You can't have it both ways - #2

[guanophore]

Even if Jesus did built the Church on the “rock” Peter,even if that wacky interpretation is correct

Why does this seem “wacky” to you? Do you not think that God can make rocks out of people?

G The Levites and the Sadducees (Catholic and Orthodox ).

Are you comparing Catholics and Orthodox to Levites and Sadducees?

Is this because of Apostolic Succession?

So as Jesus did we have the permission of God to teach the real commandment and sound doctrine. First God, then man. And the bible is the Word of God so first God and then man.

No, Aran. You have no authority to teach doctrine besides your own. You have appointed yourself to this.

Jesus picked the guys that didn’t had earthly heritage/succession to preach His word.

Yes, this is the begining of the Apostolic Succession. .

And again the statement of sola scripture doesn’t mean everyone is going to think the same and therefore be only one ,

And yet, this is what the Scriptures themselves say should happen. Go figure.

the statement says that the essentials are clear, and that we are going to agree on the essentials, nothing else, so again to answer the OP question yes it makes sense there are a lot of denominations.

Where is the list of “essentials” in scripture?

So you believe Jesus founded “a lot of denominations”?

All of this denominations exists because of small differences.

If they were small, there would be no need to create a new denomination, would there?

Obviously not everyone think alike, our God made us all different, He did this so that despite of our differences we could still love one another with our differences but have a common believe on what is essential.

Except that He commands us to be of ONE MIND and not to have any schism.

There is no commonality of “essentials”.

 

[Portrait]

That is a very, very sad statement unless of course he meant the universal Church that Jesus built. Still, he didn’t recognize the prophecies in the Old Testament and their fufillment in Jesus?

Why must we believe what a man says, St. Augustine says over GOD’s Word? I would much rather yield to GOD’s Word, not St. Agustine.

It is the developement of dogmas and doctrines outside the Biblical that has divided Christians. There are no dogmas or doctrines developed that the universal Church agrees on.

** The Gospel is the only thing accepted by all Christians.**

Dear schaick,

Cordial greetings dear friend.

That statement is simply St. Augustine, who lived much closer to the primitive Church than we ourselves, acknowledging the very truth that Protestants routinely repudiate, viz, that Sacred Scripture emerged from and is the product of the Church and not the reverse.

The Catholic Church of which St. Augustine speaks is an actual visible Church and not some invisible entity made up of only the “elect”; for it is manifestly clear that if the Church is to be located by men in the world, then it must actually be visible to them for “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden” (St. Matt. 5: 14). Another passage that presupposes a visible, identifiable, “concrete” Church is St. Matthew 18: 15-17, in which Christians are exhorted by our Lord to take errant and obstinate fellow brothers to the Church, which will then determine the appropriate verdict. Now it would be contrary to the whole tenor of the N.T. if this were a reference to a local church alone - even aside from the utterly impractical consequences of such a scenario; the sinner would be at liberty to simply attend another denomination (or a church down the road) and move on with his life, as is tragically so often the case nowadays. Again St. Paul describes the Church of the living God as “the pillar and bulwark of truth” (I Tim. 3: 15). This statement is similarly nonsensical in the Protestant context of competing and often contradictory denominations.

On the contrary, it is the development of multiple denominations and multiple interpretations, their natural corollary, that has occasioned the tragic fragmentation of the Church and impeded its mission in the world. In His great High Priestly Prayer, our Lord makes unity a means by which the world may believe that the Father sent the Son (St. John 17: 21, 23) and prays that it will be as profound as the unity of the Trinity itself (St. John 17: 21-22). Indeed, St. Paul regards stirring up division a grounds for virtual exclusion from the Community of faith (Rom. 16: 17) and states that divisions effectively divide Christ (I Cor. 13). This has always been one of the strengths of the Catholic position over Protestantism, and Protestants are themselves increasingly uneasy and alarmed over what they consider to be the scandalous concurrence between denoninationalism and sectarianism, which all agree is denounced in Sacred Scripture.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[Portrait]

Yes, this was certainly the intention of the Reformers when they jettisoned the authority appointed over the flock by Christ. They saw that there was corruption in the leadership, and wanted a more pure church. They decided to replace the apostolic succession with themselves.

Yes, the Scriptures do function as an authoritative Source to test for Truth. However, each person who reads them interprets them. Each one who reads with a sincere heart and prayer to God believes that the HS has spoken to them through the Holy Scriptures. Still, we end up with as many interpretations as there are belly buttons. This is because the HS must work through the filters of the human mind.

Jesus established the Church to provide the guidance necessary to prevent the faithful from going astray by using their own judgement, however sincere. The Scriptures, in the hands of those appointed by Christ, are profitable for instruction, reproof, and training in righteousness.

The scriptures nowhere proclaim that the are to be the final infallible rule of faith. this is an extrabiblical tradition.

Dear guanafore,

Cordial greetings and thankyou for your incisive remarks in the present thread.

That passage where St. Paul commends the Bereans for diligently examining the O.T. Scriptures (Acts 17: 11) against what he proclaimed to them, is frequently appealed to by Protestants to support the right of private judgement. However, the passage excludes the very conclusion that they seek to elicit from it. The Bereans are commended as opposed the Thessalonians because they, at least, did eagerly listen to the Gospel and repaired to the Scriptures to look into the grounds of what was said. Nevertheless, the text cannot be employed to favour private interpretation as a guide to truth. All that those earnest Bereans did was to turn to the O.T. Scriptures to verify if what was said of Christ as the Messiah was in fact true, much in the same way as a potential convert today would, if he was keen, check out the N.T. following a proclamation of the Gospel by a priest or evangelist. This is quite a different thing altogether from using this text to support a carte blanche endorsement of private judgement. Moreover, the very next verse informs us that “Many of them, therefore, believed…”(Acts 17: 12); “Many”, not all, of those who diligently scanned the Scriptures discovered the truth and and embraced Christ as the Saviour of men. Clearly, those that failed to believe did not profit from their reliance upon private interpretation; their own decision for themselves was erroneous, or else they would have believed. The Jews of Berea who were converted to Christianity accepted wholeheartedly and, most importantly, persevered in the apostles doctrine, not their own interpretation of it.

As you rightly remark our Lord provided the Church to give the necessary guidance to the faithful to ensure that they did not go astray by using private judement. The Protestant who asserts the right of private judgement adopts a very different view of his spiritual capacities and discernment from the Ethiopian eunuch as narrated in the Acts (8: 26-39). When this Ethiopian said “How can I (understand the prophet Isaiah), unless someone guides me?” (v. 31), St. Philip did not respond by saying, as a Protestant would have, “The Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth, keep on reading” - but in accordance with the requirement for an official interpretation, St. Philip proceeded to instruct this fellow in the true meaning of the prophecy and announced the Good News of Jesus, after which the Sacrament of Baptism was administered. This man was humble enough to accept the interpretation from a received and official expounder of Scripture and like the Bereans later was soundly converted to the religion of Christ. Interpretation is entrusted to the Church which preserves it and shows its true meaning and as such it should be read as the book of the Church in the light of the living tradition.

In the final analysis we need to know which interpretations of the bible are correct and which are false; as Karl Keating succinctly puts it, “The same Church that authenticates the Bible, that establishes its inspiration, is the authority set up by Christ to interpret His word” (Catholicism and Fundamentalism, Ignatius Press 1988, p. 133).

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[Shannon9791]

Seeing how God doesn’t change and the Word was in His mind forever, the Bible.

The Word was in His mind forever? Are you talking about the same Word that John was talking about? Sounds to me like you’re saying God just thought up the Word. I think this needs some explaining.