Why would I try to answer them?

I'm Protestant and those questions are not applicable to me or my beliefs.

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Do you believe that (A) the Apocryphal books are Holy Scripture, or (B) do you believe the Apocryphal books are not equal to Scripture?

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(A) The books are part of holy scripture

(b) The books have generally been considered less than canon as was the historical view.
- We know Jerome did not consider them canon, but ecclesiastical. There was a quote I had at one time, but cannot find it.

- Augustine also had strong words against them.
- De civitate Dei Bk 15, ch 23: "Let us out the fables of those writings which are called apocrypha, because their obscure origin did not become clear to the fathers, from whom the authority of the true Scriptures has come down to us through the most certain and well-known succession...."

- Contra Faustum: "The Manichaeans read the apocryphal writings, written, I know not by what inventors of fables, under the name of the apostles. These would have merited during the time of their writers to be received into the authority of holy church, if holy and learned men who were living at that time and were able to examine such things had recognized them as having spoken the truth."

So we take the historical view that they are good at profitable to read, but not raised to the level of others, as was the historical view.

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I truly don't understand how you can keep dismissing these questions as irrelevant, but you provide no support for why they are irrelevant. If the Bible is your sole or supreme authority - then having the complete and correct Bible is imperative.

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They're great questions for someone who wants to argue against the apocrypha. Since I'm not, they aren't relevant. It would be like me demanding you disprove the Pope. However, you do seem to have a passion for these questions. Maybe you can track down the history and start a whole thread on it?

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I honestly have no idea what you are trying to say here.

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You claim is that somehow the number of books in Scripture is relevant to Sola Scriptura. Since I can claim the same Scripture count as you and hold to Sola Scriptura, your argument has to change. You seemingly now have to argue that Sola Scriptura means holding, at least in the original iteration, had no problem with same Scriptures as you.

You'd have a better argument that some people are ignorant of history or are acting as "their own pope" btw.

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The interesting thing with this is that even with the Church Fathers debating and working through the theological issues and heretical teachings - the faith was protected as they were working within the Church. No church father was perfect, and all of them could have been and were wrong on certain things. The Holy Spirit protects the apostolic Church and it was the church that had the authority to make decisions, not individual church fathers.

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Interesting argument. If you want to argue that Rome tried to take that process, then I'd agree with you since Rome did execute heretics with frequency (see Jan Hus). The only reason Luther wasn't executed was he was "kidnapped" and hidden outside of Rome's reach.

But since you probably don't mean that, I'd point out that Lutherans begged for a council to start a real dialogue. The most they got was Trent, where I believe they could have listened, but not participated. At least we got Chemnitz's reply to it which is phenomenal.

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So let me ask it this way...does YOUR Bible, the Bible you chose to purchase and hold to as your supreme authority and rule for faith and practice include the Apocryphal books as inspired scripture? Are they printed in your Bible?

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I own multiple Bibles. Some have it, some don't. The Lutheran Study Bible does not have it, but that's easy to explain. The LSB uses the ESV translation, but the Apocrypha addition uses the RSV. So it appears to be a limitation of the ESV translation not being completely there yet.

And since you'll probably say something about this, Lutheran leadership tends to prefer the ESV. People like Swimmer's Pastor were part of the overall group that helped with the translations, so I think they show preference to it for right or wrong. I know many Lutherans will just stick to the NKJV where, there's no "lutheran bible" and they can get whatever they want.

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Not sure what to say here. You kinda just proved my point. At least you finally acknowledged it.

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I've explained many times why I am not the right person to answer it. Again, should I ask you to disprove the Pope?

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Honestly, I think you are being overly sensitive to any discussion of Luther unless it is to praise him effusively. I mean at least Zobel didn't call you a liar, right?

Zobel's mention of Luther, and then Marcion, was in direct response to someone else looking for proof of a slippery slope of anyone removing books from the Bible, as if that could never happen in today's world. Zobel's point was that Luther did make statements advocating the removal of some books and the subordination of others. In his German translation he felt the need to add a disclaimer that the apocryphal books were not equal to scripture. He relegated the NT "disputed books" to the back. Luther did not remove these books, but he laid the foundation for them to actually be removed by others at a later date - which brings us back to my 5 questions. Who, Why, What, How, and When?

