Sola Scripturist Catholic

[Cor_ad_Cor]

The scripture alone is the sole possession of the Church that is literally God-breathed and God-speaking. All other authorities are either derivatives/interpretations (tradition) or serve to protect scripture (the magisterium).

Except that this claim is exactly wrong. See my previous comment above. Scripture is not the sole possession of the Church God-breathed. The other authorities do not derive from or protect scripture. You’ve got it perfectly backwards. That’s evangelical protestantism’s most significant flaw.

 

[ZMystiCat]

To be fair, I don’t think Sola Scriptura requires this belief.

It doesn’t explicitly require that. There is, however, a worthwhile discussion to be had about how Scripture can be the only Divinely-inspired, and as such infallible, authority while Jesus Himself, who is Divine, said much that wasn’t recorded in Scripture. Does claiming Sola Scriptura then imply that Jesus wasn’t Divine or that His Words were somehow fallible?

This is a significant issue. It doesn’t matter what any particular ecclesial community calls their canon, but the fact that they call a particular selection of books Scripture, and any other writing not Scripture. This, by nature, assumes an authority equal to Scripture.

There are Protestants who don’t think the canon is infallible. Reformed apologist R.C. Sproul once wrote, “Catholics believe the Bible is an infallible collection of infallible books. We believe it is a fallible collection of infallible books.” (Probably not an exact quote, since I don’t have the book with me right now.) Of course, this has a bevy of obvious problems, but I’m not going to spend time explaining them unless someone asks.

Another popular alternative, perhaps the most prevalent one, is that the Holy Spirit worked to preserve the canon, often with Psalm 12:7 as a citation. Of course, even without considering how long it took to get the canon, this starts having problems when you consider that the Spirit worked through the Church, indicating that the Church could be a continuing, infallible authority. A lot of Protestants though tend to either downplay the historical aspects of how the canon came to be or don’t tackle the idea that it indicates there is a still-existing authority that the Holy Spirit infallible worked through.

 

[StAugustine]

Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, IV:17.

For concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the Faith, not even a casual statement must be delivered without the Holy Scriptures; nor must we be drawn aside by mere plausibility and artifices of speech. Even to me, who tell you these things, give not absolute credence, unless you receive the proof of the things which I announce from the Divine Scriptures. For this salvation which we believe depends not on ingenious reasoning, but on demonstration of the Holy Scriptures.

 

[rcwitness]

Yes, thats definitely a Sola Scriptura approach to doctrine.

Did St Cyril say nothing regarding intercession of the Saints, or any Marian beliefs?

 

[Bruce_Killian]

Likewise, the magisterium is not God-breathed

Jesus breathed on the apostles John 20:22 and Jesus breathed on them and said receive the Holy Spirit So the magesterium is God breathed like the Scriptures.
Grace and peace,
Bruce

 

[StAugustine]

Well here is why it’s a disingenuous claim for us Catholics to say the Hierarchy is God-breathed-

1. Inspiration refers to the communication of the very thoughts and mind of God through human agency. This is the context for referring to scripture as God-breathed- it is God speaking.
2. The Hierarchy is definitely established by Christ but it is NOT God speaking because there is no positive inspiration of the hierarchical members- if there WAS you would have to admit revelation is ongoing.

So it’s NOT the same. It’s only similar by a disingenuous and equivocal use of the term “God-breathed.”

 

[StAugustine]

Although there is much Christ said that is not recorded in scripture, we don’t have access to it’s content.

Find me a single Sacred Tradition defines by the magisterium as coming from the mouth of Christ NOT in Holy Scripture. It doesn’t exist, which means that all tradition can only be derivative FROM
Scripture, and that the magisterium serves the proper sense OF scripture.

So really, scripture DOES have the primacy both ontologically in its essence and logically.

That’s why the fathers were insistent on using it to establish all truths.

 

[ZMystiCat]

Although there is much Christ said that is not recorded in scripture, we don’t have access to it’s content.

At least as far as we know. It is entirely possible that much of what Christ said made it directly into the Apostles’ own writings or indirectly through the writings of the successors of the Apostles. Of course, unless the person explicitly attributed it to Christ, we would say that it came from them.

Find me a single Sacred Tradition defines by the magisterium as coming from the mouth of Christ NOT in Holy Scripture.

Some of the Magisterium’s teachings like infant baptism and immaculate conception, while certainly supportable by Scripture, are not explicitly discussed in Scripture yet are pretty well-established within the Sacred Tradition. It is possible Jesus discussed that with His Apostles. That’s not a guarantee, but it also isn’t impossible either.

Either way, this challenge isn’t really that great because:

1. It at best sets up an argument from ignorance. This is logically fallacious.
2. It assumes that a rejection of Sola Scriptura means that we believe stuff can be found in Sacred Tradition that can’t be ascertained from Scripture. This is not true. (Of course, the canon is obviously from pure Sacred Tradition, but that’s the lone exception as far as I know.)

