Why would the Catholic Church put together a Book that disproves thier own doctrine?

[zz912]

just,

Of course it would not. But it is possible a church could change from the fundamentals over time and find itself out of touch. So your argument does not prove very much.

But I would argue that the bible was put together by the churches through informal consensus and not by any particular denominaion.

Rob

Could you point out any fundamentals that have changed in the Catholic Church since AD33?

 

[JaKael02]

First I’d like to say this is a fair and excellent question. And this is one of those questions I’ve realized points out a disturbing truth; The questions posed by atheists or non-believers are often the same posed by Christians of different churches. This is one of those questions. Often times those who deny the Christian faith will tell Christians that their own Bible contradicts itself. This assumes the men who declared Holy Scripture were too stupid to realize the books they proclaimed as sacred were different. This assumes they just haphazardly put together a group of books. This assumes the men who compiled it did not understand the books were telling the same truth in different ways. This assumes that every statement, sentence, paragraph or any division of words is intended to fully convey all possible information. This assumes the non-believer has a right to declare what is the meaning of another man’s holy books. I find this to be a very bad argument.

To answer your question we can invent all sorts of theories as to why this would be. But I believe the most plausible history is that they did not put together a book that disproved their doctrine. I would note that this does not require that the Catholic church’s doctrine is right. Having a book that does not disprove a doctrine is not the same as the book proving it. Of course I’m certainly even now convinced that Catholic doctrine is a lot closer to the truth than the vast majority of Christian denominations.

You explained this well. Of course I’d have used a couple more paragraphs, but would not have explained it as well either.

 

[Nicea325]

Quote:
Originally Posted by submariner2
just,

Of course it would not. But it is possible a church could change from the fundamentals over time and find itself out of touch. So your argument does not prove very much.

But I would argue that the bible was put together by the churches through informal consensus and not by any particular denominaion.

There are serious problems with the above statement. First, to claim it is possible for the Church of Jesus Christ to change from the fundamentalist flies in the face of Jesus’ own words: The gates of Hell should not prevail. Second, so such a position holds very little credence theologically and historically. Third, the Bible was compiled by the Catholic Church,not a denomation.

 

[pablope]

Jim,

They were canonized at Trent but previous to that the churches accepted the 27 generally by consensus without any church-wide council or direction from any central authority.

Wrong premise, my friend. The bible was not meant to be a source of doctrine, the canon was finalized to have a standard set of readings to be read during the Mass…originally.

Extracting doctrines out of the Bible started with your protestant grandfathers, not with the Catholic Church.

 

[mark_a]

"For the first fifteen hundred years of christianity, no christian
church put forth a difinintive list of Bible books.

This was out of respect for the Eastern Apostolic Churches, some of whom have more than 73 books.

 

[dzheremi]

“For the first fifteen hundred years of christianity, no christian
church put forth a difinintive list of Bible books. Most christians
had followed St. Augustine and included the “Apocrapha” in the canon,
but St. Jerome, who excluded them, had always had his defenders.”

I’m sorry, but I have to speak up to correct this idea. St. Athanasius the Apostolic, one of the greatest saints to come from the Alexandrian Church and an enlightener of all of the churches, was the first to propose the 27 books of the NT that are now common to the accepted NT Biblical canon (in that all churches accept all the books there, even if they have more, as the Ethiopian Tewahedo do). This is attested to in his 39th Festal letter, written in 367 AD, which was replicated later by Damasus I, Bishop of Rome, in 382 AD, nearly replicated by the Synod of Hippo in 392 AD (though they did not include the Epistle to the Hebrews present in both St. Athanasius’ and Damasus’ lists) and the Synod of Carthage in 397, and much later accepted by the Council in Trullo in 692 by the 215 Eastern (not “Oriental”, as we understand that term today) bishops assembled there.

So to say that no church had proposed a definitive list of books is wrong. St. Athanasius was Pope of Alexandria from AD 328-373 (interrupted by the Arian interlude of Gregory of Cappadocia, 339-346, who is not accepted by any church), meaning that unlike those who had proposed canons before him (e.g., Origen, or the heretic Marcion of Sinope), St. Athanasius did actually represent a church, and his canon was subsequently adopted by other churches. Your canon (meaning the Roman Catholic canon) was not defined until the 16th century, but it is important to remember that even by Rome and those churches most closely associated with her (as demonstrated above), much earlier canons were accepted as definitive. The Western canon quite literally owes its existence in one way or another to the Eastern, which is in turn based upon the work of the Alexandrians, perhaps acting in response to the challenge presented by certain heretics (i.e., the aforementioned Marcion of Sinope, who was by all accounts the first to propose an NT canon sometime in the mid-1st century; he was excommunicated from the Church in Rome some time after traveling there c. 142 AD).