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Again, it's no different than mentioning the Orthodox and Pelagius together like it's no big deal. Or just start a conversation casually talking about how the Pope is probably an anti-christ.

Your comment about Luther leading to the removal is a massive stretch. You're basic argument is that because Luther made historically accurate statements about the books that he kept in his bible translation, that in turn that let future groups remove it?

Under that logic, James, 2-3 John, Hebews and Revelations should also have been removed by later groups, but they weren't.

I actually suspect that you'll find that it was because the Jews rejected the Apocrypha, that filtered into Christianity.

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- Augustine also had strong words against them.
- De civitate Dei Bk 15, ch 23: "Let us out the fables of those writings which are called apocrypha, because their obscure origin did not become clear to the fathers, from whom the authority of the true Scriptures has come down to us through the most certain and well-known succession...."

- Contra Faustum: "The Manichaeans read the apocryphal writings, written, I know not by what inventors of fables, under the name of the apostles. These would have merited during the time of their writers to be received into the authority of holy church, if holy and learned men who were living at that time and were able to examine such things had recognized them as having spoken the truth."

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These apocryphal writings and the writings termed here "Apocrypha" or deuterocanon are not the same thing. Pretty clearly because the ones the Manichaeans are reading are under the name of the Apostles, and none of the deuterocanon are. Here St Augustine is referring to what we would call gnostic or heretical writings, or flat-out spurious (e.g., Enoch, which he mentions in the passage of City of God you cite).

There's roughly one thousand years separating Eusebius and St Jerome from Luther. It's to a bit incongruous use quotes as if they were contemporaries. At any rate, both Eusebius and St Jerome's observations stand out, because as far as I know those are the only ancient or patristic writings that question James (could be wrong here, but I can't find any others who have spoken against or doubted it).

And it should be noted that Luther had no problem accepting books which were historically disputed like the universal epistles of St Peter or St John. So his argument is not merely a commentary on historical scrutiny, as both Eusebius and St Jerome's are. He was not repeating their observations - that would be normal and of no interest whatsoever. His comments are quite different - they are rejecting them on the basis of their content against a doctrinal litmus test.

At any rate, canon is not ratified by scholarly review - which is good, because many of our scriptures would have to be considered spurious because of one scholar or another. Canon is ratified, as St Augustine says in City of God book 15 chapter 23 (which you recently referred to as some measure of authority) by "the fathers from whom the authority of the true Scriptures has been transmitted to us by a most certain and well-ascertained succession."

In every case of the NT where Hebrew and Greek texts have some discrepancy - which is something like 85% of the references - the NT writers were referring to the Septuagint. The church fathers almost exclusively quote the Septuagint. The Septuagint deuterocanonical books such as Tobit and Sirach are often referred to and quoted by church fathers as scripture. Sirach is often called "Ecclesiasticus" because it is used so often in liturgical works. This makes perfect sense as these books are a part of the Septuagint, and the Septuagint was the Old Testament of the Church. So, we have quite a good case by St Augustine's estimation of scriptures transmitted by a most certain and well-ascertained succession. Calling them into question doesn't really seem to be on anyone's mind for nearly a millennia.

I haven't accused Luther of anything, unless quoting someone's own written publication is accusatory. The antilegomena-homolegoumena distinction is a novel Lutheran teaching, though, and remains to this day. The reason I say it is novel is not because it notes that some of the books were spoken against in history, but that this historical fact frames whether or not they are useful or reliable as scripture for the Church.

You can't sidestep this argument as irrelevant to sola scriptura when in fact the only reason it is critical to determine how much authority a book which was spoken against has is because you've invented a doctrine which says scripture is the only authority which exists.

The canon is descriptive, not prescriptive, and historical use witnesses to this kind of inspired ratification through adoption. So it is beyond relevant and indeed critical to note that, for example, the prayer of Azariah is read every Holy Week in the Orthodox church. It is read in Church as scripture and has been from ancient times; therefore it is scripture. Likewise the Prayer of Manasseh. It's read in Great Compline as scripture; therefore it is scripture. Or the pericope of the woman caught in adultery, which is known not to be original to St John's gospel (and was in St Luke's for a while). It was read in the church as scripture, and even as gospel, and therefore it is scripture and gospel. The Lectionary source for the pericope adulterae is almost certainly too how the so-called long ending of Mark wound up in your bible. But again, read as scripture in church, therefore it is.

