glassjester
Well-known member
Most non-Catholics (and a big portion of Catholics) are completely unaware of this fact.
It puts a bit of a hole in the "Rome invented Catholicism" claim.
In defense of Cruciform; Traditions of Men
- Thread starter Traditio
- Start date
Most non-Catholics (and a big portion of Catholics) are completely unaware of this fact.
It puts a bit of a hole in the "Rome invented Catholicism" claim.
genuineoriginal
New member
I am not referring to the Roman "rite", Roman Catholic refers to Christians who call themselves Catholics and have accepted the rule of the bishop of Rome (the Pope).
It is a different sort of Catholic than used by Christian writers prior to 325 CE.
Lon
Well-known member
Protestants love scripture. Catholics don't? You guys set yourself up for a lot of this by saying inane things like "I don't like scripture, I prefer Catholic dogma and tradition" or something the like. Is it an overt caricature? Yes, but probably in equal frustration. :idunno:
You don't seem to enjoy TOL. Why cry about a ban from a place you don't like anyway?
No. I spent a good 15 to 20 minutes. All you had to do was click on several of them (all painstakingly linked) for about 5 minutes. You are proving yourself to disdain my time and your own needed involvement. :wave2:
Daniel1769
New member
The fact that Catholics want to minimize the importance of the Bible proves that Catholicism is not a form of Christianity, but an evil Satanic religion created by Satan himself, and run by an organization that, if it could not hide behind religion, would have been scourged from the face of the earth a long time ago for it's many wicked crimes against humanity.
glassjester
Well-known member
If the argument is over how to interpret the Bible, then Biblical evidence, on its own, won't help.
Protestant arguments about interpretive authority boil down to:
Protestant: I can interpret the Bible infallibly all by myself.
Catholic: How do you know?
Protestant: The Bible says so (see verse x).
Catholic: How do you know that's what verse x really means?
Protestant: Because my interpretation is infallible.
Daniel1769
New member
I'm not protestant, as that term is indicative as a group that broke from the RCC, but you're argument is flawed. The Holy Ghost teaches all things. I don't "interpret" on my own. The Holy Ghost teaches all things.
Aide from scripture, the actions of the RCC hierarchy, such as naked boys jumping from cakes and mass child molestation, prove that it is a tool of Satan.
Cruciform
New member
Thank you, Traditio. I appreciate your cogent explanation of my observation of the same oft-repeated Protestant error, one which not a single non-Catholic here has been able to disprove or offer any reasoned answer whatsoever. Be well, brother, and God bless.
Gaudium de veritate,
Cruciform
+T+
glassjester
Well-known member
Ok, so your argument is...
Daniel: My interpretation of Scripture is infallible, because the Holy Spirit guides me, personally.
Glass: How do you know the Holy Spirit has guided you personally in interpreting Scripture?
Daniel: The Bible says so (see verse x).
Glass: How do you know your personal interpretation of verse x is correct?
Daniel: Because the Holy Spirit guided my infallible interpretation.
Daniel1769
New member
Your argument is as follows:
Glass: I cannot interpret the Bible for myself because the Catholic church says I cannot.
Daniel: Have you consulted the Bible on this matter?
Glass: I cannot because I cannot interpret it without the Catholic church
Daniel: How do you know you cannot interpret the Bible without the Catholic church?
Glass: Because they said I can't.
Hmmmm...
glassjester
Well-known member
Not quite my stance.
But...
Do you see why swapping Bible verses won't settle the matter?
Feel free, by the way, to explain how relying on your own authority is not circular and illogical, as represented in post #48.
And then I'd be glad to discuss the post quoted above in further detail. One thing at a time though. My mind can't handle too much at once.
It's a matter of perspective, isn't it. From your perspective, Protestants have all the oft repeated errors. From the Protestant perspective, it's the Catholic's who have all the oft repeated errors. Your claim to history does not make you any more correct than our claim to history. Protest away but those facts remain.
glassjester
Well-known member
But only one of the two can be correct, right?
Who are we to judge?
The "oft repeated error" is that protestants only rely on the scriptures and nothing else, and especially not "traditions of men." It's just patently false.
What's wrong with that ? What else would we possibly rely on ? You ?
My apologies...given the fact that you quoted the aforementioned, I had assumed that your posting was a reaction to the quoted bit in particular. :idunno:
Do you deny that you read the bible through the lenses of your own sectarian, man-made religious tradition?
You might, of course, answer that I do the same thing, but that's not the issue at hand.
You are probably not wrong on this. Even more reason to love the one liner that he regularly uses. It's utterly loaded with significance and rebuts the protestant error(s) in question pretty much every single time. We can read it as follows:
1. You do not, contrary to your own assertions, rely on the scriptures alone. You rely on the scriptures insofar as a man-made hermeneutical lens has been imposed on them, a hermeneutical lens which I don't accept.