What a rejection of Sola Scriptura is is a rejection of the idea that Scripture alone is infallible. For practical reasons, we would also say that it is a rejection of attempting to interpret Scripture separate from Sacred Tradition or the Magisterium, including the traditionalist Protestant attempt at selectively choosing which Tradition to hold to.

which means that all tradition can only be derivative FROM
Scripture

I’m not sure “derivative” is the right word here. That would imply that the Tradition is based on Scriptural interpretation, which isn’t really the case. Tradition flows from the life of the Church and what Christ taught the Apostles. That, of course, also serves as an influence over why some Scriptures were written (e.g. Paul responding to heresy) or what was contained in them. St. Irenaeus even implies that, without Scripture, we would still have the teachings of the Magisterium because of Tradition:

What if the apostles had not in fact left writings to us? Would it not be necessary to follow the order of tradition, which was handed down to those to whom they entrusted the churches?

Scripture is a tremendous, loving gift from God, but as far as I am aware, it is not wholly necessary for Tradition or the Magisterium, since Tradition would have existed anyways, indicating that it isn’t derivative from Scripture.

that the magisterium serves the proper sense OF scripture

So long as we understand this in the manner of CCC 86, then sure.

(cont.)

 

[ZMystiCat]

(cont.)

That’s why the fathers were insistent on using it to establish all truths.

Of course, to the early Church Fathers, the divide between Scripture and Tradition was considerably less clear, especially in the pre-canon days.

However, as already mentioned, the rejection of Sola Scriptura does not indicate that we are not seeking to support our teaching through Scripture. As far as I’m aware, all dogma, short of a few obvious cases like the canon, can be found in Scripture. With that said, the major difference between us, as Catholics, and Protestants, is that we join with the Church in her teaching rather than declare our own interpretation of Scripture the correct one.

To quote St. Vincent of Lerins:

But here some one perhaps will ask, Since the canon of Scripture is complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join with it the authority of the Church’s interpretation? For this reason — because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture , all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, another, Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian, another, Iovinian, Pelagius, Celestius, another, lastly, Nestorius another. Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation.

 

[Bruce_Killian]

Find me a single Sacred Tradition defines by the magisterium as coming from the mouth of Christ NOT in Holy Scripture. It doesn’t exist, which means that all tradition can only be derivative FROM
Scripture, and that the magisterium serves the proper sense OF scripture.

So really, scripture DOES have the primacy both ontologically in its essence and logically.

That’s why the fathers were insistent on using it to establish all truths.

We can start with what is scripture. Jesus did not give us a list, the list of books in the Bible also is not in the scripture but the magisterium did. Second Jesus did say my words will never pass away, but He also said I will never leave you and then He promptly left. He stays with us by His presence in the Eucharist.

 

[StAugustine]

Actually, the magisterium did not initially give a list.

Firstly, the Old Testament canon was known from the books laid up in the temple.

Secondly, the four gospels were universally arrested to early on with practically no dissension.

Thirdly, the Liturgical life of the Church was partly responsible for determining the canon- that which is read in all the churches.

Fourthly, any local council before Trent was purely regional, and let us ask the question- by what authority did the FIRST Church council dealing with the canon make its determinations? Not by magisterial authority, but by a variety of criterion.

Indeed, up until Trent the view of the Deuterocanon was varied. Many saints like Cajetan and Jerome said it made good reading, but not to establish doctrine from it.

Realistically, you can’t ace a Protestant with an appeal to the authority establishing the canon, because once they ask YOU what the first councils criterion was for the canon, they will simply say that is THEIR criterion too. Bye bye magisterium. In their view it’s superfluous.

 

[joeybaggz]

So it’s NOT the same. It’s only similar by a disingenuous and equivocal use of the term “God-breathed.”

So, let’s see, the term "God-breathed is spot on when you use it, but it is disingenuous and equivocating when someone else does. Ponderous, man, ponderous!

Realistically, you can’t ace a Protestant with an appeal to the authority establishing the canon, because once they ask YOU what the first councils criterion was for the canon, they will simply say that is THEIR criterion too. Bye bye magisterium. In their view it’s superfluous.

Spoken like a true protestant!

 

[ZMystiCat]

Firstly, the Old Testament canon was known from the books laid up in the temple.

If it were that well-known and obvious, people wouldn’t have debated it for almost three hundred years. Even down to St. Augustine and St. Jerome, who lived during the Council of Carthage in 397, there was still debate among the bishops of the Church about what made up the Old Testament canon. Even after the canon was established, there was still the fact that the Jews had laid down a different canon a few hundred years earlier, and Protestants would later reject the Catholic canon with at least three different versions of the Old Testament (including the Jewish one) before settling on the Jewish one.

Having books does not simply make the canon obvious. If that were the case, the Didache would have made it or, if you want a more obviously ridiculous example, so would the Aeneid.

Secondly, the four gospels were universally arrested to early on with practically no dissension.

There were still, however, other alleged gospels, such as the Gospel of Thomas. You still needed someone to decide which ones were and weren’t really Scripture.

Thirdly, the Liturgical life of the Church was partly responsible for determining the canon- that which is read in all the churches.

