hey john paul… i guess the way i understand the early times after christ
had risen is that the church, being those who followed christ during his
minsitry were the first leaders who passed on thru stories, or oral
tradition for a time until they died themselves. it was because of this that
the early churches knew that they had to collect these stories of jesus on
written pages, and yes that took a long time, but they knew they wanted to
keep the orthodoxy, because as you wrote, in galatians, they were
encountering false doctrines. so in a sense, it was the apostles that were
that foundation for what followers of christ believed. i think it is really
dangerous to try to make a hard and fast rule about how all of that took
place during those years while scripture was being formed. the ship leaving
without the rudder is also misplaced, because sola scriptura does not mean
only scripture during those years, because it didnt exist, especially in the
earliest years. no offense but it seems like you have a position, and will
argue it without seeing how the way you are forming your conclusions about
what protestant theology is. you quoted two bible references and you
interpreted them wrong. you said that jesus said that he would not leave us
orphans,he is not talking about church leadership or scripture here, but the
Holy Spirit. i think it is really important to recognize that the HS played
the major role during these times. yes you are right, God sets up
leadership, and did so thru the apostles, and when they were gone, that
succession did NOT continue, but what was left was the stories of Jesus,
being scripture. again, as i said before, it was at this time that we came
to trust in scripture alone, because the apostles were gone. if the apostles
were around it would be a different story. so like i said, its hard to say
exactly who or what was the infallible athority during that time, but it was
a mix of the HS and the apostles.
when it comes to oral tradition i agree with you that it is important. this
is how the OT was carried through the generations for over a thousand years.
its just that once the scriptures were finally brought together, there is no
logical reason to continue using it. like i said, God’s progressive
revelation had ended during the time of the early church, so there should be
no new theology arising after that time. we have in scripture everything we
need to know about salvation, sin, grace, redemption, the return of Christ.
the queston i would ask you is what else do we need to know? to be honest
with you, if we are coming up with new stuff after thousands of years, there
is something VERY wrong with our theology of divine revelation.
You wrote:
Scripture testifies that Oral Tradition must be held and we are commanded to
by St. Paul, that all teachings will not be written but are equally
important to the Christian
where are you getting this from? what is this supposed to mean?
you see its one thing to say that the papacy is authoratative and that it
should not contradict scriptrue (and right now i wont even touch that one),
yet another thing when papal succession contradicts itself. what do you do
when one pope contradicts another. im sure that it has been shown over the
years that the papacy is not infallible, as it has had to retract countless
errors in practice and theology, so how can we call that authorative.
Here is what I suggest when talking to a protestant trying to convert you:
(open-minded) Protestant? I’m usually pretty good about explaining the beliefs, doctrines, traditions, etc. of Catholicism…but I’m not exactly sure what to say when they ask why the Mass follows the same format every week. Anyone have any insight on this? Thanks and God Bless.