Sola Scripturist Catholic

  • Thread starter Thread starter StAugustine
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Again, there is nothing that suggests that what was passed on orally is any different than what was written in Romans or Colossians. If there were traditions outside of scripture of apostolic origin that later became our modern Catholic dogmas, then show me the apostolic pedigree. Which Apostle first began to preach the assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary in the Church as a doctrine revealed by God necessary for salvation?

If we cannot show an actual apostolic origin, why do we say it goes back to the apostles?

And; On the contrary, scripture does testify to its own sufficiency. Christ holds men accountable for knowing it and judging them by it, Paul says that it makes the man of God fully equipped for every good work. That’s both material and formal sufficiency.

Is proclaiming the teaching of the Church a good work? Then the man of God is fully equipped by scripture to accomplish this.

This is what Protestants will say.
 
Last edited:
Scriptures are like a snap shot of a baby freshly born. Tradition is like a collection of movies of the babies youth and growth into adulthood. The Magisterium is the voice of that adult who is our parent in the world. All the same but different.
 
There is apostolic origin though. The early church fathers testify through their writings to this. As does the Bible itself. God does not leave Peter and the apostles a book of teachings, (that didn’t even exist at his time) he leaves them a church with which they have the authority through Christ to lead.
Protestants rely on their own interpretations of the Bible to justify scripture alone, and will cherry pick passages similar to those you wrote to try to claim this as fact. They ignore passages that discuss traditions outside of the biblical writings.
Tradition and the tradition of authority that the Catholic Church has, is why we have the Bible that we have today.
 
Strictly speaking we have the Bible because God have it to us and the canon is simply WHAT he gave. The Church discerns, does not create, that.
 
Yes of course. But authority given to the church by god, is what discerned what books are used as canon. This same authority drives traditions of the church.
That’s why one cannot have one without the other.
 
Most problems that Protestants have regarding faith and the Catholic Church stems from problems with submission to the authority of the church. Authority that god gave to his church.
 
See, and that’s the issue, it is not necessarily an issue of authority regarding the canon, because the canon was developed in the first few centuries apart from magisterial authority. For example, Athanasius’ festal letter lays out his list of the canon. And apparently, this independent use of fallible lists of canonical books didn’t bother too many people before the heretic Marcion came along.

The issue is this, again- how did the individual fathers and members of the first council that set up a REGIONAL canon determine the authenticity of the books?

The point is this- as Catholics we ultimately appeal to history to vindicate our view of the Church, not scripture and not the Church itself, at rock bottom.

Protestants appeal to history to vindicate their usage of the scripture without simultaneously giving into an argument from authority, because ULTIMATELY the basis of any ULTIMATE authority is circular and has to be taken on faith. And guess what, the same fallible human reason is in play for both!

Not so simple.
 
I see it is very simple actually.
a lot of Catholics lean on history and tradition alone, but that’s not what the church teaches Catholics should lean on. As Catholics we have it all. we have all of the pieces. we have the history we have the authority we have the Scriptures we have the faith. We Have the full meal. Catholics have been poorly catechized which is why they rely on historical arguments alone.
Protestant skip the history they skip the authority and interpret the Scriptures To fit teachings that feel good to them. This is evident if you look at protestant doctrines and how they have evolved over the past 50 to 60 years. They do not have the authority nor the history that enforces consistent teaching throughout time.
 
So what ultimate authority establishes as true the claims of Rome? Take it all the way down to a single source and what do you have?
 
At the end of the day it does all boil down to faith. Faith in Jesus and Faith in his church which has preserved his teachings over the past two thousand years.
 
How do we know Christ? From Scripture? Then our authority is that which testified to him. But first we read it as history right, to know he established a church and from there we put faith in it to be authoritative for us.

But again, we are back at history. Faith must lead us to a transcendent authority, so is it scripture or the Church and on what basis?
 
God wrote the Bible through the agency of man- it is God speaking, not the Church speaking, so no. The bride simply discerns the voice of the bridegroom and submits, but how?

Ultimately scripture must be self-attesting in terms of its internal witness and consistency and its power to transform the hearts of sinners- the presbyters in the Church discerned that, and so regional variations of the canon were drawn up. Carthage being normative for the west, Trullo normative for the east, and others normative for the Copts and Ethiopia. But there was no infallible council in the early church and regional councils and fathers varied. Fallible lists of infallible books is what you had, honestly.
 
Your arguments don’t really make sense to me. The Bible was a group of books, inspired by god, canonized by man (the church) inspired by god through his promise. This inspired bible, as well as God’s inspired church work together to uphold the traditions and teachings of the faith and lead souls to heaven.
 
I am not trying to sound rude, but am wondering if you personally don’t recognize the authority of the church or if your playing devils advocate?
 
Devils advocate.

It’s all a question of ultimate authority. We say the Church, they say scripture, when we both answer why, then we point to history.

Why then do we trust what we read in history as accurate or the will of God?

My point is that if we don’t start with faith we introduce radical skepticism.
 
Last edited:
Of course, and absolutely, the Bible is the sole possession of the Church that is God breathed, and therefore ontologically superior to either tradition or the magisterium.

Not only that, but both tradition and the magisterium are subject to and normed by sacred scripture. Absolutely.

It’s just that the conformity of tradition and the magisterium to scripture alone occurs at the hands of the Holy Spirit within the Church, not at the hands of the reformers who have refused to heed the command of Christ and “hear the Church.”

Checks out?
Where does Jesus fit into your order of things? Jesus is the summation of all revelation.
Let me ask you:
Is Jesus a book or a person?
 
OP, I am new to this thread and admittedly have not read it all. It does seem to me that you diverge somewhat from the common definition of Sola Scriptura. I have heard two different definitions of Sola Scriptura from protestants:
  1. The Bible contains everything needed for our salvation (it is sufficient)
  2. The Bible contains God’s revelation to man in its entirety
Are you following one of these two definitions?
 
Yes but again, these things are determined by objective criteria by men using reason.

What was that criteria in the very first council touching on the canon?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top