These scriptures' relative use in doctrinal matters or how they rank versus some other book is only a question of relevance once we accept the premise that sola scriptura brings. Which, of course, is why there was no great or burning need to formalize this canon other than defensively against heretical sects until the Reformation.

Also since I'm on a roll now, I suppose it would actually be profitable to have a discussion rather than an argument. I think that Luther's approach to determine canon can be fairly described as a combination of:

- Historical review
- Doctrinal conformance to the Gospel
- Apostolic authenticity
+ inimitable polemic style

Chemnitz on the other hand I think is much more measured, and his is something like a flowchart that suggests

- True scripture is inspired in and of itself
- the Church witnesses to this inspiration
- you can't make false true and true false by ecclesial authority
- therefore the Church's authority is not over scripture or the canon

To me, this is a bit convoluted, because the binary nature of this approach makes it nearly tautological. I mean, I think everyone agrees that inspired scripture is inspired, and recognition is not necessary for the Holy Spirit to do what it does. The entire question, then, is how to recognize this inspiration.

So I agree with Chemnitz that the Church cannot post-facto declare something scripture, or declare a false thing to be true, by virtue of authority. But this is like saying that infallibility gives the church the ability to turn a lie into truth by nature of the formal declaration being absolutely true. Perhaps some in Rome believe (or believed?) this, but I can't see it as a practically useful thing. In this kind of argument we're discussing whether the Church's witness is more true than truth itself. This seems to me to be silliness, like saying the Church can square a circle merely by saying so. Is it a change in definition or change in reality? It's empty sophistry either way.

If, then, we ignore for a moment why we care about what is and isn't canon (that is to say, if we're not interested in sola scriptura or who wins in a cage match between the Church and the Scriptures) there's lots of room for common ground. I think most can probably be on board with:

- Fallible men, inspired by the Holy Spirit, write scripture which is inspired absolutely and with sovereignty derived from God
- The Church, inspired by the Holy Spirit, discerns this inspired scripture by witnessing to what conforms to the Truth, the Faith taught to the Church by Christ through the Apostles
- By historical fact this Faith and teaching preceded the writing of the scriptures
- Therefore the authority of the Church provides an infallible historical witness to what is infallible scripture

This last point is maybe the toughest of all, but if we don't make the identity relationship of Church = evil Roman Catholics and their nasty pope, I don't think it is that far off from what most Christians practically believe. Or what most would believe if they took the time to reason through it.

Truth is truth, things are either true or not. The scriptures should not be pit against tradition because both are teachings of the truth, two streams from one source, which is the Spirit of Truth.

Apologies if this has already been discussed as I'm trying to weave my way through this thread, but I was wondering if everyone agrees that scripture is theopneustos, or "God-breathed"

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- Fallible men, inspired by the Holy Spirit, write scripture which is inspired absolutely and with sovereignty derived from God
- The Church, inspired by the Holy Spirit, discerns this inspired scripture by witnessing to what conforms to the Truth, the Faith taught to the Church by Christ through the Apostles
- By historical fact this Faith and teaching preceded the writing of the scriptures
- Therefore the authority of the Church provides an infallible historical witness to what is infallible scripture

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This is an interesting line of discussion. If we put ourselves in the shoes of the Reformers, then we start from the frame of references of some truly pious, knowledgable Catholic priests. Luther and the others never set out to fracture from the Catholic Church. However, they witnessed so much wickedness, worldliness, and godlessness in the Church. When they brought these observations and concerns to light, I'm sure they were expecting an outpouring of righteous indignation. Probably something similar to a medieval twitter mob. The response they got from their "Bride of Christ vouchsafed, guarded, and guided step by step by the Holy Spirit" was condemnation and excommunication. If that wouldn't break your faith in the divine authority of the Church I don't know what would.

So now these Reformers feel like their contemporaneous Catholic Church is not guided by God. These men are well read in Church history. So they start looking back and trying to find where things went off the rails. Now that their institutional faith is shattered, they see division, worldliness and corruption from nearly the very beginning of the Church. So they start to think that the Church has always been some mixture of the worldly and ungodly members with the pious and sincere. So the new mission is to examine the Fathers and the Councils and determine, somehow, which ones were pious and sincere and which were worldly and ungodly.

At this point, everything becomes open to question. Once the faith in the Catholic Church was gone, there were no more sacred cows, no foundation. Luther's early writings reflect this. In my opinion, this was eventually an untenable situation for the Reformers, and they fell back to Scripture as their foundation. As others have mentioned, this is somewhat arbitrary as Scripture did not spring fully formed from the pen of Jesus. So the Reformers were stuck with this semi-credulous position where the Church is unreliable but the Scriptures preserved and propagated by the Church are above question or criticism.

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There's roughly one thousand years separating Eusebius and St Jerome from Luther. It's to a bit incongruous use quotes as if they were contemporaries. At any rate, both Eusebius and St Jerome's observations stand out, because as far as I know those are the only ancient or patristic writings that question James (could be wrong here, but I can't find any others who have spoken against or doubted it).

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Who accused them of being contemporaries? It's actually more interesting to see that the questions sustained than were just a one time situation.

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At any rate, canon is not ratified by scholarly review - which is good, because many of our scriptures would have to be considered spurious because of one scholar or another. Canon is ratified, as St Augustine says in City of God book 15 chapter 23 (which you recently referred to as some measure of authority) by "the fathers from whom the authority of the true Scriptures has been transmitted to us by a most certain and well-ascertained succession."

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This is apples and oranges.

We have the luxury of looking back and critiquing the process we agree or disagree with.

If I could use an analogy, the western church was sick. The question was just how sick was it and how far had it spread. Even Rome admits this, they just disagree on how far is spread.

So to make Augustine's statement true, everyone in that time had to figure out what was true.

Remember this is the same Rome that passed off a forgery as proof that Constantine had given the Pope authority. Rome had attempted to argue that this was a Tradition passed down since the 4th century.

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I haven't accused Luther of anything, unless quoting someone's own written publication is accusatory. The antilegomena-homolegoumena distinction is a novel Lutheran teaching, though, and remains to this day. The reason I say it is novel is not because it notes that some of the books were spoken against in history, but that this historical fact frames whether or not they are useful or reliable as scripture for the Church.

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Other than your last portion of this, I don't really see much of an issue? He rearranged the books in his translation. Others didn't have to.

I disagree with the useful and reliable statement though. Rearranging them did not mean he didn't preach from them as being Scripture.

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You can't sidestep this argument as irrelevant to sola scriptura when in fact the only reason it is critical to determine how much authority a book which was spoken against has is because you've invented a doctrine which says scripture is the only authority which exists

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I don't think i've side stepped anything? But the accusation has been that somehow Sola Scriptura has led to people changing the count of the Bible. Yet Luther did not do that. So there's a bit of a flaw in the that logic.

AgLiving06 said:

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Why would I try to answer them?

I'm Protestant and those questions are not applicable to me or my beliefs.

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You said it. Res ipsa loquitur.

I don't think you'll find anybody who disagrees that Chemnitz was the better theologian. Rome called him the "second" Martin and he's more or less credited with keeping Lutheranism from falling apart after Luther's death.

Luther was a preacher first. His writings read that way.

Chemnitz and Gerhard (even Melanchthon) were the true scholars who systematized with their Loci's and Theological Commonplace.

But that's the thing...Luther isn't a Pope. His works aren't infallible. He would even argue he didn't have an original idea.

It's late so I won't respond to the rest yet. Want to think through it some more.

I have not posted on this board for long but the Catholic/apostolic shtick gets old.

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Eph 4:1-Eph 4:6 NIV As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

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AgLiving06 said:

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But that's the thing...Luther isn't a Pope. His works aren't infallible. He would even argue he didn't have an original idea.

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Neither are the Pope's. Pope's, apostles, and ourselves are all fallible and require correction sometimes.

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Luke 9:51-Luke 9:56 NIV As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village.

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Mark 10:13-Mark 10:14 NIV People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

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I'm not Roman Catholic and I don't agree with their later doctrines about papal infallibility, but no one thinks the pope or the apostles are or were infallible in the sense of, perfect, free from error, not needing correction from time to time.

And as far as your excerpts from the Gospel go, a common theme in all of the Gospel accounts is that even though the apostles and others were searching for God and heaven, and recognized Christ as the Messiah, they didn't really understand what that meant or what was coming.

There is a dramatic change in their understanding and behavior after Pentecost, which ties back to the whole "he will guide you into all truth" thing.

Papal infallibility hasn't been declared since 1950. The infallibility of scripture shows the infallibility of the Apostlic men who wrote it, while the wrote it. When Lord told of the coming of the Holy Spirit in John 16: 13 " But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth." By this same Spirit the Church can declare infallibility when it teaches something authoritative. The infallibility doesn't mean that the Bishops and Pope are perfect and free of error always, rather it is a safeguard from Christ that when they give a formal teaching either from a council or from the papacy that he will keep their teaching free from error. We trust Christ and his promise.

jrico2727 said:

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Papal infallibility hasn't been declared since 1950. The infallibility of scripture shows the infallibility of the Apostlic men who wrote it, while the wrote it. When Lord told of the coming of the Holy Spirit in John 16: 13 " But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth." By this same Spirit the Church can declare infallibility when it teaches something authoritative. The infallibility doesn't mean that the Bishops and Pope are perfect and free of error always, rather it is a safeguard from Christ that when they give a formal teaching either from a council or from the papacy that he will keep their teaching free from error. We trust Christ and his promise.

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And what if a different part of the body of Christ disagrees in formal teaching? I disagree with your interpretation. Guiding to the truth can certainly imply a process and journey. We can all be corrected in our actions, or understanding of scripture by other Christians or God, whether it is myself or the Pope.

This is why I think it's important that we establish scripture as theopneustos, or "God breathed". Therefore, that makes scripture as the sole (unique) infallible rule of faith for the church. Now this doesn't mean that the church cannot/will not have other rules of faith, natural revelation, etc. but that none of those can displace scripture as the sole and unique theopneustos. The other rules of faith and traditions therefore must fall under the authority of scripture.

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I have not posted on this board for long but the Catholic/apostolic shtick gets old.

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Eph 4:1-Eph 4:6 NIV As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

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I can appreciate that, but there is a history of the Christian Church that cannot be erased, dismissed, forgotten, or ignored. There is one body and one Spirit, and one faith. The church was not a building, but the church was wherever the Bishop was. It was visible, it was known, it was something that an early Christian or someone looking to convert was able to find and know they found it. This visible church is why they knew what they were being taught was true. Is it your position that this church no longer exists? Where did it go and when?

To deny the apostolic Christian church is to deny the Scriptures that were produced through her. To go one step further, to take her Scriptures and allow them to be changed or some to be removed - and then hold these revised Scriptures up as your sole and supreme standard of truth - is to deny , dismiss, erase, or ignore this visible church.

Forget the Catholic part and seek the historical, apostolic Church of the first century because it was built on a foundation to stand the test of time, it was not built on sand.

You and I, and any individual for that matter, can and will be wrong on specific issues or interpretations...but what Christ established was a Church that, while composed of fallible men, would be collectively led into infallible truth.

SirDippinDots said:

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jrico2727 said:

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Papal infallibility hasn't been declared since 1950. The infallibility of scripture shows the infallibility of the Apostlic men who wrote it, while the wrote it. When Lord told of the coming of the Holy Spirit in John 16: 13 " But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth." By this same Spirit the Church can declare infallibility when it teaches something authoritative. The infallibility doesn't mean that the Bishops and Pope are perfect and free of error always, rather it is a safeguard from Christ that when they give a formal teaching either from a council or from the papacy that he will keep their teaching free from error. We trust Christ and his promise.

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And what if a different part of the body of Christ disagrees in formal teaching? I disagree with your interpretation. Guiding to the truth can certainly imply a process and journey. We can all be corrected in our actions, or understanding of scripture by other Christians or God, whether it is myself or the Pope.

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I can understand your position here. I would refer you to the Acts of the Apostles chapter 10 and 15
We see here St. Peter's vision inspiring him to baptize the Gentiles this is a unilateral decision made by him based of his interpretation of his vision of the unclean animals. Later after the Gentiles had been accepted the question came up if the Gentiles had to live under the law if Moses this caused factions within the Church. They called the Council of Jerusalem where Peter stated the Gentiles shouldn't be burdened by the law their Jewish ancestors couldn't bear and James clarified that what should be avoided within this new allowance. I think this demonstrates how the Church being led by the Spirit made authoritative decisions even with descent.

We also see after this Paul offer a fraternal correction to Peter when he doesn't sit with the Gentile Christians. This was needed and shows that the infallibility granted to Peter doesn't extend to smaller decisions like who to eat with.

