Code:
I believe that writers of Holy Scripture were protected from error when they wrote Scripture. And I believe that the church was guided by the Holy Spirit in identifying those books that it did as inspired.
This is the gift of infallilbity at work. Fallible men, inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit, are able to act without error. This is why we say that the Scriptures are the product of infallibility.
Not all of their acts are inspired, or at all times. Nor are those acting under the gift impeccable.
However, in that case, the church was only recognizing what was already the case. The Scriptures are inspired, and the church recognized this by examining the texts used accepting what was inspired and rejecting what was not. Tradition is not inspired.
I think you are contradicting yourself here. What enabled the Church to recognize the canon was the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This is what Sacred Tradition is. The Church, acting in accordance with the HS to make infallible decisions.
The Church is “inspired”, inasmuch as Jesus breathed upon His fledgling Church so that they could become filled with the HS.
Tradition helps us make sense of the gospel, but tradition should never be raised to the level of a matter of faith.
How could proper sense of the Gospel be anything OTHER than a "matter of faith?
Sacred Tradtion does include Jesus revelation through His Apostles on how to understand the Scriptures. The reason it is a doctrine of the faith is because it is part of divine revelation.
The church can only recognize what it knows as a certainty.
It seems you believe that the frailties of men are more powerful than the Holy Spirit. You seem to believe that God abandoned HIs Word, and His promises, and failed, through weakness or disinterest, to protect His Word which He placed in the Church.
1 Thess 2:13-14
13 And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.
When did God become some impotent?
And what is certain is what has been revealed in Scripture. Things outside of Scripture may be convincing and helpful, but it isn’t solid enough to raise to a requirement of faith.
This is an anti-Catholic polemic that dates back to the Reformation . It is a principle not found anywhere in Scripture, and one which is CONTRADICTED many places in Scripture.
When someone proclaims something that should be believed by the whole church universal, its not good enough to say “a lot of people have said this over a long period of time”. Such action causes confusion and doubt and disunity. When you say, “this is a matter of faith” but it cannot be clearly shown from scripture, there will be people who cannot subscribe to it.
Yes and no. If those people who have embraced the man made tradition you cited above about what must be contained in the Scriptures were consistent, they would reject the whole NT, because the table of contents was not part of the writings. You are right that Sacred Tradition can only encompass that which is inerrant, and part of divine revelation.
Nevertheless, because it has been made a mandatory belief they either must follow the certainty of Scripture or the uncertainty of the majority or those in power. Either way, unity is broken, and the church has gone beyond the warrant of what it knows to be without error.
Well, for us, there is no dichotomy. Sacred Tradition is not a matter of being a “majority of those in power”, as I think we can all agree that the temporal authority of the Church was anything but major when the canon was being formed. We will also agree on the Sacred Tradition that formed the New Testament being guided by the HS, not “the majority of those in power”.
There is nothing in Scripture that contradicts Sacred Tradition because they both come from the same Source. Sacred Tradition goes beyond what you can embrace as Truth because you are limited by your own perceptions of what the Bible states. Your perceptions being limited and fallible, your ability to know and embrace divine relelation is limited by them.
I don’t think the Catholic Church is a nefarious Whore of Babylon evil Davinci Code conspiratorial secret cabal. I consider you brothers and sisters in Christ. I think the Pope and your bishops are awesome, just not error proof.