That doesn’t matter because:

1. This didn’t create a universal canon on its own. You still needed discussion to determine what to add, keep, or remove.
2. Part of the Magisterium’s job is to correctly profess dogma as shown in Sacred Tradition. This is just what the Magisterium does.

Fourthly, any local council before Trent was purely regional, and let us ask the question- by what authority did the FIRST Church council dealing with the canon make its determinations? Not by magisterial authority, but by a variety of criterion.

See the second point on the above. Trent is an excellent example of how that works. Carthage laid down a canon with Papal approval that became the norm for the Church. However, with the rise of Protestantism, the canon was challenged again. Sacred Tradition was not enough to stop them from attempting to declare another canon, so the Magisterium stepped in and laid down one final declaration on what it was.

Realistically, you can’t ace a Protestant with an appeal to the authority establishing the canon, because once they ask YOU what the first councils criterion was for the canon, they will simply say that is THEIR criterion too. Bye bye magisterium. In their view it’s superfluous.

Sure, just like you can’t ace a serial killer with appeals to laws saying don’t murder people. If Protestants want to create their own criteria, OK, they can certainly do that. That’s part of why they aren’t joined with the Church, just like other heretics like Arius and Nestorius. (Yes, I’m aware most modern-day Protestants aren’t technically “heretics”, but the early ones absolutely were.)

 

[StAugustine]

I think I lost you there- Protestants (and by the way I am not a Protestant) simply say this- the council fathers of, say, Rome in 382 did not have previous conciliar teaching to go by in attempting to fix the canon. What they had were traditional criteria which they used to judge the books in question and come to a decision. This is simply what the Protestant accepts, not the authority of the ancient councils per se, but the criteria by which they judged.

But the weakness in the Protestant attempt to account for the canon is this- they will not lay out a clear and cohesive methodology for the acceptance of the canon in terms of a timeline. Because it DOES run into being ultimately on the basis of Conciliar decisions that the Canon is discerned (not created- God alone is the author of the canon, not the Church, by the fact that he has inspired some books and not others; the Church only discerns what they are through the aid of the Spirit of Christ in her).

 

[StAugustine]

I am not a Protestant, a baptized and confirmed convert circa 2004. I just can’t stand when Catholic apologists use weak or cheap arguments- James White takes them apart and we need a better approach.

Equivocation is using one word or term in different senses. For example, calling both scripture and the Hierarchy God-breathed is using the term equivocally, because the Greek word Theopneustos is used in the context of inspiration, that the authors of scripture are the mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit in conveying his own words.

Where Christ is granting priestly powers to the apostles, he breathes on them to convey their empowerment to forgive sins.

These are not the same things, therefore to describe both with the same phrase is actually a perfect example of Equivocation.

 

[ZMystiCat]

(and by the way I am not a Protestant)

Yeah, I know. Sorry if I made it sound like you were. The arguments you were throwing out, though, are Protestant arguments, and we do have Protestants on this forum, so I figured that I’d offer a Catholic response for at least their sake.

 

[Cor_ad_Cor]

@ZMystiCat
He’s doing a plenty good job making himself sound Protestant.

 

[rcwitness]

I don’t happen to believe the Council of Rome in 382 produced the Damacene list, later attributed to Pope Damasus.

Keep in mind, the Council of Hippo acknowledged the canon they upheld was awaiting approval from “across the sea”.

I won’t argue that the Magisterium uses criteria before decrees. Even the Marian beliefs were laid before the Bishops before their dogmatic decree.

The Magisterium is not above Scripture. It is merely the highest level of Confirmation for the faithful.

And if you want to use St Jerome’s opinion of the Deuteros to diminish Rome’s authority, you should consider his letters to Pope St Damasus. He clearly regards the Pope’s position as able to give a final judgment over his own council.

 

[rcwitness]

Secondly, the four gospels were universally arrested to early on with practically no dissension.

Before St Irenaeus, the four Gospels were not universally held as Scripture. They were disputed as to which one was the true Gospel. Irenaeus appealed to his own Apostolic authority in order to uphold the equal standing of all four Gospels.

 

[chessnerd321]

Sola Fide!- Amen! Only let it be a living faith evidenced by works.

A convert myself, I’ve spent a long time thinking about this one. I’d like to throw out a couple things.

1. I think you need a better reason than “it’s technically possible to affirm if you’re really careful and define terms properly”. This doctrine, more than almost any other is rejected word for word in James. “Therefore we are justified by works and not by faith alone” I mean, that’s the only place in the Bible “faith alone” is used. You need a much better reason to contradict this.
2. In Trent the Church very clearly rejects the notion that good works simply flow from faith. The works save too: Canon 24: “If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema.” Works aren’t meerly evidence. Works are oars we can choose, through God’s grace, to use to paddle deeper into His love.
3. Even if the difference between us and some Protestant groups really is only semantic (which I’ve waffled on, but right now I think it runs deeper), we don’t gain anything by caving. At the VERY least we cause scandle for those with whom we clearly disagree. Remember that to some faith alone implies predestination, once saved always saved and probably others I’m not thinking about. Whatever ecumenical beifits using Protestant language might have it’s certainly outweighed many times over by the cost of confusing the truth.