I agree that formal teachings are a result of a journey, but there is a structure to the journey. I also agree that all of us including the pope can be and should be corrected when we fail to liveout our faith as we should.

bigcat22 said:

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This is why I think it's important that we establish scripture as theopneustos, or "God breathed". Therefore, that makes scripture as the sole (unique) infallible rule of faith for the church. Now this doesn't mean that the church cannot/will not have other rules of faith, natural revelation, etc. but that none of those can displace scripture as the sole and unique theopneustos. The other rules of faith and traditions therefore must fall under the authority of scripture.

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Was the Church not also God Breathed? And through whom did the Scriptures come from? Yes - ALL Scriptures are God Breathed, including the Scriptures that Deuterocanonical books. But to make Scripture the supreme authority above that of the Church and her Traditions is a step too far. All 3 are authoritative and testify to each other and cannot contradict each other.


ETA: John 20:22 - and when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit...

One more thing I'd add...the Scriptures alone cannot ever function as the sole or unique authority because the Scriptures are just words and sentences. The true meaning and understanding of those words require the PROPER interpretation. They cannot and do not stand alone above the traditions and church which testify to them and illuminate their meaning.

ETA: nvm

bigcat22 said:

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This is why I think it's important that we establish scripture as theopneustos, or "God breathed". Therefore, that makes scripture as the sole (unique) infallible rule of faith for the church. Now this doesn't mean that the church cannot/will not have other rules of faith, natural revelation, etc. but that none of those can displace scripture as the sole and unique theopneustos. The other rules of faith and traditions therefore must fall under the authority of scripture.

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That's not what it says though. It says useful for preaching teaching rebuking and correcting. That scripture is God breathed doesn't preclude other means of God teaching His people - for example, through verbal instruction, as St Paul notes.

It also doesn't tell us what IS scripture.

So no, it is not the sole or unique rule of faith. That is an opinion that is not found in the scriptures. They do, though, say the church is the pillar and foundation of truth.

What is the "word of God?"

Very important to think this through in detail.

Should we Christians view the (holy and inspired!) texts as Muslims the Koran: from the mouth of God to scribe(s)?

The Apostolic Church views the Word of God as a Divine Person: Christ the Logos, the Order and Reason of all creation. The Bible is the primary product of the Church.

What came first: Church, or Bible? The canon was debated and decided by the Church, IMO.

My argument of scripture being the unique rule of faith is based on the Greek theopneustos, literally translated as "God breathed". The only time this word is found in the original Greek is in 2 Timothy 3, when describing scripture.

Also would like to add that I find the debate over this fascinating as my dad's side of the family is staunch Irish Catholic and my mom's side staunch Baptist.

bigcat22 said:

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My argument of scripture being the unique rule of faith is based on the Greek theopneustos, literally translated as "God breathed". The only time this word is found in the original Greek is in 2 Timothy 3, when describing scripture.

Also would like to add that I find the debate over this fascinating as my dad's side of the family is staunch Irish Catholic and my mom's side staunch Baptist.

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So what does the God Breathed scriptures say is the pillar and foundation of truth?

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Neither are the Pope's. Pope's, apostles, and ourselves are all fallible and require correction sometimes.

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They were separate thoughts, hence the period between them.

The Pope is the head/Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. That's not a title that Luther took or wanted.

To your point though, a Pope could speak "ex cathedra" which is not something Luther could have done.

Everyone agrees that scripture is God breathed. The Spirit is the pnevma of God, so this shows the scriptures and inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Even so, what then? When St Paul wrote that much of the NT wasn't written yet. He was speaking of the OT, which is part of the problem here. Which books are God breathed?

Prophecy in the OT is certainly God-breathed because they prophesied from the Spirit. Does that make prophecy the unique and sole rule of faith?

I agree with most everything you wrote here.

I think a couple additions I would make is to expand on that the reformers did not want to split the west. That's very clear and they fought very hard to avoid it. Luther and others didn't leave the church, he was attempting to work things out from within the church right up until he was excommunicated and kicked out. I think it's an important distinction since we see where their hearts were.

When it comes to your last paragraph, I have some trouble with it. I think there were two primary questions they had.