2. That hermeneutical lens can be traced via your given protestant tradition to a given man or set of men who are not Jesus, nor do you claim anything else (contrary to the claims of the Catholic Church, who actually do assert that Jesus and the apostles started our tradition). The difference between my tradition and yours is "started by Jesus Himself" as opposed to "started by some guy named John Calvin, whom I couldn't give two figs about." You may well want to deny that my religion was started by Jesus (though it would be difficult for you to prove that it wasn't), but you cannot possibly deny that your sect was not started by Jesus, but rather by some random guy. You literally call yourself a "Calvinist."
You might read even more into it. It's such a great line, at least, of course, if the protestant at hand:
1. Is insisting on a discussion which only relies on the scriptures
2. Is criticizing the Catholic Church for relying on man-made traditions
or
3. Is insisting that he relies only on the scriptures.
:idunno:
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You don't rely on the scriptures alone. You rely on the scriptures insofar as interpreted in such and such a way.
brewmama
New member
Catholics don't "minimize the importance of the Bible". Looking at tradition and history, which the Bible actually instructs us to do, is not minimizing the Bible. You are the one being unbiblical.
With all due respect, AMR, I simply must disagree with you regarding your interpretation of St. Augustine.
I did indeed have the quotation from "Against the Fundamental Epistle of Manichaeus," basically as you've quoted it, in mind: "I should not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholic Church moved me to do so."
You try to restrict the sense of this to unbelievers: "As a non-believer, I should not not have believed the gospel and become a believer, unless the Church had proposed these things to me, on their authority, for probable assent."
You then go on to insist that St. Augustine's theory of illumination, i.e., that it is God's truth working on us inwardly which enables us to know things as true, implies that the authority of the Catholic Church, posterior to becoming a believer, is unnecessary for continued assent to the truths of the gospel.
There are problems with this:
You are neglecting the general context in which St. Augustine makes his claims about the authority of the Church, i.e., contrary to the manicheans. The aforementioned quote should be understood in light of what St. Augustine says in De Utilitate Credendi.
There, St. Augustine makes it crystal clear that, with regard to all matters of truth which either 1. exceed our capacity to know or 2. appertain to unwitnessed contingent historical events, we must rely on faith, not on reason, in order to accept the truth of the things in question. Thus, I have faith that my mother is not lying to me when she claims that she gave birth to me on such and such a day.
Since the truths of the scriptures, and especially the truths of the New Testament, are precisely truths of this kind, we must rely on faith in an authority, not on our own natural capacities for knowing, in order to offer our assent to them.
It is for this reason that St. Augustine, both in De Utilitate Credendi and elsewhere, lays special emphasis on apostolic succession, i.e., the unbroken succession of Catholic bishops: only this can give us grounds for faith in the truth of the claims in the gospel. Only if the current bishops of the Church are the successors of the successors of the successors[, etc.] of the apostles, who themselves were eyewitnesses to the events in question and passed on what they saw, learned, etc. to their successors, and they to theirs, and so forth and so on, can we have probable grounds for assent to the truths that they offer for our belief. [Thus, I often say that I believe in the Catholic faith because the Catholic mass is roughly 2000 years old.]
This remains true at the moment of coming to belief and at every moment after. Should it be discovered that apostolic succession is false, then all of the truths of the Christian faith are immediately and irretrievably thrown into serious doubt. It would be a grave reason to retract one's faith, one's assent, even if that assent was previously given. The authority of the bishops, vis-a-vis their unbroken succession, is our ultimate reason, the sine qua non, for believing any of this stuff. [You, of course, make the claim that the reformers were right to split from the Church because of perceived errors; I'll answer, in turn, that such a notion is utterly anathema to all orthodox Christian belief prior to them; even the Orthodox would not say such things. If you get rid of apostolic succession, you get rid of any legitimate reasons for being a Christian at all.]
Furthermore, St. Augustine insists, it is this very authority (i.e., of the bishops of the Catholic Church) which both compels our probable assent and ultimately must shape our understanding of what we have received from them. The books of the gospels only can be understood properly when understood in light of the teaching of the bishops (contrary to the teachings of the manicheans, and, now, the protestants).
Just as one cannot understand the books of Aristotle properly without a teacher (i.e., a teacher of the peripatetic school), so too, one cannot understand the books of the scriptures properly apart from the teaching of the Catholic bishops. Thus, consider how, in the Confessions, he only finally understood, e.g., the Old Testament, when he heard them explained to him by St. Ambrose.
Thus does St. Augustine make the following point against the Manicheans: "Manichean," says he, "you want me to accept the books of the scriptures on the authority of the Catholic Church, but then accept, not their, but your interpretation of them? But you must be joking!"
Against which, of course, you'll appeal to St. Augustine's theory of divine illumination. Against this, I'll answer that you are simply taking his comments out of context. He's simply not making these comments a propos scriptural interpretation. To insist otherwise would be to take all of the sting out of his rhetoric against the Manicheans.
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brewmama
New member
You don't think we are called to judge truth from lies? Fact from fiction?
"About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is fa child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil."