It is well worth reading the full text of the Pope’s address (whispersinthelogia is a great resource).
“Even within the ecumenical movement, Christians may be reluctant to assert the role of doctrine for fear that it would only exacerbate rather than heal the wounds of division. Yet a clear, convincing testimony to the salvation wrought for us in Christ Jesus has to be based upon the notion of normative apostolic teaching: a teaching which indeed underlies the inspired word of God and sustains the sacramental life of Christians today.”
What an incredible blessing B16 is!

I was also able to download the Pope’s ecumenical message at ewtn.com.  It is powerful for us who are struggling with the “innovations” of our branch of Christendom.

"At times, bishops have been named to oversee pastoral care of members who do not go along with the changes.”

The article makes it sound like the Anglican Communion has named those bishops and everyone is happy about it and cooperates.  If only that had been the case.

That’s a very politely pointed article from the Catholic News Service.  I didn’t see similar words addressed to the Baptists or Methodists.  Yet the Anglican Church earns a mention.  Why?

Sometimes I think it is because Benedict leaves an impression like that of an early Luther.  He calls for a reformation of theological values by dividing the world into those whose commitment and obedience is to Jesus first from those whose commitment is to any false religion found apart from Christ in their own efforts and understandings.

Obviously, the crisis in the Anglican Communion and her North American branches appears to have at least a bit of Rome’s attention.

Bingo! Bet she’s glad she declined the invitation to attend this one!

Obviously, the crisis in the Anglican Communion and her North American branches appears to have at least a bit of Rome’s attention.

How could it not, with all the formerly Episcopal Bishops that have swum the Tiber in the last 2 years.

Marie at Rez

I note that Benedict quotes Fr. Paul Watson, former Anglican priest who converted to Rome and brought with him the religious order he founded, the Society of the Atonement.

If you watch the video (available at http://www.ewtn.com) you will see what for Anglicans should be the most pointed and symbolic moment of this ecumenical service. Following the Pope’s clear talk, he receives ecumenical guests. (It’s around 1 hour 20 minutes into the video.) As expected, the Eastern Orthodox are introduced first. And then, more unexpectedly, the Lutherans, the Methodist, the Presbyterians, Baptist, Pentecostals, and other various and sundry are presented to the Holy Father. Finally, dead last, is the Episcopal Bishop of New York, Mark Sisk.

This lineup is a significant statement for those familiar with Papal protocol, and quite telling of how the larger Christian community views the American Episcopal Church. According to the words of the Pope’s address: “Fundamental Christian belief and practices are sometimes changed within communities by so-called ‘prophetic actions’ that are based on a hermeneutic not always constant with the datum of Scripture and tradition.” For me the presentation of ecumenical guests was a moment of shame and sadness.

It’s very revealing that the Pope is speaking the following very strong words about the Christian faith:

Christians cannot pretend that there is no such a thing as Christian truth, he said. The Christian faith is not a matter of picking and choosing what to believe and what to discard from the Scriptures and Christian tradition.

When Christians think they only need to follow their own consciences and find a church that suits their individual tastes, the result is a “continual proliferation of communities which often eschew institutional structures and minimize the importance of doctrinal content for Christian living,” he said.

Pope Benedict said that when a church, like the Catholic Church, asserts its doctrines, it is not throwing up an obstacle to progress in Christian unity.
“A clear, convincing testimony to the salvation wrought for us in Christ Jesus has to be based upon the notion of normative apostolic teaching,” he said.  Christians must hold the faith that Jesus gave to his apostles.

Only by holding on to the sure teaching of the Gospel, he said, will the Christian churches be able to find the basis for unity and for a united witness to a troubled world.

within earshot of 815.

Meanwhile, if you were to look at today’s Episcopal Life Online, not only is there not a single reference to the Pope’s visit to New York, but the lead story (Wow! What a surprise!) is:

Book of prayers by Anglican women and girls to focus on MDGs

I wish we had a leader like him.  Sigh.

Yes, and a bit further down in that lead story. we have this gem,

“At a time when a small cabal of male leaders (emphasis mine) are insisting on dividing the Anglican Communion over issues of human sexuality,” said Dr Te Paa, “Anglican women are offering a way forward.”

The contrast between unity in Jesus Christ and the faith once delivered and unity in the MDGs could hardly be more stark.

But another, growing problem lies in the fact that “fundamental Christian beliefs and practices are sometimes changed within communities by so-called ‘prophetic actions’ that are based” on a reading of Christianity “not always consonant” with that found in the Bible and in Christian tradition.

Liberal kettle, meet Roman pot.  (Insert standard list of non-biblical RC dogmas here to include the supplemental source of revelation found in Sacred Tradition.) How can a Protestant read these words and keep his jaw off the floor? 

There is a reason for the divisions between Geneva and Rome, and they do not center on issues of adiaphora.  Just as there can be no ultimate unity between liberal and Protestant, there can be no ultimate unity between Catholic and Protestant - and for the same reason.  The underlying gospel messages are mutually exclusive.  Calls for unity cannot paper over that inconvenient fact.

carl

The unity of the early Christian community and the cohesion of its members “was based on the sound integrity of their doctrinal confession,” the pope said.

Somewhat off topic.
Frankly more and more,I think the reformation was a disaster and Protestant Christianity is intrinisically feeble and weak and incapable of doing much besides mutating into something new every fifteen years and shattering into ever more inrelevant dueling sects. I am no longer buying the Reformers where all brave heros, most in retrospect seem like unbalanced lunatics, with unbalanced theologies built around personal pathologies and pet obsessions. And it moved forward by political machinations of secular rulers who , knew the Reformation deep down would geld the church.(Yes I do have a problem with some of Romes teachings and that why , if I leave Anglicanism I will likely be Orthodox and as of now I am an Anglican Catholic.) The reformation in retro-spect, seems to habe planted the seeds (relativism, being primary among them) for the eventual suicide of western civilization that is coming to fruition. The churches of the Reformation are ready to die at 500 and to me that says something HUGE, while Orthodoxy and Catholicism while being also diminished are still fairly strong, and I am confedent they will exist 100 years from now, sadly the same can’t be said for the churches of the Reformation. As for Evangelicalism, it is no answer, been there, done that, in the end all it offers up is subjectivism and endless opinions and schisms.Truth has gotta be more then dueling, arguements over out of context cut and pasted verses and scraps of the Bible, which frankly was what my Evangelical upbring was.Nobody was right or wrong, if you didn’t like something you can change churches or start as new one.Frankly to me, that mindset cannot be of God. Sola Scriptura seems like illogical nonsense to me. Seriuosly so which Protestant sect out of 15,000 has “The Gospel”, is it Calvinist or Arminian? I seriously want to know, Catholic and Orthodox aquantences, relatives and authors I have read, have throwing down the gauntlet and not one Protestant person has offered a satisfactory answer. No one Protestant can ever have any authority, their view no matter how well argued , can just be whisked away as mere opinion. Bible interpretation a guide such as church tradition is just so much he says, I say, subjectivism.  And frankly “Strength in Diversity” is an absurd and empty bit of rhetorical nothingness. I heard people laud the divisions of the Church as God given diversity, which is a comment that is so illogical and absurd it begs belief,no, somebody is wrong and I don’t think God, celebrates diversity by making his church a ployglot, noncoherent, chaos of mutually exclusive ideas and theologies. Sorry if I sound like a jerk, but this is really bothering me. I am sorry but to be Protestant (whatever that means) almost seems to require me to engage in cognotive dissonace to the point of being crazy. Anybody have anything to say? And as for Jenny Te Paa, she is best ignored.