First, did they lose faith in the Catholic Church? I'm not sure they entirely did or they would have just outright left. We very much see in documents like the Augsburg Confession, that they didn't want to "throw the baby out with the bath water." What we truly see is the reformers looking back to the ancient church and trying to figure out how to get Rome "back on that path." I actually think this is why you see Lutheran's (after Luther's time) reach out to the Orthodox. In terms of legitimacy, I think the Orthodox have a better claim to having preserved the ancient church teachings better. They would also make the argument that Rome drifted.

The second question is what were the historical safeguards against? What Chemnitz points out so well in his response to Trent is that throughout the Scriptures we see that it was commanded for those in power to keep the Scriptures next to them. I listed a bunch of them in other parts of this thread, so I won't repeat them. I think where Chemnitz especially lands is that God has always made sure that the Scriptures were there to challenge the traditions of man and that's a standard that should be retained. In reality this isn't a particularly high hurdle for most traditions to pass.

Now this leaves a ton of differences with traditions that will be argued came from Scriptures and are a faithful representation of that + historical understanding. This is the conversations we should be having and what has been more or less lost in the past 1000 years. I'm not sure we could ever get back there because at this point everyone is so dug into their positions, but I can hope.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Quote:

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- Fallible men, inspired by the Holy Spirit, write scripture which is inspired absolutely and with sovereignty derived from God
- The Church, inspired by the Holy Spirit, discerns this inspired scripture by witnessing to what conforms to the Truth, the Faith taught to the Church by Christ through the Apostles
- By historical fact this Faith and teaching preceded the writing of the scriptures
- Therefore the authority of the Church provides an infallible historical witness to what is infallible scripture

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This is an interesting line of discussion. If we put ourselves in the shoes of the Reformers, then we start from the frame of references of some truly pious, knowledgable Catholic priests. Luther and the others never set out to fracture from the Catholic Church. However, they witnessed so much wickedness, worldliness, and godlessness in the Church. When they brought these observations and concerns to light, I'm sure they were expecting an outpouring of righteous indignation. Probably something similar to a medieval twitter mob. The response they got from their "Bride of Christ vouchsafed, guarded, and guided step by step by the Holy Spirit" was condemnation and excommunication. If that wouldn't break your faith in the divine authority of the Church I don't know what would.

So now these Reformers feel like their contemporaneous Catholic Church is not guided by God. These men are well read in Church history. So they start looking back and trying to find where things went off the rails. Now that their institutional faith is shattered, they see division, worldliness and corruption from nearly the very beginning of the Church. So they start to think that the Church has always been some mixture of the worldly and ungodly members with the pious and sincere. So the new mission is to examine the Fathers and the Councils and determine, somehow, which ones were pious and sincere and which were worldly and ungodly.

At this point, everything becomes open to question. Once the faith in the Catholic Church was gone, there were no more sacred cows, no foundation. Luther's early writings reflect this. In my opinion, this was eventually an untenable situation for the Reformers, and they fell back to Scripture as their foundation. As others have mentioned, this is somewhat arbitrary as Scripture did not spring fully formed from the pen of Jesus. So the Reformers were stuck with this semi-credulous position where the Church is unreliable but the Scriptures preserved and propagated by the Church are above question or criticism.

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I don't want to argue with you as I think you're very close to the money with describing the way that the early reformers felt, but I do think it necessary to point out that there's a gigantic period of time (3 years) between the nailing of the 95 thesis and the papal bull Exurge Domine which censured just 43 of his 95 points, and demanded he recant within 60 days. During this 3 year period Luther kind of waffles between regret at the fracas he'd stirred up, and angry pamphlet writing.

It wasn't quite the instantaneous "hey you're excommunicated" as described

You really can't have that discussion as long as one side is entrenched in sola scriptura.

"Where's that in the Bible?"
"That's not how I read it."

In answer to the original question:

Yes, the first time I heard Janis Joplin 'sing.'

As it appears this thread is turning into a debate on Sola Scriptura, the below is a great debate on the subject if anyone has 3 hours to kill.

It seems simple on its face. If scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith, we'd expect scripture to say that. But it doesn't. If it did this argument would have either never happened or been over in a day, instead of coming up after 1500 years and producing schism after schism.

Nobody

Absolutely nobody for 1500 years

Protestants : Hey, what if scripture is the only thing that matters?

Everybody: what's included in scripture?

Protestants: I don't know, ask the publishers