Victor Van Heerden
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- Joined
- Mar 22, 2018
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- 252
To the Protestant “Sola Scriptura” means the only infallible source of information on which to base Christian doctrines and principles, is the canonised Bible. To the Roman Catholic that is not enough. They rely upon Scripture, Magisterial documents and Papal tradition and for 1500 years that was good enough. ( https://freetruth.ca/docume...
ACTS 15:4-6
"And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church, and by the apostles and ancients, declaring how great things God had done with them. But there arose some of the sect of the Pharisees that believed, saying: They must be circumcised, and be commanded to observe the law of Moses.
And the apostles and ancients assembled to consider of this matter."
Holy Scripture demanded that they be circumcised but the apostles and elders assembled to consider the matter. (The early Church had no NT only OT scriptures). Thank goodness for that because men would have to have been circumcised if scripture alone had prevailed. So to base your faith purely on your personal view point of scripture is dangerous because you have to reject Church traditions, doctrines, and interpretations of other equally pious men as having no authority whatsoever. Only your narrow understanding of scripture has authority.
Martin Luther was perhaps the most famous person to preach sola scriptura, the idea that the Bible is the sole source of religious truth. Yet it is impossible to hold to the idea of scripture only with logical consistency. The reason is simple; the determination of what the sacred writings make up the Bible is wholly extra-scriptural and based on church tradition, doctrine, and politics. Initially one must go outside of the scriptures themselves to determine which writings should be in the Bible, which renders the claim of "scripture only" false.
In other words who determined what must be in the canonised Bible to begin with? This would depend on Church politics and doctrines. In order to support scripture, one must appeal to Church doctrine, and to support Church doctrine one must appeal to scripture. Talk about circular reasoning.
The Holy Bible is a list of approved (Canonised) books. Protestants since 1640 say 66 books. Prior to that, for many 15 centuries, there were many more books in the Roman Catholic Bible. Even Luther's Bible had the Apocrypha, which he put between the "testaments" (and thus they became "inter-testament books.") He put the NT books he disputed at the back of the NT, hence James, Jude, Hebrews, Revelation, etc, are at the back of the NT.
The truth is, according to James Barr a famous Bible scholar:
“we seldom know very well the grounds on which decisions about canonical questions were reached, and even when some grounds are mentioned it is often difficult to know whether they were the ones that were really effective.” “n so far as such things existed [they] existed in the form of the different opinions of different groups; and a settlement was eventually reached not through a ‘decision’ but through the fact that one group became dominant, its opinion became more powerful and important, and that other views simply faded away with the fading of the groups which had maintained them.” Barr goes on to say, “Arguments for and against the canonicity of books may in many cases be reasons after the fact, arguments for what has been done after it had already been done.
A good example is Irenaeus’ famous argument over the necessity that there should be precisely four Gospels, as there are four regions of the world, four winds, four faces of the cherubim: if, however, there had been three Gospels, e.g. if Mark had dropped out, one could (and no doubt would) have argued decisively that there could in the nature of things only be three gospels, since three is the number of the Holy Trinity, the number of the basic cosmic elements (heaven, earth, and sea)---who knows?”
Christians must believe hopefully that somehow God guided this whole process from start to finish even though it involved so many uninspired people (the original oral second hand stories; Q; other compositions; the many gospels, including the gospels of Judas and Peter and Thomas etc; scribal copyists; scribal errors and additions, church canonical pronouncements). Nope it is quite simple; the determination of what the sacred writings that make up the Bible is wholly extra-scriptural and based on church tradition, doctrine, and politics. Therefore Sola Scriptura has to be illogical.
What do you think?
ACTS 15:4-6
"And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received by the church, and by the apostles and ancients, declaring how great things God had done with them. But there arose some of the sect of the Pharisees that believed, saying: They must be circumcised, and be commanded to observe the law of Moses.
And the apostles and ancients assembled to consider of this matter."
Holy Scripture demanded that they be circumcised but the apostles and elders assembled to consider the matter. (The early Church had no NT only OT scriptures). Thank goodness for that because men would have to have been circumcised if scripture alone had prevailed. So to base your faith purely on your personal view point of scripture is dangerous because you have to reject Church traditions, doctrines, and interpretations of other equally pious men as having no authority whatsoever. Only your narrow understanding of scripture has authority.
Martin Luther was perhaps the most famous person to preach sola scriptura, the idea that the Bible is the sole source of religious truth. Yet it is impossible to hold to the idea of scripture only with logical consistency. The reason is simple; the determination of what the sacred writings make up the Bible is wholly extra-scriptural and based on church tradition, doctrine, and politics. Initially one must go outside of the scriptures themselves to determine which writings should be in the Bible, which renders the claim of "scripture only" false.
In other words who determined what must be in the canonised Bible to begin with? This would depend on Church politics and doctrines. In order to support scripture, one must appeal to Church doctrine, and to support Church doctrine one must appeal to scripture. Talk about circular reasoning.
The Holy Bible is a list of approved (Canonised) books. Protestants since 1640 say 66 books. Prior to that, for many 15 centuries, there were many more books in the Roman Catholic Bible. Even Luther's Bible had the Apocrypha, which he put between the "testaments" (and thus they became "inter-testament books.") He put the NT books he disputed at the back of the NT, hence James, Jude, Hebrews, Revelation, etc, are at the back of the NT.
The truth is, according to James Barr a famous Bible scholar:
“we seldom know very well the grounds on which decisions about canonical questions were reached, and even when some grounds are mentioned it is often difficult to know whether they were the ones that were really effective.” “n so far as such things existed [they] existed in the form of the different opinions of different groups; and a settlement was eventually reached not through a ‘decision’ but through the fact that one group became dominant, its opinion became more powerful and important, and that other views simply faded away with the fading of the groups which had maintained them.” Barr goes on to say, “Arguments for and against the canonicity of books may in many cases be reasons after the fact, arguments for what has been done after it had already been done.
A good example is Irenaeus’ famous argument over the necessity that there should be precisely four Gospels, as there are four regions of the world, four winds, four faces of the cherubim: if, however, there had been three Gospels, e.g. if Mark had dropped out, one could (and no doubt would) have argued decisively that there could in the nature of things only be three gospels, since three is the number of the Holy Trinity, the number of the basic cosmic elements (heaven, earth, and sea)---who knows?”
Christians must believe hopefully that somehow God guided this whole process from start to finish even though it involved so many uninspired people (the original oral second hand stories; Q; other compositions; the many gospels, including the gospels of Judas and Peter and Thomas etc; scribal copyists; scribal errors and additions, church canonical pronouncements). Nope it is quite simple; the determination of what the sacred writings that make up the Bible is wholly extra-scriptural and based on church tradition, doctrine, and politics. Therefore Sola Scriptura has to be illogical.
What do you think?