All my life I have been reading about the Roman Catholic church patronising the Church of England and, now, other parts of the Anglican Communion for not being, well, Roman Catholics!  I too deplore the divisions.  However, I don’t think they are any worse than they were when, for example, the Pope issued a Bull on “the nullity of Anglican Orders”.  That was in 1896.  It has never been retracted.  Obviously having gay bishops and women clergy makes it worse.  But the fact is that the Pope views the orders of heterosexual men ordained into churches of the Anglican Communion as “null”.  So he is quite hard to please when it comes to unity.

Carl,
The place of Sacred Tradition in Catholic teaching is not as a supplement to the Bible.  It is considered part of the Revelation entrusted to the Church by Christ Himself and protected by the Holy Spirit.  The encyclical Dei Verbum gives a full explanation of this.

I can assure you that there are no prophetic doctrines in the Catholic Church.  The Church has never decided to do a new thing and completely twist Scripture or Tradition on its head in order to be better pleasing to a sinful world. 

The Pope was speaking in support of all churches which are not ashamed of the Gospel, who have not abandoned their own confessions of the faith.  Who continue to affirm what is found in Scripture and was defined in Councils.  Those churches which teach and defend standards of morality (sexual and otherwise) which have all Christians once agreed upon.  Churches which are not ashamed to declare the uniqueness of Christ or the world’s for a Savior.  Churches which know the wages of sin is death and that to claim any sin is blessed is to lead souls into hell.  Churches which know that the purpose of Christ’s saving death was so that we may have eternal life. 

These things make churches unpalatable to many in this day and age.  That is nothing new.  All ages stop their ears from hearing the Truth. Faithful Protestants and Catholics know we will always be a stumbling block and folly to many.  But watering down the Truth so it will be more acceptable to more people is not an act of faith, hope or love.  It is a betrayal of those saints who through all ages have boldly witnessed to a hurting and sinful world.

We have very real disagreements about doctrine.  But we can be united under the binding of the Holy Trinity in declaring the Gospel to all nations.

For the record, it appears that the Presiding Bishop went to Salt Lake City for the dedication of the new diocesan center and an “ecumenical” meeting with the head of the Morman Church: http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_8981946.

I’m sure the Morman Church is about as thrilled about ECUSA’s “prophetic” morality as the Roman Catholics are.

Contrast what Pope Benedict says with the various pronouncements of Don +Schorleone who seems to be mainly concerned with small boxes, wide gates, and bovine flatulence. Boy did we get the short end of the stick.

the snarkster

[#17] Paula Loughlin writes:

The Church has never decided to do a new thing and completely twist Scripture or Tradition on its head in order to be better pleasing to a sinful world.

And yet, from this bank of the Tiber, I can observe nothing else.  The RCC appeals to Sacred Tradition to justify its distinctive dogmas. And yet Sacred Tradition has no content to be examined; no provenance. 

The RCC cannot quote even one word spoken by either the Lord Jesus or the Apostles except that it is quoted in Scripture. How then was Sacred Tradition vouchsafed?  There is no charism of Revelation in the Church.  If Sacred Tradition cannot then be traced to the words of the Lord Jesus and His apostles, what is its authority?  If it can be traced to words of the Lord Jesus and His apostles, then tell us those words, and establish their provenance.

Even so, we are bidden to place the weight of (say) the Marian dogmas - with consequent anathemas for disbelief - on this slender reed.  Not one of the three dogmas can be found in Scripture, and two of the three are directly contradicted.  Yet the dogma has been defined, and so Scripture can henceforth only be read through the lens of the dogma.  What else then should this be called but “turning Scripture on its head?” We are told to believe what Scripture denies on the authority of a Sacred Tradition which cannot be examined.  Is this any different from liberals justifying homosexuality on the basis of experience?

The Romans Church is guilty of the same charge the Pope has levied at his liberal opponents.  He just has different source material to justify the “new thing.”

carl

Carl, are you forgetting that Sacred Tradition is also one of the underpinnings of historic Anglican faith, doctrine, and worship?  (The supposed, but false, “three-legged stool of Scripture, Reason, and Tradition?)

Reasserters can probably agree, based on what has happened to ECUSA by its own hand, that the Pope is exactly on target when he says

“Fundamental [basic] Christian beliefs and practices are sometimes changed within communities by so-called “prophetic actions” that are based on a hermeneutic not always consonant with the datum of Scripture and Tradition.

Which is a diplomatic way of saying that so-called prophetic actions are a path to perdition.

Rather than take this thread off in the direction of an anti-Roman polemic, let us look for the truth in what the Pope has said and is saying.  Just because the head of the Roman Catholic Church is saying it doesn’t make it a lie.  Truth is Truth, even when it doesn’t come from the context with which we are most comfortable.

Snarkster:  Don + Schorleone. Love it.

Carl, I will have to assume you are joking or just trying to get a rise out of this poor ignorant Catholic.
There is enough material for tracing Catholic Doctrine to Apostolic Tradition as it was preserved by those who followed them.  You may also take up the matter with our Orthodox brethern as they too honor Apostolic Tradition. 

Meanwhile I do wish you would pull your claws in a bit as you end up scratching your fellow Anglicans as well as this Catholic.

I agree with Paula; I’d fraternally suggest Carl consider this Orthodox meditation (from here http://www.westsrbdio.org/prolog/my.html?month=April&day=14&Go;.x=12&Go;.y=11)

Behold, such is the apostolic preaching! The apostles do not speak as worldly sages, nor like philosophers and even less as theoreticians who make suppositions about something in order to discover something. The apostles speak about things which they have not sought but which unexpectedly surrounded them; about the fact which they did not discover but, so to speak, unexpectedly found them and seized them. ...

The apostles saw not only one miracle but numerous miracles. They heard not only one lesson but many lessons which could not be contained in numerous books. They saw the resurrected Lord for forty days; they walked with Him, they conversed with Him, they ate with Him, and they touched Him. In a word: they personally and first handedly had thousands of wondrous facts by which they learned and confirmed one great fact, i.e., that Christ is the God-Man, the Son of the Living God, the Man-loving Savior of mankind and the All-Powerful Judge of the living and the dead.

Forty days of the resurrected Christ.  And how much of that experience is recorded in Scripture?  Not much.  Do we think He might have had much to say to prepare the Apostles for their awesome task?  Yeah, I think.  “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25)

Been there, seen that, done it. I was raised and educated as an Irish Roman Catholic. I converted to and was baptized as an Orthodox Christian. I was ordained as a deacon and then a priest and served for eight years, before I became Anglican. I can understand the frustration which so many Anglicans have with the apparent lack of leadership in the Anglican Church. It is not surprising that articulate, forceful religious leaders like the current Pope of Rome can make some Anglicans feel envious. I would invite my fellow Anglicans to re-read the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion to understand once more why we are not Roman Catholics. If, upon reading them, you cannot accept them as being your statement of faith then perhaps you best re-think your own ecclesiastical affiliation. Every time that I hear someone claiming to be Anglican while at the same time railing against Protestantism and the Protestant Reformed Church of England (Anglicanism), I want to say ‘for God’s sake, either go or get off the pot’! A house divided against itself cannot stand.