 

[JonNC]

=JustaServant;9384173]I’ve often thought there is a paralel between how the Bible is interpreted and how our Constitution is interpreted. It speaks more to human nature than the documents themselves. We have clergy in the Catholic Church who do not stay within Catholic teaching and tradition. Just as liberal Justices of the Supreme Court do not stay within the boundries of the Constitution. Human nature does not want to be limited by authority, it wants to be its own authority (“ye shall be as God” Gen.3). Ginsberg would do well to stay wtihin the bounds of the Constitution, and within what has been historically been decided. But that would interfere with her progressive ideas…

Agreed.

One of the things God had to show me, and one of the reasons I reverted, was to get my eyes off of the earthly Church, and focus on the Church of All Ages. The Catholic Church put together the Bible as we know it (the undivided Church as you call it, a good term BTW). Why would they (the Church of All Ages) include books that contridict the teaching?

Good point! And one I think Lutherans, even Luther, took into account. One notices when reading the Lutheran confessions, that no list of the canon of scripture is provided, and it is important also to notice that Luther’s Bible did include 74 books. And finally, it remains the practice,at least with some lutherans to continue to read liturgically for the D-C’s.
The historic Lutheran view is rather conservative: don’t throw boks out simply because they are historically (before the Reformation) disputed, but use them with caution because
they are historically disputed.

The answer is of course, they didn’t. Those books that did contridict, or teach heretical/Gnostic philosophies were not included in the Canon.
Why do fundamentalists rely on the Bible thier enemies put together? Why would the CC be so stupid as to randomly choose books that contridicted what they teach?

I can’t speak for fundamentalists, and I would never say that the Church has ever historically considered books at random.

Jon

 

[submariner2]

Okay, but we’re not talking about when. That’s another thread. We’re talking about why. Why would the Catholic Church put together a Book that disproves thier own doctrine?
BTW. I like your username. As a kid I always thought Submariner was way cooler than Aquaman.

justa,

I used to work at a submarine base.

But back to your question, I think I answered your question. The bible was put together in the first century. It is possible a church could deviate afterward if they decided to ignore what was written in it.

Protestants think that is what happened and the purpose of the Reformation was to return the church back to the NT and the ECFs.

Rob

 

[Hokomai]

Could you point out any fundamentals that have changed in the Catholic Church since AD33?

The belief in the imminent (before the death of Paul) second coming.

 

[submariner2]

This was out of respect for the Eastern Apostolic Churches, some of whom have more than 73 books.

Mark,

I doubt it. Most likely the issue was simply dormant until the the Reformers began questioning certain Catholic dogma and the Catholic scholars pointed to the Deuterocanicals and the Reformers objected, citing the opinions of Jerome, that those books were not to be used for doctrine. Then they studied the issue and realized none of the bible had actually been canonized and did the whole thing at Trent.

I doubt that they could care less what the Eastern Catholics thought.

Rob

 

[submariner2]

I’m sorry, but I have to speak up to correct this idea. St. Athanasius the Apostolic, one of the greatest saints to come from the Alexandrian Church and an enlightener of all of the churches, was the first to propose the 27 books of the NT that are now common to the accepted NT Biblical canon (in that all churches accept all the books there, even if they have more, as the Ethiopian Tewahedo do). This is attested to in his 39th Festal letter, written in 367 AD, which was replicated later by Damasus I, Bishop of Rome, in 382 AD, nearly replicated by the Synod of Hippo in 392 AD (though they did not include the Epistle to the Hebrews present in both St. Athanasius’ and Damasus’ lists) and the Synod of Carthage in 397, and much later accepted by the Council in Trullo in 692 by the 215 Eastern (not “Oriental”, as we understand that term today) bishops assembled there.

So to say that no church had proposed a definitive list of books is wrong. St. Athanasius was Pope of Alexandria from AD 328-373 (interrupted by the Arian interlude of Gregory of Cappadocia, 339-346, who is not accepted by any church), meaning that unlike those who had proposed canons before him (e.g., Origen, or the heretic Marcion of Sinope), St. Athanasius did actually represent a church, and his canon was subsequently adopted by other churches. Your canon (meaning the Roman Catholic canon) was not defined until the 16th century, but it is important to remember that even by Rome and those churches most closely associated with her (as demonstrated above), much earlier canons were accepted as definitive. The Western canon quite literally owes its existence in one way or another to the Eastern, which is in turn based upon the work of the Alexandrians, perhaps acting in response to the challenge presented by certain heretics (i.e., the aforementioned Marcion of Sinope, who was by all accounts the first to propose an NT canon sometime in the mid-1st century; he was excommunicated from the Church in Rome some time after traveling there c. 142 AD).

dzh,

I think he means the entire Catholic church had not proposed a 27 book NT Canon until Trent. Perhaps some individual churches had done so - evidence Augustines church. Athanasius was the first to name the 27 but he had no way to make it official church wide.
He may not have even made it official in his own church as far as we know.

