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Post by Michael Lofton on Jan 15, 2015 21:13:20 GMT
Jay,
I send you an article filled with Scritpural citations to back up my claim and you say the claim has "no foundation in Scripture".
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Post by Samson on Jan 15, 2015 21:17:03 GMT
Samson, I've been more than patient with your vitriolic attacks and insults. You have called me "disingenuous", you say that I "twist" Scripture, you implied that I'm insane and the list goes one. For this reason, I do not wish to interact with you further. Fine. But your rebuke of me disappears into nothingness when we recall THE PONITFICAL BIBLICAL COMMISSION OF 1994... "The fundamentalist approach is dangerous, for it is attractive to people who look to the Bible for ready answers to the problems of life. Fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide."
To think that God Almighty labels those who turn to His word as victims of intellectual suicide, is still more reason to believe that Catholics are not Christians.
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Post by Michael Lofton on Jan 15, 2015 21:24:42 GMT
For the record, the Catholic Church encourages the faithful to read Scripture. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:
With the motu proprio Sedula Cura, Pope Paul VI completely restructured the Pontifical Biblical Commission so that it was no longer an organ of the Magisterium.
Here is the full context of what the Pontifical Biblical Commission of 1194 said about "Fundamentalists" anyway.
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Post by Jay on Jan 16, 2015 0:08:41 GMT
What does this mean--"In what concerns the Gospels, fundamentalism does not take into account the development of the Gospel tradition, but naively confuses the final stage of this tradition (what the evangelists have written) with the initial (the words and deeds of the historical Jesus). At the same time fundamentalism neglects an important fact: The way in which the first Christian communities themselves understood the impact produced by Jesus of Nazareth and his message. But it is precisely there that we find a witness to the apostolic origin of the Christian faith and its direct expression. Fundamentalism thus misrepresents the call voiced by the Gospel itself." What is this "the final stage of this tradition (what the evangelists have written) with the initial (the words and deeds of the historical Jesus)"?
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Post by Michael Lofton on Jan 16, 2015 14:59:14 GMT
Jay,
It is basically saying that if you want to understand what Jesus and the Apostles meant by the words recorded in the Scriptures, they must be read in light of what the early Christians believed about these Scriptures. In other words, I could take what Jesus said when he said "no one is good but God" at face value and say that means Jesus didn't believe He was God, but that would be to read the Scriptures in a way contrary to what the early Christians believed.
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Post by Michael Lofton on Jan 16, 2015 14:59:30 GMT
Jay,
It is basically saying that if you want to understand what Jesus and the Apostles meant by the words recorded in the Scriptures, they must be read in light of what the early Christians believed about these Scriptures. In other words, I could take what Jesus said when he said "no one is good but God" at face value and say that means Jesus didn't believe He was God, but that would be to read the Scriptures in a way contrary to what the early Christians believed.
As to the part that says "the final stage of this tradition (what the evangelists have written) with the initial (the words and deeds of the historical Jesus)", it sounds like they are talking about the fact that the Evangelists took what Jesus said and communicated it in the way we read them in the Scriptures today. In other words, everything in the Gospels is what Jesus said essentially, but maybe not in those exacts words and order. That is not to say the Apostles put words in the mouth of Jesus, God forbid! But is to say that what we read in the Gospels is not always an exact transcipt of what Jesus said but is what he said in essence.
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Post by Jay on Jan 16, 2015 16:29:06 GMT
Why should the early Christians be the standard by which to understand the Scripture? Are they infallible? Of course not. Did they make errors in their interpretations? Yes. In fact we know that one of the main ways that early Christians interpreted the Scriptures was by the allegorical method which we know led to all kinds of strange ideas.
I agree we may not have the exact word order and words that Christ spoke but today we can only understand what Jesus said and did by the words we have in the gospels. This is what we are left with and its sufficient.
The fundamentalist is actually in a stronger position than a RC because the RC has to speculate beyond what we have written to sustain its doctrines instead of taking Scripture at its face value. We saw this in our discussion on Mary and her children.
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Post by Michael Lofton on Jan 16, 2015 16:57:52 GMT
Jay,
You say
They are not infallible. They are "a standard" but not "the standard". Ultimately, the Magisterium has the final say on the matter. The Fathers are important because they often are witnesses to how to understand the teachings of the Apostles.
You say
I don't agree. The Catholic Church is actually in a better position because whe have Scripture, the teachings of the Fathers and a Magisterium, whereas, you have Scripture (an incomplete canon at that) and your opinion.
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Post by Jay on Jan 16, 2015 21:15:16 GMT
Just because someone is closer in time to the apostles does not mean they understand what the apostles wrote any better than a later generation. Actually, its been in the past 100 years or so that we know more and understand more than previous generations because we have more trained and better qualified people doing some great work. We also have more manuscripts to work from than Jerome had.
What is lacking in church is that the magisterium has not produced any offical-infallible interpretation of the Scripture. The result of this is that it leaves the RC in position of ignorance of what a given verse or passage means.
Your canon is larger than Protestants but that canon is not completely the Word of God for the reasons I have given you.
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Post by Michael Lofton on Jan 19, 2015 18:31:49 GMT
Jay,
I think I have responded to all of your objections you listed in your last post either in this forum or others so we are just going to go in circles at this point. Thank you for your participation.
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