RMBruton, surely you do not think the Episcopal Church believes in the 39 Articles? The rejection of them (as pertinent tenets for our time) is one big reason so many of us, can not continue in TEC. If you want a church that adheres to the 39 Articles, you should look elsewhere, among the continuers.

THE EPISCOPAL ORGANIZATION—Office of the Supreme Leader, Fuhrer, and Executive Autocrat
Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Oddly Mitred Person and Gorilla

Announcement of the Deposition of Pope Benedict XVI

The Title IV Review Committee having certified to me on April 19, 2008 pursuant to Canon IV. 1(1) of the Hermetic-Samaratine Corpus of the Secret Laws of Episcopal church (whose glorious contents are known only to those initiated into the mysteries of the goddess under the aegis of Simon Magus by archierophant Beers) that the Rt. Rev. Joseph Alois Ratzinger, sometimes known as Benedict the XVI, bishop of Rome, has abandoned the communion and teaching of this organization by his boundary-crossing and the substance of his preaching; and the three senior individuals of my personal coffee & martini klatch (the Rt. Rev B. Harris, the Rt. Rev. J. Spong and the Rt. Rev. V. G. Robinson) having consented to this inhibition on that same day, I hereby inhibit the said Bishop Ratzinger and order that from and after April 19, 2005, he cease and desist from exercising the gifts of ordination and ministry; and pursuant to Canon IV.15 of that same Hermetic legal corpus, I pronounce him deposed and order that he cease and desist such acts in any jurisdiction, country, monastery, pub, auditorium, sports arena, or ecclesial location.

I further order and decree that, pursuant to Canon IV.23a and to the Denis Canon, that all monies, properties, parishes, buildings, endowments and any other temporal or secular possessions heretofore belonging either to his see of Rome or to any diocese, religious house or institution which owes affiliation to that see is now forfeit to the Episcopal Organization and I direct that all titles, funds, leases, liens and endowments be transfered forthwith to this office—after which transfers, pursuant to section 23b of that same canon, I direct him to cease and desist exercise of all matters temporal as well.

I call upon this former bishop of Rome, now deposed, to apologize to the world for being accused of supporting Nazism, for belittling Islam, for denigrating European secularism, for causing global warming, for eating beef, for rejecting our prophetic calls of homosexualism and women’s ordination, for encouraging prayer and other Deistic fables, for having nicer vestments than I do, and for upholding basic Christian teaching.

I hereby direct that notice of this Inhibition and Deposition be expeditiously sent to the college of Roman cardinals, Louis Crew, the New York Times, the Ecumenical Patriarch (you’re next, mister!), the Dali Lama, Barbara Streisand, Muqtada al-Sadr and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may-he-live-forever-and-be-blessed-with-1000-camels.

Signed,
Katharine J. “Kitty Cat” Schori
a.k.a. Donnette Schorlione
Presiding Administrator of the Episcopal Organization
Valued, representative and fully-participating member of the Canturbury Anglican Communion.

LOL. I think Presiding Oddly Mitered Person (POMP) is right up there with beclowned and canonade.

Oops… meant to fix “Dalai” when I tweaked it but forgot to. Bother.

As for Osama and al-Zawahiri—not to worry, Ahmadinejad will simply pass her good wishes along to them in his next clandestine weekly communique.

pax,
LP

Hippo #18,

Please tell me she did not choose to be in Salt Lake City and meet with the Mormons over the Pope.  I could have understood a family or medical situation, but this is amazing.

Paula 27,
If you will re-read my post it says ‘my fellow Anglicans’. I have no illusions about the General Convention Church, of which thankfully I have never been a part. Having left a Continuing Church which was dominated by Anglo-Catholics, I’ve been with CANA, where I can use the 1662 BCP and adhere to the Articles of Religion. My comments were directed at those who profess to be Anglican while being anti-Protestant. Anglican Comprehensiveness aside, one has to make up one’s mind. That is why I harp on the significance of the Articles. An excellent resource is The Thirty-Nine Articles, Their Place and Use Today by J. I. Packer and R. T. Beckwithwhich is available from http://www.regentpublishing.com

If Sacred Tradition cannot then be traced to the words of the Lord Jesus and His apostles, what is its authority?  If it can be traced to words of the Lord Jesus and His apostles, then tell us those words, and establish their provenance.

“Until I have thrust my hands into the printing press, and smeared the ink upon my fingers, I will not believe!”

Two thousand years of uninterrupted communal human witness, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit: that is the true guarantee of provenance. All else is illusory.

If Sacred Tradition cannot then be traced to the words of the Lord Jesus and His apostles, what is its authority?  If it can be traced to words of the Lord Jesus and His apostles, then tell us those words, and establish their provenance.

You’d have no idea what Jesus’ words were without the Tradition of the Church that preserved them, determined which writings were apostolic and authoritative, and set them up as the normative Scriptures… and revealed their normative and reasonable interpretation.

If Tradition has no authority then Scripture doesn’t either—or, at the very least, you have no way to argue when the apostates and heretics start throwing around spurious or marginal documents (like the Gospel of Mary) and claiming that they are just as authoritative.

pax,
LP

XXXIV. Of the Traditions of the Church
It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, and utterly like; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversities of countries, times, and men’s manners, so that nothing be ordained against God’s Word. Whosoever through his private judgement, willingly and purposely, doth openly break the traditions and ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked openly, (that others may fear to do the like,) as he that offendeth against the common order of the Church, and hurteth the authority of the Magistrate, and woundeth the consciences of the weak brethren.
Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish, ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only by man’s authority, so that all things be done to edifying.

LP

You forgot the key line in your KJS missive…

“Dear Joe”

Yes, I see, RMBruton, it seems I had misread your wording.  I agree with you about the great importance of the 39 Articles.  How much they should be able to help us in the present!  Thanks for the link to order the book about them (Packer and Beckwith).

You’d have no idea what Jesus’ words were without the Tradition of the Church that preserved them, determined which writings were apostolic and authoritative, and set them up as the normative Scriptures… and revealed their normative and reasonable interpretation.

That would have been a surprise to the Jews in Palestine - to whom no Church vouchsafed the Scriptures by tradition.  And yet the Lord Jesus still held them accountable to know what they were. 

But this is a distraction.  It doesn’t answer the question, but serves only to deflect attention away from the question.  In fact, all the shoe-pounding, and question-begging on this thread serves only to illustrate the truth of my assertion.  Not one person has directly answered my question.  What is the content of Sacred Tradition?  It should be an easy question to answer.  Why have I not received it?  Because there is no answer. How then can you testify to the truth of that which you do not even know?

The Pope has no business complaining about others doing “new things” contrary to Scripture when the Roman Church stands as an edifice to that very act.  The Roman Catholic Church is neither the reference, nor the measure.

carl

Thanks to the Bishop of Rome for coming to our doorstep to call a spade a spade.  Take note TEC.  The unitarians were not invited and next time neither will you be.

Carl asks: What is the content of Sacred Tradition?

The “content” is the Church, herself. That is the understanding of the Church visibly centered at Rome, anyway. Not this or that teaching which she conveys on one way or another, but the Church herself, as a living entity. Now I grant you that this is not the sort of definition that can be used within an Anglican theology, but there it is.