I also have questioned his statement about any church. He is an expert on the subject though. I think he meant the entire Catholic church but he may meant actually no church canonized the bible as we have it today. I am not sure on that point…

But for sure he is right about the church wide canon.

Rob

 

[submariner2]

Could you point out any fundamentals that have changed in the Catholic Church since AD33?

zz,

No point getting into that. Any protestant can make that argument and its off the subject.

Rob

 

[Tantum_ergo]

justa,

I used to work at a submarine base.

But back to your question, I think I answered your question. The bible was put together in the first century. It is possible a church could deviate afterward if they decided to ignore what was written in it.

Protestants think that is what happened and the purpose of the Reformation was to return the church back to the NT and the ECFs.

Rob

Then which of the many, many, many, many Protestant Churches is the ‘one’ true Church?

And exactly WHEN did the Catholics–and Orthodox–go off track? And when the first reformers came, why didn’t they address ALL the ‘wrong’ practices? And why did some condemn some practices while others upheld them as truth?

IF the Reformation had a purpose to correct the errors of Christianity and make it 'One" again, why is it that the fruits of Protestantism lead to more and more disagreement?

And why is it that instead of the Catholic (and Orthodox) Churches being the ones to ‘splinter into nothingness’ and the One Holy Protestant Church triumphantly ‘reclaiming truth’, the Catholics are still there? When the “True Church” had been threatened before by Arians and Nestorians and all that, within a generation or two, all those people were GONE WITH THE WIND.

So if the Catholic (or Orthodox) Church had truly gone into heresy, wouldn’t their adherents have petered out like the other heretics? Wouldn’t the Church have ‘gone under’, only to have in successive generations people who ‘claimed’ to be offshoots of the ‘old Catholic–or Orthodox- church’ (the way we have some Christians claiming they were the ‘underground Church’ that the Catholics tried to stamp out. . .

And why is it that the non-doctrinal errors (for the Church does not err in dogma or doctrine, but can change discipline and also can have individual members act against Christ’s teaching) such as certain clerics wrongly trying to sell indulgences, a grave evil which the Church nerve taught, were corrected BY THE CHURCH ITSELF, and not carried on, whereas when other heretical groups had come, and been corrected, and gone, when people emerged in another generation, they would start up the 'old evils?"

If the One Holy Protestant Church had taken on the mantle of Christ’s church, wouldn’t we have seen the disappearance of the Catholic (and Orthodox) churches, followed in a couple of hundred years by people who breathlessly, in claiming a kinship with the ‘old group’, came out and started right away selling indulgences?? How come we never saw that?

 

[submariner2]

There are serious problems with the above statement. First, to claim it is possible for the Church of Jesus Christ to change from the fundamentalist flies in the face of Jesus’ own words: The gates of Hell should not prevail. Second, so such a position holds very little credence theologically and historically. Third, the Bible was compiled by the Catholic Church,not a denomation.

Nicea,

When I say the early churches accepted the 27 books of the NT by consensus but not formally by council am naturally speaking of the catholic church.

That of course gets into the discussion of who is the catholic church.? My church recites the Apostles Creed every sunday. We think we are also the catholic church.

Rob

 

[submariner2]

Wrong premise, my friend. The bible was not meant to be a source of doctrine, the canon was finalized to have a standard set of readings to be read during the Mass…originally.

Extracting doctrines out of the Bible started with your protestant grandfathers, not with the Catholic Church.

pablope,

Not my premise. It was Jeromes premise when he translated the Vulgate. It was the opinion of the ECFs that doctrines were derived from scripture. Not a protestant invention.
Here is one example.

“We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than
from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they
did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the
will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the
ground and pillar of our faith.” (St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against
Heresies, Book III Ch.1)

He sounds like one of those protestants preaching sola scriptura to me.

Rob

 

[Patavium]

pablope,

Not my premise. It was Jeromes premise when he translated the Vulgate. It was the opinion of the ECFs that doctrines were derived from scripture. Not a protestant invention.
Here is one example.

“We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than
from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they
did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the
will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the
ground and pillar of our faith.” (St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against
Heresies, Book III Ch.1)

He sounds like one of those protestants preaching sola scriptura to me.

Rob

Oh wow poor St. Iranaeus , that is one of the most quoted quotes of his book taken completely out of context!.

