Quo Vadis? said:
AgLiving06 said:
The Banned said:
AgLiving06 said:
Quo Vadis? said:
AgLiving06 said:
Quo Vadis? said:
KingofHazor said:
Quote:
There could not have been "sola scriptura" for 250 years because there was not yet any Bible. It was tradition and letter established by the magisterium of the apostolic church that led Christians.
That is simply not true. What were the ante-Nicene fathers quoting in their letters and writings that they referred to as Scripture and authoritative?
And there was no "magisterium" in those early years.
The early Christians recognized immediately that the writings that we today call the "Bible" were in fact God's word. Those writings, inspired by the Holy Spirit, no more needed authenticity from men than did the words that Christ himself spoke.
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However, I am most likely to reach a deeper understanding by exploring the Scriptures with a variety of sources and experts. My claim would be that those experts should include church fathers and the traditions they set forth as "scriptures" as we see them today did yet exist.
That's true, so long as we recognize that those early church fathers were not inspired and have no more authority than does a Godly man or woman writing today. And it's clear that errors erupted quickly within the church, so the only way to verify the validity of the early Church fathers is if their writings correspond with Scripture.
There was absolutely magisterium in the early years. Why would the apostles need to meet in Jerusalem to discuss whether or not the Gentiles needed to be circumcised and other laws?
Arius, Valentius, Nestorius, all tested their beliefs against and claimed their beliefs were scriptural
No formal Magisterium existed to refute them.
That a Council was called to address it certainly does not equate to the modern Roman Catholic system.
And even then, their arguments were not making claims based on tradition, but on that of Scripture...hence Sola Scriptura.
The Apostles and their descendants were the formal Magisterium, no different than any of the other councils. They got together to answer questions that had arisen, and guided by the Holy Spirit, they made their ruling. Whether it was about circumcision, how Christ was exactly God and/or Man, the economy of the Holy Spirit, etc etc.
As evinced by the Heretics, Scripture is a deadly weapon without the proper teaching authority. The Church existed before scripture, there is no "pre-existence of scripture". We know when the Gospels were written, we know when Revelation was written, the church predates both.
Yes other scripture existed at the time, but something cannot both be "ultimate" and "evolving" at the same time.
No. You're doing the same thing DirtDiver did and trying to force your current church claims onto the past.
That a council was held does not equate to some formal Magisterium, and in fact we know from all of the Robber councils and contradictory councils that even claims at Nicaea took a long time to be accepted.
Your second paragraph does nothing to harm Sola Scriptura.
Your claim about the Church existing prior to the Scriptures is false, but that's a consistent error from Rome in defense of their formal structure.
Couple questions:
What do you believe the Magisterium is?
It's clear that there were Chrisitans prior to New Testament scriptures. If they weren't the Church, what would you call them?
And this is the flaw.
We start with the obvious. Scripture existed prior to the Church. The Old Testament is clearly Scripture that does not oppose or contradict the New Testament. It existed prior to the church.
Second, and also obvious, the New Testament was not new teachings, but those spoken by the Word himself (John 1) and through the Holy Spirit. I presume that we can agree that Jesus speaking and teaching proceeded the Church itself.
So everything in the New Testament was taught prior to the Church. That the medium chose from spoken to written does not change that the content was being taught before it was written. The writing only recorded what already existed.
Unless of course you're going to claim the Christian Church existed prior to Jesus....
That's Rome's problem and the problem on this thread. Roman Catholics start with the end in mind. The Magisterium exists now, therefore it existed then without evidence. You need the Church to own the Scriptures, therefore Rome built them.
I've said it before and will say it again, let the Fathers be the fathers. They weren't Roman Catholic and would not recognize Rome of today. That's not a good or bad thing, but reality. The retconning by the laity and pop apologists really doesn't help Rome's case.
Can you explain to me how John's revelation in Patmos was taught in the Old Testament? Can you explain to me how the book of ACTS was taught in the Old Testament? How Christ's teachings on dietary restrictions was taught in the Old Testament? Are you even thinking about anything you're saying?
The magisterium has always existed. St Augustine sent the canon to be confirmed by the Bishop of Rome. Irenaeus confirms Peter and Paul both founding the Church of Rome.
You can say it before, and you can say it again, but it's still just nonsense.
Nobody is seriously willing arguing "St. Augustine sent the canon to be confirmed by the Bishop of Rome." That never happened. There's zero historical evidence of this, an in fact we see, from Rome itself, the exact opposite.
One of the more interesting things I've found during my Mary thesis research is the stark difference between Rome pop apologists/laity and the scholars. The scholars know statements like this are just made up and don't entertain it. Even the modern Roman Church of the middle ages didn't make those false claims.
This is from the middle ages:
"Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed amongst the Apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, as is plain from the Prologus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned as canonical. For the words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome. Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the Bible)
are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the Bible for that purpose. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clearly through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage."
~Cardinal Cajetan, "Commentary on All the Authentic Historical Books of the Old Testament"
Rome has arguments it can make. That Augustine or the Pope did anything to confirm a canon isn't one of them. That doesn't hold up to any level of scrutiny.
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To your first paragraph. What? That's a complete misunderstanding of what I said.
I pointed out that the Old Testament, which are Scriptures (and the bulk of the pages) all pre-exist the Church. I didn't state it explicitly, but will now that they also didn't require an infallible Church to be written and/or preserved. The onus is actually on Rome to defend why the New Testament needs that (hint it doesn't). So we have Scripture that existed prior to the church.
But further, the teachings of Jesus all occurred prior to the Church and that is the New Testament. Nothing written afterward opposes or adds to what Jesus taught. That it was written down later does not change that fact. As Rome likes to argue, there were things taught orally that we either don't know about or were later written down. All proceeded Scripture and the Church.
Finally, That Revelation was written later certainly doesn't help your claim. That a prophesy occurred that still is not understood does not change anything because we are left interpreting it in light of the Word of God, which as has been proven, proceeded the Church.