What is the content of Sacred Tradition?  It should be an easy question to answer. Why have I not received it? Because there is no answer.

First we note the contradiction: it’s an easy question to answer, and yet (it is asserted) there is no answer.

In fact, it is a quite improper question for various reasons. First: whilst it is proper to ask, “what is the content of this book” - and for answer, one has only to read it - to ask this of a tradition is clearly a very different matter. If it were possible to distil a tradition into a static, fixed content that could be written down, then it would just be a book. But a tradition is not a book. So in a sense, this is a question that ought not to have an answer, because it does not deserve one.

Of course, a tradition will typically manifest itself in writings, and the tradition instituted by Our Lord is no exception. First among those writings are those that date from the earliest times, and which by tradition were treated as canonical. Surrounding those writings are many things that are part of the tradition, but which are not contained within the writings themselves, e.g. that the first gospel was by Matthew and the second by Mark. Predating these early written deposits were oral traditions such as that known as “Q”. As well as those canonical traditions, there were a host of others - the Didache; the letters and sermons of the early fathers; and of course the liturgy itself, which existed in many forms and many places before it was ever written down, and which bears witness of the earliest times. The written deposits continue to the present day, alongside and as a by-product of the preaching, witness and liturgy of the living church.

The question is improper for a second reason: there is behind it the question of who is qualified to give a “simple” answer to what is the “content” of that tradition. Anyone who can read can know (on some level) what is the content of a book, and can transmit it faithfully by reading it out loud. But to answer “what is the content of such-and-such a tradition?”, one must have authority. That authority is vested in the magisterium of the church, not in posters to this blog.

But yes, there is a short summary answer to “what is the content of Sacred Tradition?”, namely: it is the Gospel, the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ.

Carl, This is from Dei Verbum- On Divine Revelation- it may, I hope enlighten you as to the place of Sacred Tradition and why it is given such place, in Catholic teaching.

“The Christian dispensation, therefore, as the new and definitive covenant, will never pass away and we now await no further new public revelation before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ (see 1 Tim. 6:14 and Tit. 2:13).

Therefore Christ the Lord in whom the full revelation of the supreme God is brought to completion (see Cor. 1:20; 3:13; 4:6), commissioned the Apostles to preach to all men that Gospel which is the source of all saving truth and moral teaching, (1) and to impart to them heavenly gifts. This Gospel had been promised in former times through the prophets, and Christ Himself had fulfilled it and promulgated it with His lips. This commission was faithfully fulfilled by the Apostles who, by their oral preaching, by example, and by observances handed on what they had received from the lips of Christ, from living with Him, and from what He did, or what they had learned through the prompting of the Holy Spirit. The commission was fulfilled, too, by those Apostles and apostolic men who under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit committed the message of salvation to writing. (2)

And so the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved by an unending succession of preachers until the end of time. Therefore the Apostles, handing on what they themselves had received, warn the faithful to hold fast to the traditions which they have learned either by word of mouth or by letter (see 2 Thess. 2:15),… and so the Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes.

Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. ...”

Now to properly understand this you must have an understanding of Apostolic succession and how Catholicsim defines Church.  The understanding rests on the belief that Christ founded a Church which was from earliest times led by the Apostles.  These Apostles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit not only preached the Truth but preserved it for future generations.  Some of these they committed to writing but others they entrusted to their successors by word of mouth.  These successors of these Apostles the Bishops of the early Church held fast to what they had learned. 
Should a heresy arise which challenged the Church’s teaching a council would be held where under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Bishops would refute heresy and affirm what was to be held as Truth by all believers.  The majority of these councils are still held as being authortative, though in Protestant bodies the degree and place of that authority varies. 

The one thing that the Catholic Church does not believe is that the Holy Spirit having inspired the Apostles to write the Scriptures, figured everything was fine forever now my work here is done, and took off.  It also does not believe that the Apostles having received that inspiration penned Scripture then retired to grow olives in the valley.  Figuring someone else back at the office would handle any messy problems, so why bother picking out someone to be in charge to keep company policy intact.

If you are looking for a My Big Book of Sacred Tradition you will not find it, though you can read the Church Fathers to glean quite a bit of it.  The deposit of Sacred Tradition is the Church Herself.  It is one of the reasons for her existence.  The first being to “ Go forth and preach the Gospel to all nations, baptizing in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”

And I must admit to being completely lost over Carl’s statement “That would have been a surprise to the Jews in Palestine - to whom no Church vouchsafed the Scriptures by tradition.  And yet the Lord Jesus still held them accountable to know what they were.”

#47 No reason to be bewildered here. The apostle Paul speaks about this plainly, when he declares in his Epistle to the Romans: “What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God.” The writing, preservation, and the determination of the OT canon was entrusted to and carried out by the Jews. Josephus very clearly records the number of books of the OT to be the equivalent of the 39 books which we have in our Bibles today. Josephus stated they were twenty-two, this number [not content] differing from thirty-nine due to the different grouping of these books into three sections: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. Jesus Himself bore witness to the Jewish understanding of Scripture; when applying the Scriptures and their fulfillment to Himself, He spoke of “the Law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms"-what every Jew of the time would recognize as the well established, three-fold division of the 22[39] books of the OT. This exact OT canon, by the way, was staunchly affirmed by Jerome-in no uncertain terms.
This does not stop at the NT canon; every book of the New Testament was written by Jews [with the exception of Luke, who was almost certainly a proselyte). I’m sure most here are aware that the establishment of the NT Canon was essentially set in the third century, and was established by the great Athanasius 30 years before the Council of Carthage.
One of my favorite quotes comes from Prof. Neil R. Lightfoot, from his popular book “How we got the Bible”, where he so rightly says the following:
“In conclusion, it is important to emphasize that no church council MADE the canon of Scripture. No church by its decrees gave too or pronounced on the books of the Bible their infallibility. The Bible owes its authority to no individual or group. The church does not control the canon, but the canon controls the church. Although divine authority was attributed to the New Testament books by the later church, this authority was not derived from the church but was inherent in the books themselves. As a child identifies its mother, the later church identified the books which it regarded as having unique authority.”

Shoot, my post to Bob K thanking him for clarifying what Carl mean got eaten up.  So here is a shorten version. I disagree with your conclusions but I appreciate you letting me that Carl was referring to the OT.  His use of the word Church is what confused me, since I would not apply that term to believers before the Revelation of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles at Pentecost.

Again thanks I figured I was misreading his meaning and did not want let such a misreading color my response.

You’re welcome, Paula. Hopefully, the clarification was consistent with what Carl was referring to-one cant always be completely sure when making such an elaboration on another mans post that what you thought he meant was, in fact, what he was attempting to convey.

Hopefully, the clarification was consistent with what Carl was referring to

It was indeed.  The word choice of ‘Church’ was perhaps not the best, but it was intended to parallel the equivalent phrase in LP’s quote:

You’d have no idea what Jesus’ words were without the Tradition of the Church that preserved them

For if we cannot know the Scripture toady except that a Church authority tells us, then those before the resurrection could also not have known without such an authority.  But there was no such authority.  And yet Jesus could still say “You err because you do not know the Scriptures.”

carl

Carl,
I want to emphasis I support fully my Reformed brothers and sisters who are working so dilegently (sp) and sometimes at great cost to preserve the faith which they have inherited.  I fully believe that in their witness for Christ and their incorporation of the Gospel into every part of their lives, they are truly salt and light to this world.