Let me help St. Iraenaeus

But, again, when we refer them to that tradition which originates from the apostles, [and] which is preserved by means of the succession of presbyters in the Churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the presbyters, but even than the apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. For [they maintain] that the apostles intermingled the things of the law with the words of the Saviour; and that not the apostles alone, but even the Lord Himself, spoke as at one time from the Demiurge, at another from the intermediate place, and yet again from the Pleroma, but that they themselves, indubitably, unsulliedly, and purely, have knowledge of the hidden mystery: this is, indeed, to blaspheme their Creator after a most impudent manner! It comes to this, therefore, that these men do now consent neither to Scripture nor to tradition.
Irenænus, Against Heresies 3.2.2

Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre- eminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.
Irenænus, Against Heresies 3.3.2

 

[mark_a]

I doubt that they could care less what the Eastern Catholics thought.

It would be one heck of a snafu!

 

[dzheremi]

dzh,

I think he means the entire Catholic church had not proposed a 27 book NT Canon until Trent.

I am confused as to what this could possibly mean. I do not mean this to be polemical (meaning, I am not challenging the right of the Roman Church to define its canon as it wishes, when it wishes), but it seems to me that St. Athanasius proposed the canon (obviously accepted by his own Church), which was accepted within a matter of about two decades by his Roman counterpart, and the Latin churches of North Africa, and eventually by the Eastern/Byzantine churches…yet for some reason, this canon is not considered to be accepted by the entire Catholic Church, but the one put forth ~1300 years later and accepted only by and within one church is? I realize that we have very different ideas of Catholicity, but the definition that would exclude the more widely accepted and ancient canon in favor of a later, more restricted canon seems…well, odd, to say the least.

Perhaps some individual churches had done so - evidence Augustines church. Athanasius was the first to name the 27 but he had no way to make it official church wide.

“He had no way to make it official church wide”…I would think that the history of the canon would make this point largely irrelevant. What “way” did he need, when the canon was in fact accepted by the churches mentioned earlier, spanning East to West? It seems like saying that it can’t be considered “official” because it wasn’t accepted according to some predetermined way (when, by the way, it was…the Eastern Churches, being conciliar, accepted it in council at Trullo…as did in fact the Western churches of North Africa at their own local councils) is missing the larger point - namely, that it was accepted (so proper procedure must’ve been satisfied by that acceptance, no? Or else Rome and the Berbers would have said no), including by those churches (Rome) that would later redefine the Canon in keeping with their subsequent histories.

He may not have even made it official in his own church as far as we know.

As far as I know as a Coptic Orthodox Christian, we follow his canon – and we are his own church.

I think he meant the entire Catholic church but he may meant actually no church canonized the bible as we have it today. I am not sure on that point…

Again, I am at a loss as to what this means. From where I’m sitting, a canon accepted by all the major churches East and West is a canon of the entire Catholic Church, in so far as it is united (so, at least for the time from acceptance of the Athanasian canon to the fracture in the wake of Chalcedon, however short that time may have been). But this is no huge problem for us, anyway…we’ve always had a lot of variation in the Oriental communion, and so it means nothing in itself that other churches may have variant canons. In fact, that makes the acceptance of the Athanasian canon by such a wide variety of church makes it all the more impressive to me. Truly, St. Athanasius the Apostolic was and is a light unto all of the Christian world, and an unshakeable pillar of the faith.

 

[pablope]

pablope,

Not my premise. It was Jeromes premise when he translated the Vulgate. It was the opinion of the ECFs that doctrines were derived from scripture. Not a protestant invention.
Here is one example.

“We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than
from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they
did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the
will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the
ground and pillar of our faith.” (St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against
Heresies, Book III Ch.1)

He sounds like one of those protestants preaching sola scriptura to me.

Rob

He does not say the source of doctrines…besides…gospel means the good news…and who is the Gospel? It is Christ…so the Gospel is Christ…who is indeed the ground and pillar of the faith…not the Bible…and which John says…the Word is Christ.

Besides…there is no bible yet…so so he could not be teaching sola scriptura.

And while you are as it…could you provide the teaching/writing of jerome where he agrees with or teaches sola scriptura? Where does Jerome say that the bible is to be the source of extraction of doctrines?

 

[Patavium]

He does not say the source of doctrines…besides…gospel means the good news…and who is the Gospel? It is Christ…so the Gospel is Christ…who is indeed the ground and pillar of the faith…not the Bible…and which John says…the Word is Christ.

Besides…there is no bible yet…so so he could not be teaching sola scriptura.

And while you are as it…could you provide the teaching/writing of jerome where he agrees with or teaches sola scriptura? Where does Jerome say that the bible is to be the source of extraction of doctrines?

pablope,

He was not as you say teaching sola scriptura.

Let me expand this

We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed “perfect knowledge,” as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles. For, after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge: they departed to the ends of the earth, preaching the glad tidings of the good things [sent] from God to us, and proclaiming the peace of heaven to men, who indeed do all equally and individually possess the Gospel of God. Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.
(St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, Book III Ch.1)