast to what you have been taught, both by Word and by what has been written. BOTH…Word and Written…

Since the scriptures are our only guide in religious matters,

it is our desire to do everything the scriptures teach, and nothing else.

calledtocommunion.com/2009/11/solo-scriptura-sola-scriptura-and-the-question-of-interpretive-authority/#mathison

Here’s another… a good read on sola and somewhat on solo…

socrates58.blogspot.com/2004/05/sola-scriptura-vs-solo-scriptura-or.html**

 

[Traverse]

Ok, I think I see what you’re saying now.

We certainly don’t reject historical context and writings, but we can’t consider the ECFs binding because their writings are not inspired by the Holy Spirit (or they’d be in the bible).

You certainly misunderstand when you say we reject the authority of the church, for we don’t. However, we see the organization of the church as without a magisterium and with local self governing congregations. That is not to say that an elder from a church cannot comment on what is going on at another congregation, but that they’re going to talk elder to elder and not interfere with one elder’s own work.

With the 2 Timothy passage the key is “every good work.” If scripture is sufficient for EVERY good work then there is no need for anything else. Yes, at the time of the writing the new testament wasn’t complete, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it doesn’t include writings to come. It says “all” scripture, not “current” scripture. So when all scripture is compiled, even if Timothy at the time might not necessarily understand that Revelation is still to be written, the statement is still all inclusive. Scripture is seen with utmost importance.

We don’t disagree on the necessity of preaching and spreading the good news and the early church holding to the traditions of the apostles. What we would say, though, is that when scripture was completed that those oral traditions were recorded so that we are equipped for “every” good work. We don’t see what purpose there would be to have a tradition and not write it down. This seems to be echoed by the catholic church as well, honestly, for while you hold to sacred tradition, your teachings are recorded in the catechism.

So it’s not a rejection of sacred tradition, but a belief that the tradition is recorded in God’s complete revelation.

As to where the bible came from and if it’s a catholic book then why aren’t we catholic? Those are good questions and that’s part of why I’m here on this forum, because this is a matter that I’m studying myself. But I can only speak to the current organization of my church because you have asked.

We don’t believe in the interpretive of our “pastor.” We don’t even call him that. We call him brother. He serves as an elder, along with two other men, but he most often preaches. We have other men in our congregation that also preach, which we believe is in keeping with the church of the first century, so that if anyone has anything to say they can say it. We are not governed by “Pope Boston” except in his decisions as an elder of our congregation along with the two other elders. When he preaches we have our bibles to read and we fact check what he says and if he says anything we deem incorrect then we will tell him and we will all study together.

I would agree that the church has interpretive authority, but not in that a select few making up a magisterium have that authority, but that all christians working together with honest hearts and scripture can work together and determine the appropriate meaning of the text through honesty and prayer.

When we say scripture is our only guide in religious matters we mean in terms of doctrine. Obviously our elders make decisions for the congregation on how best to “shepherd the flock” and we have binding and loosing authority certainly when it comes to a brother who refuses to repent. Things like that. We see secular history as having much value, but we don’t derive doctrine from that history not recorded in scripture.

 

[Denise1957]

When we say scripture is our only guide in religious matters we mean in terms of doctrine. Obviously our elders make decisions for the congregation on how best to “shepherd the flock” and we have binding and loosing authority certainly when it comes to a brother who refuses to repent. Things like that. We see secular history as having much value, but we don’t derive doctrine from that history not recorded in scripture.

Could you clarify about how it is that you arrive at doctrine in your church? Is it by consensus, or the views of the majority?

 

[stewstew03]

…
When he preaches we have our bibles to read and we fact check what he says and if he says anything we deem incorrect then we will tell him and we will all study together.
…

How do you know he’s incorrect - could it be that your interpretation is incorrect?