I appreciate that there are very real differences between us.  But I can not, no matter how much effort I make, see orthodox Protestants as anything else than fellow Christians who struggle daily with the world, the flesh and the devil and who overcome that struggle through the merciful love and grace of Our Lord.  I believe without any hesitation that the mansions of the Father are being prepared for them.  And that they will be welcomed with joy into His kingdom on the last day.

I really do not want to see this thread turn into a Catholic vs Protestant one.  Rather I would like us to be united under the binding of the Holy Trinity in never being ashamed to declare Christ crucified.  To bring the good news of His saving death to this world which is so hungry for the Truth.  God bless you.

Let’s recap, shall we?  We began with the concept of Sacred Tradition which is alleged to be the oral teaching of the Lord Jesus and His Apostles.  Phil established this in [#25] when he referred to this verse in the Gospel of John.

“Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”

And as Paula Loughlin wrote in [#17]:

[Sacred Tradition] is considered part of the Revelation entrusted to the Church by Christ Himself and protected by the Holy Spirit.

So then it seems a reasonable question to ask: “What were those teachings?” God has protected His very written Word so that men could profit from it.  Surely He would also protect these oral teachings as well, and for the same reason. But unless we know what those teachings were, how can we profit?  So I ask the question.  “What are the oral teachings that make up the deposit called Sacred Tradition?”

Now this should be an easy question to answer.  If a man asks me “What are the Scriptures?” I have no trouble answering.  If the RCC has an additional deposit of Apostolic teaching to which it faithfully adheres, then it must know the contents of that teaching.  Otherwise, how could it ever claim to be faithful to it?  So If I ask of the RCC “What is the content of Sacred Tradition?” it should be able to respond just as quickly as it does to the question “What is Scripture?” But it does not.

In this thread I have been told that “[T]here is enough material for tracing Catholic Doctrine to Apostolic Tradition as it was preserved by those who followed them."[#24].  I have been told to look to the Orthodox church.  And I have been told that “The ‘content’ is the Church, herself.” [#43] And the answers have demonstrated with blinding clarity that there is no answer to the question “What were those oral teachings?” Paula Loughlin admits as much when she says:

If you are looking for a My Big Book of Sacred Tradition you will not find it

But of course I knew that.  So here is my dilemma.  How do I test the actions of the RCC against Scripture when the answer will always begin “Oh, but Sacred Tradition...” I will be told that I cannot interpret Scripture contrary to Sacred Tradition, and that I can only know Sacred Tradition from the Church - the selfsame Church which cannot tell me its content in the first place.  Great work if you can get it.  In effect, the RCC says “Trust Me.” I am not sure why I should even read Scripture if this is the case.  For I am more likely than not to come to the wrong conclusion.  Perhaps I should just stick with my catechism.  And of course this attitude has a long history with Rome.

By default, Rome declares she cannot do a new thing, for whatever she does is by definition right - the Holy Spirit being offered as its ultimate guarantee. In effect, the Church has become its own standard, with the imprimatur of the Holy Spirit trotted out to affirm everything the Magisterium proclaims. Yet this is exactly what TEC has done.

But the Holy Spirit did not stop the RCC from denying Scripture by elevating Mary to her current position.  Until Rome addresses that discontinuity, her claims of Sacred Tradition will fall on deaf ears.  I will instead stand foursquare upon this assertion by CKPS in [#34]:

“Until I have thrust my hands into the printing press, and smeared the ink upon my fingers, I will not believe!”

This is what the Bereans did, and Paul commended them for it.  Silly Protestant that I am, I will continue to hold the RCC accountable to the Scripture, and not submit myself to the slavery of Sola Ecclesia.

carl

Paula

R C Sproul once wrote that the question for Protestants is this: “Is the RCC a true church which contains significant error, or a false church which contains significant truth?” It is not an easy question.  It is frankly one that I dread.  But it must be answered.  And Galatians 1 does not appear to allow any room for maneuver.  The Gospel as taught by Rome is not the Gospel I recognize.  I grieve because of this conclusion.  For I know so many RCs who are my friends; who stand with me on every temporal issue against the secular beast that would consume us both.  But the Truth is what it is.

I fully understand that many individual RCs have a saving knowledge of the Gospel.  But this knowledge is despite and not because of the teachings of the RCC.  Towards those teachings I have nothing but antipathy.  They have made the Scriptures to no effect simply to establish traditions of men.  I must fight them - for your sake.

carl

Ok, someone else have at it because I am just tired of trying to explain that the Church in Catholic and Orthodox teaching is the preserver of Sacred Tradition as it was handed down by the Apostles.

And I was not trying to palm you off Carl but there truly is a great deal of material available on what teachings constitute Sacred Tradition and how they came to be regarded as such.  I would not ask you to examine all Catholic doctrine but you might start with the teaching that Mary was assummed body and soul into heaven. 

And I get it Catholic church has abandonded the Gospel she is death to all true believers.  Her corruption her scandals and her persecution of the blessed saints has risen up to heaven and right now Christ Himself is preparing the sword of vengenance against that false Christ, that father of perdtition the Pope.  All who truly believe what the Church teaches are ignorant slaves to the seduction of serpents in the guise of priests and bishops.  We worship Mary, we consult with the dead in order to know the future, we never, ever read Scripture.  Indeed it is very plainly forbidden to us.  We also beat puppies and cheat at cards.

You know I am really mightily peeved.  You asked for an explanation I explained, you still will not settle for anything less than a full set of The Book Of Sacred Tradition.  So I will have to admit THERE IS NO BIG BOOK OF SACRED TRADITION, THAT IS WHY IT IS NOT PART OF THE WRITTEN DEPOSIT OF FAITH BUT OF THE ORAL TRADITION PRESERVED BY THE CHURCH.  BUT IT IS STILL PART OF THE DEPOSIT OF FAITH.

Towards those teachings I have nothing but antipathy.

It is good to know that Carl is not engaging in open dialogue, but in a sort of fight to the death. I had deduced this from the nature of his argumentative stance, but it is helpful to have it confirmed openly. In particular, it shows that his questions about catholic teaching, tradition, etc. were not intended to elicit information, but simply to obtain material for attack. while I agree with Paula that Dei Verbum provides an excellent, though not systematic, presentation of the catholic position, it is not going to be helpful in this particular case.

Instead, we could parse Carl’s arguments not as an attempt to shed light on the gospel message, but rather as a destructive enterprise, professedly in order to save catholic souls (!). It would be marginally more productive to indicate how and why this enterprise fails. However, this started life as a post about Benedict XVI’s penetrating criticisms of the confusion generated by heresy.

So I will keep this short and not post any more about tradition and authority.

Seizing upon examples of oral tradition that are witnessed to by the canonical scriptures, the fundamentalist demands to know their precise contents. We can of course refer him to the Fathers, and the liturgical deposit, but we know that this will not satisfy him. Actually we did, and it didn’t. If we don’t have a written-down record, the fundamentalist challenges, how can it profit us? Well, in the writings of the Fathers, and in the liturgy, and in our sacred art, we do; and we do profit from it.

God has protected His very written Word so that men could profit from it. Surely He would also protect these oral teachings as well, and for the same reason.

The written word was protected by the living tradition of the church, as the body of Christ through which Christ is made present in the world through God’s grace. The scripture is indeed the canon (the “yardstick"): it was and is recognized as such and preserved as such by the church. It shoud be added that the OT was likewise providentially formed, preserved and canonized by the Jewish tradition under God’s providence. One of the quandaries of the early church was whether, to the extent that the Jewish tradition had canonized some OT writings but not others, this was binding on the children of the new covenant. As regards those oral teachings that do not form part of the canon, there is no reason to suppose that divine Providence would necessarily preserve it. Scripture witnesses, and common sense dictates, that not all of Our Lord’s own deeds and sayings have been preserved. So that argument has no traction.

How do I test the actions of the RCC against Scripture when the answer will always begin “Oh, but Sacred Tradition...”

Contrary to what Carl implies, tradition itself affirms that scripture must be its canon, and that the appeal to tradition, far from avoiding the issue, expressly justifies the use of the canonical scriptures as the yardstick of orthodoxy (as Dei Verbum clearly acknowledges). This is precisely what “canonicity” means. Carl’s willingness to misrepresent the situation here is perhaps evidence of his confessed “antipathy”.

Indeed, the witness of tradition is far more stringent even than this: for tradition is bound not merely by its canonical written deposit, but by what Benedict XVI calls its diachronic character. Put in juridical language, tradition is bound by precedent or, one might say, by tradition. Thus the authority vested in the magisterium is not the authority to innovate at whim, but to preserve faithfully what was handed down.

Rejecting this safeguard, sola scriptura is the engine of schism. As history demonstrates, and as philosophical critique confirms, the fundamentalist account of authority is incoherent in theory and anarchic in practice. It leads inexorably to relativism on the one hand, or obscurantist irrationalism on the other.

That this is of crucial importance to the civilized world can easily be shown with reference to Islam, whose epistemological situation seems indistinguishable from that of biblical fundamentalism. The difference is that in the affluent west, it collapses into relativism, whereas in the middle east, it collapses into obscurantist irrationalism. This becomes troublesome on the international scene only when, as at present, it becomes mixed with fanaticism and hatred; but then, irrationalism is always going to be dangerous.

In this situation, worshippers of Gutenberg’s Golden Calf have nothing constructive to offer except an equal and opposite irrationalism. There is no possibility of dialogue; there is not even a shared hermeneutic, nor any real desire for one.

That is why it is Benedict XVI, and not the pope in Carl’s belly, that has a message of hope for this fallen world.

Gracious Father, we pray for thy holy catholic Church. Fill it with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt,purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Savior. Amen.

http://www.spiw.org/reports.asp?type=prayer

CPKS wrote:

It is good to know that Carl is not engaging in open dialogue, but in a sort of fight to the death. I had deduced this from the nature of his argumentative stance, but it is helpful to have it confirmed openly.

I do always strive for clarity in my writing, and I have made no secret of my opinions on Roman Catholicism in the two years I have posted on this blog.  I have always placed it in the open for all to see.

In particular, it shows that his questions about catholic teaching, tradition, etc. were not intended to elicit information, but simply to obtain material for attack.

When did I ever intend to elicit information?  In fact I made an assertion about the RCC and used the vacuous nature of Sacred Tradition to sustain my argument.  The question was only intended to illustrate the truth of my assertion by generating non-answers.  It work admirably.

Seizing upon examples of oral tradition that are witnessed to by the canonical scriptures, the fundamentalist demands to know their precise contents.

Perfectly reasonable since you intend to hold me bound by its content under penalty of anathema.  In any case, if you are going to call me a fundamentalist, would you at least define the term?  And in passing, do you note how your arguments begin to sound more and more like those of a TEC apologist?

If we don’t have a written-down record, the fundamentalist challenges, how can it profit us? Well, in the writings of the Fathers, and in the liturgy, and in our sacred art, we do; and we do profit from it.

And you would bind the consciences of men upon inferences, extrapolations, and speculations such as this?  These are your conduit to Revelation?  Truly did I call this a slender reed which will pierce the hand.

Put in juridical language, tradition is bound by precedent or, one might say, by tradition. Thus the authority vested in the magisterium is not the authority to innovate at whim, but to preserve faithfully what was handed down.

Except that only the Church can define “innovating at a whim” and so by definition it never does so.  This is the heart of the conflict.  You judge the Scripture by the Church, and I judge the Church by the Scripture.  And according to the latter standard, the RCC has indeed gone off innovating on a whim - binding itself in the process with several Gordian knots as it tries to reconcile the infallible pronouncements of yesterday with the political and historical realities of today.  You say that it cannot.  I say that it already has.  My standard is the Word.  Your standard is the very Church authority in question.  There is no doubt as to why we reach different conclusions.

carl

CPKS’ Gnostic yammering and talking in circles buttresses everything that Carl has posted to this thread more than anything that anybody could have possibly written.

In particular, it shows that his questions about catholic teaching,
tradition, etc. were not intended to elicit information, but simply to
obtain material for attack.
When did I ever intend to elicit information?  In fact I made an assertion
about the RCC and used the vacuous nature of Sacred Tradition to sustain
my argument. 

Sacred Tradition is NOT vacuous. That’s provable by the Catholic church’s continuity in regard to it’s teaching.  Yeah, I know you don’t believe it but it’s quite provable by the Orthodox who split during the great schism who also uphold Sacred Tradition and their theology is 95% the same as ours!  And that’s long before Luther!  You just demand to see everything written up like the bible which would make Tradition like the Bible and thus… not Tradition!  Sacred Tradition is found in the teaching of the Church handed down from generation to generation. It’s the process that gave you the Bible.

You won’t be familiar with this because Anti-Catholics are DREADFULLY a-historical and don’t know about the theology of the Church.  Go and READ the early Church fathers.  I did!  They were more Catholic than the Pope!!  The current Pope uses positively Luthern language compared to the Earliest Christians!  You go read what the earliest Christians had to say about the nature of the Eucharist.  Go on!

If we don’t have a written-down record, the fundamentalist challenges,
how can it profit us? Well, in the writings of the Fathers, and in the
liturgy, and in our sacred art, we do; and we do profit from it.
> And you would bind the consciences of men upon inferences, extrapolations,
and speculations such as this?  These are your conduit to Revelation? 
Truly did I call this a slender reed which will pierce the hand.

You would bind our consciences upon YOUR interpretation of the Bible- you with no knowledge of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, the geography, local history, customs and politics of a whole region of the Earth spanning four thousand years, with no knowledge of the Philosophies of the time?  You bind us by your 20th Century, modernist understanding of the Bible with dis-regard for the consensus of history on key matters of doctrine, because YOU (one of five thousand Creedal Protestant Churches all with different interpretations of the Bible) claim to understand the Bible completely and entirely!  You pit yourself against the Saints and doctors of the church like Augustine (yup, he was NOT a Protestant!) Iraenus, Polycarp, Clement, Linus, against the latter greats like Igantius and Aquinus, against the two biggest and longest lasting Christian denominatons who share 90% their theology, and we are expected to believe YOU have it right and they didn’t?  These greats, these men who were taught by the Disciples themselves or their apostolic descendants, living in the time the scriptures were written, they could not correctly understand the plain meaning of the text that a plough boy could?!!!  But you can?

Truly did I call _this_ a slender reed which will pierce the hand.

TEc has abandoned the faith of the apostles - because it will not adhere to the teaching of the apostles. The Catholic Church has UPHELD that teaching - even down to contraception which Protestantism completely abandoned from 1930 onwards!

It was Traidtion that enabled C.S. Lews in ‘Fern seeds and elephants’ to sneer at a liberal Bishop in the CoE by saying, “A Passage that has been half by the Church for 2000 years to be liberal I am now told is symbolic.” Tradition tells us HOW to read the Bible!  ‘Jack’ Lewis knew that!  The Church Fathers show us how to understand the scriptures because they knew which bit of writing was literal and which symbolic, etc. Why? Because they were there!!!

You disregard all that evidence, all that consensus, and proclaim YOU understand the scriptures and can judge the Church of 2000 years, proclaim yourself a super-Pope!

And then you claim the Catholic Church is arrogant!  Whoa!

Put in juridical language, tradition is bound by precedent or, one might
say, by tradition. Thus the authority vested in the magisterium is not
the authority to innovate at whim, but to preserve faithfully what was
handed down.
> Except that only the Church can define “innovating at a whim” and so by
definition it never does so. 

Eh?  The Church makes reference to Scripture and the writings (yes - WRITINGS) of the Early Church Fathers who record what the early Church taught.  The Catholic Church INVITED historical scrutiny!  Protestant flee from it crying “Sola Scriptura.” Show how the Early Church was liturgical, believed in the true presence in the Eucharist, the place of Tradition, the authority of the Church, Mary every virgin, etc, etc, and the Protestant just cries “Yes, but they got that wrong. I go by the Bible!!” Right.  Those who wrote and compiled the Bible didn’t know what it meant.

Tradition places guard rails around the Scriptures so they cannot be interpreted away. TEc did away with the guard rails and lost the scriptures.

>This is the heart of the conflict.  You
judge the Scripture by the Church, and I judge the Church by the
Scripture. 

Exactly!  *You* on your own, bereft of apostolic continuity, judge the Church of the ages from your modernistic reading of the Bible. You place yourself above Polycarp, Ireanus, Clement, et al - those taught by the Disciples and claim YOU can judge the Church!  You won’t even listen to Augustine who is supposed to be Protestant!

>And according to the latter standard, the RCC has indeed gone
off innovating on a whim - binding itself in the process with several
Gordian knots as it tries to reconcile the infallible pronouncements of
yesterday with the political and historical realities of today. 

And how do you know this?  Because the Catholic Church’s dogmas do not match your interpretation of the Bible (which, I can promise you, you are reading with John Calvin’s glasses.  You have your own Tradition.)

>You say
that it cannot.  I say that it already has.  My standard is the Word. 

Quite. One of the interesting things about the ‘Word’ is that the Bible, when it refers to ‘the Word of God’ actually never reduces it to that which is written. It always includes oral Tradition.  Protestants of Carl’s calibre always, however, read “the Word of God” and translate it instant to “just the Bible - and the New King James at that.” Getting them to see how the Bible itself defines the term is… pretty much impossible.

> Your standard is the very Church authority in question.  There is no doubt
as to why we reach different conclusions.

Quite!  Personally, I’d rather take the word of the early Church who wrote and compiled the Bible to tell me the Gospel, not Carl.

Just a couple of quotes from the ‘proto-Protestant’ Augustine;

“ “For in the Catholic Church, not to speak of the purest wisdom, to the
knowledge of which a few spiritual men attain in this life, so as to know
it, in the scantiest measure, indeed, because they are but men, still
without any uncertainty...The consent of peoples and nations keep me in
Church, so does her authority, inaugerated by miracles, nourished by hope,
enlarged by love, established by age. The SUCCESSION of priests keeps me,
beginning from the very seat of the APOSTLE PETER, to whom the Lord, after
his resurrection, gave it in charge to feed his sheep, down to the present
EPISCOPATE...”

“ For MY PART, I
should NOT BELEIVE the gospel except moved by the authority of the
Catholic Church.”

“To be sure, although on this matter, we cannot quote a clear example
taken from the canonical Scriptures, at any rate, on this question, we are
following the true thought of Scriptures when we observe what has appeared
good to the universal Church which the authority of these same Scriptures
recommends to you”

And, just to show the Catholic Church is not innovating, here is Augustine on Mary ever virgin (also not believed by Calvinists)

“Heretics called Antidicomarites are those who contradict the perpetual virginity of Mary and affirm that after Christ was born she was joined as one with her husband” (Heresies 56 [A.D. 428]).

And again…

“It was not the visible sun, but its invisible Creator who consecrated this day for us, when the Virgin Mother, fertile of womb and integral in her virginity, brought him forth, made visible for us, by whom, when he was invisible, she too was created. A Virgin conceiving, a Virgin bearing, a Virgin pregnant, a Virgin bringing forth, a Virgin perpetual. Why do you wonder at this, O man?” (Sermons 186:1 [A.D. 411]).”

That’s from Augustine - that defender of Sola Fide (so called) and proto-Calvinist (so called.) Oh yeah, you can CLAIM innovation but you actually do some reading on the beliefs of the early Church - not what the likes of Spurgoen say they said, go read the early Christians own words!  Yeah, yeah, I know, You got by the Word of God, not the word of man.  (Get out of jail free card.  Go to free parking.)

As note to other readers, cause I’m a guest on a Protestant website, I’m not trying to sheep steal here! I regard you guys and gals as allies and brothers in Christ and I hold Sola Scriptura Protestants in high regard.  Carl just needs to know us apostates *have a case.* I sympathise with Carl because I also though the Catholic Church just made stuff up.  Then I actually researched the Early Church and had the shock of my life!  But that’s just me sharing.  We gotta work together and I hope B16 is helping in that!

I’m also happy to let Carl have the last word because my online time is actually strictly limited and if I have to engage with someone - PadreWayne is in greater need!

There is something very familiar about jedinovices last two posts; I just KNOW I’ve heard the exact same type of things before.
Appeals to those who were of ancient time; who were familiar with the original languages and customs of the day; are spoken about as if they were unassailable, ecclesiastical gods; without whose understanding the great, unwashed masses of all the ages cannot POSSIBLY understand the TRUTH of the scriptures; that without their ancient, almighty, infallible wisdom, those that possess the word of the living God will always be in grievous error because a great group of Gnostics have the true interpretations of Scripture locked away in their possession only, and unless we slavishly follow their conclusions, our understanding of the Bible will be utterly fruitless and full of dangerous error....
NOW- where, oh WHERE have I-as a Messianic Jew-heard those exact, very same arguments before??[think...think...think...]
OF COURSE! NOW I remember! Its when I came to faith in Jesus. I was told that the great, ancient Jewish “church Fathers”, who faithfully transmitted the oral teachings of the ancients, who were steeped in the languages, knowledge, history, and T R A D I T I O N S which came from Moses, and from EZRA, and handed down and expounded upon so faithfully by later, great Rabbis in the Talmud and Midrash-did any of THEM believe that Jesus was the Messiah? WELL then-who was *I* to contradict THEM??
Man!! Thanks for the trip down memory lane, jedinovice. There really IS nothing new under the sun!!!

No, jedinovice, there is no reason to chase this rabbit of competing authorities any further.  The sides have been presented, and fairly so.  But I do have a few residual comments.

You won’t be familiar with this because Anti-Catholics are DREADFULLY a-historical and don’t know about the theology of the Church.  Go and READ the early Church fathers.

This is a DREADFULLY presumptuous assertion.  The apologetic circle in which I move is anything but ignorant of the ECFs.  I could just as easily assert that Roman Catholics find it impossible to read the ECFs without anachronistically attaching modern Roman definitions to the words - and with greater justification.  You also should be more careful about tossing around words like ‘anti-Catholic.’ It is not bigotry to be told you are wrong.

You just demand to see everything written up like the bible which would make Tradition like the Bible and thus… not Tradition!

I must say I find this argument mystifying.  You tell me that Tradition is teaching that cannot be written down.  The only possible reason you couldn’t write it down is because you don’t know what it is yet.  Then how does it differ in kind from Revelation?  Call it what you will, but in effect it becomes a blank cheque that Rome can write against any doctrinal debt desired.  And since only Rome can call itself to account, who is there to gainsay its proclamations?  Well, the guarantor is the Holy Spirit, you will say.  Yes, that is what TEC says - the Holy Spirit has led us to do a new thing.

Whether Tradition or experience, I call it spinach.

carl

>There is something very familiar about jedinovices last two posts; I just KNOW I’ve heard the exact same type of things before.

Could be.  The appeal to antiquity is a strong one if properly understood.  Alas, in our modern times it is forgotten.  We are soooo much smarter than those who lived in Jesus’s time.  That line sounds familiar too.

>Appeals to those who were of ancient time; who were familiar with the original languages and customs of the day; are spoken about as if they were unassailable, ecclesiastical gods;

Not unassailable but valuable WITNESSES and secondary historical sources!  Why deny the relevance of the understanding of those of the time?!

> without whose understanding the great, unwashed masses of all the ages cannot POSSIBLY understand the TRUTH of the scriptures;

Not that the scriptures cannot be understood but Tradition prevents distortion.  If 5,000 Protestant denominations and the melt down of Tec does not give you pause - carry on regardless!

> that without their ancient, almighty, infallible wisdom, those that possess the word of the living God will always be in grievous error because a great group of Gnostics have the true interpretations of Scripture locked away in their possession only, and unless we slavishly follow their conclusions, our understanding of the Bible will be utterly fruitless and full of dangerous error....

Gnostism is a heresy condemned by my Church than you - along with Pelegianism (before we get to that one.) Besides, what am I supposed to do after that diatribe?  I am to FORGET the writings of the early Church fathers, erase Augustine form my mind and submit slavishly to YOUR interpretation of the scriptures?  I have historical CONSENSUS on my side, what have you got?  I know… you have the word of God - without guardrails.

>NOW- where, oh WHERE have I-as a Messianic Jew-heard those exact, very same arguments before??[think...think...think...]

Do tell.

>OF COURSE! NOW I remember! Its when I came to faith in Jesus. I was told that the great, ancient Jewish “church Fathers”, who faithfully transmitted the oral teachings of the ancients, who were steeped in the languages, knowledge, history, and T R A D I T I O N S which came from Moses, and from EZRA, and handed down and expounded upon so faithfully by later, great Rabbis in the Talmud and Midrash-did any of THEM believe that Jesus was the Messiah? WELL then-who was *I* to contradict THEM??

No, huge difference.  The witnesses of the Early Church were witnesses to miracles and resurrection of Jesus.  The ancient Jews were RIGHT in regard to the teaching of the Old Testament (though it did foreshadow the arrival of God the Son) but you had massive evidence of witnesses of additional revelation including the Resurrection! That event changed things.  But also the shift from the God of the old Testament to the Trinity of the New Testament is one of organic development (another subject anti-catholics don’t understand.  Both anti-catholics and Rad-Trad catholics suffer from stunted understanding development which, before we get there, is not the same as liberalism who co-opted the term for rampant innovation and contradiction.  But that’s a whole other ball of wax!) The shift from the witness of the ancients required extra-ordinary proof.  It was given!  The non-messianic Jews refused to see the extra evidence - as do you. Now, are we going to disregard the witness of those that learnt directly from the disciples?  We’re just going to ignore them.  Pretend they didn’t exist.  We’re going to impose our Western thinking on not only the Bible but over not just the witnesses of the earliest Church but the consensus of history?!

>Man!! Thanks for the trip down memory lane, jedinovice. There really IS nothing new under the sun!!!

Quite.  Anti-catholics remain totally ahistorical.  I don’t ask that you guys bow down and offer sacrifice to Augustine, but I do ask that you take the witness of the Early Church fathers seriously for once!

I mean, to disregard the witness of the Early church is to cut of the branch you are standing on.  The Bible is PART of that Witness!  If you disregard the witness of the Church from it’s earliest times you must disregard the Bible to be consistent. I don’t ask you accept the witness of the fathers as infallible. I don’t ask you to take a Catholic position.  But I do ask that you guys are historically REASONABLE.

The Bible was not compiled until the councils of Hippo and cartage, the latter in 387AD.  It was only at Carthage that the canon was regarded as settled (Hey!  Protestants don’t even hold it was settled until Luther! and even then his compilation had to be modified after his death!) So, if you disregard the witness of the Gospel of the early Church, especially prior to 397, you have NO reliable witness to rhe Gospel AT ALL!  Then you cut your nose off to spite your face!

I’m not asking anyone here to Pope!  Most people on Stand Firm seem to have a good grasp of what Tradition is and what it means.  They are not Catholics.  I don’t ask them to be - not here, not now.  I regard the posters here, in the main, as my brothers and sister in Christ, faithful to God in the darkest of times and allies in a terrible cultural war which I fear very much will become a real one.  The majority here get it - you NEED Tradition in some form. They understand that the witness of the early Church allows very much for a Roman Catholic understanding of Christianity - even though they disagree with elements of it. 

From Tradition came the Bible.  That’s a historical fact!  The Bible did not float down from heaven in black leather binding.  The majority here get that too!

But the anti-Catholics behave as if Jesus handed out copies of the NIV in the upper room!  Then they throw out ALL evidence, no matter how well attested in history, that does not fit with their tunnel vision Gospel, even the witness of the most Holy martyrs from the first and second centuries.  I mean, these guys were not just thrown to the lions - they were systematically tortured first!  If you’re going to face the branding iron, or have your eyes gouged out for your beliefs, you’re damn well going to know what you believe!  No room for fudge, especially when the Romans would have ACCEPTED fudge!  Those martyrs died for their Christian faith.  So what did they die for??  What did they believe?  What was THEIR witness to the Gospel and their understanding?  It’s not rocket science.  It’s not gnostism. Anyone can read the Church fathers.  It’s hardly hidden knowledge.  TEc is persecuting the orthodox.  The orthodox in (or leaving) TEC know what they are being persecuted for.  It is at this time of trial that CLARITY of theology is coming from the orthodox. If they are going to be deposed they’ll make it clear what they are being deposed for.  The witness of the orthodox is inspiring - and it’s clear!  I salute them!

But you reject that.  It’s pointless. It’s meaningless.  You have your Bible, your interpretation, no need for any history, witness, or even respect for the witness of those gone before you.

Then truly Pope Benedict is right.  “Using unusually strong words for an ecumenical prayer service, Pope Benedict XVI said the witness of Christians in the world is weakened not only by their divisions, but also by some communities turning their backs on Christian tradition.” It doesn’t just apply to PadreWayne and his ilk.

>No, jedinovice, there is no reason to chase this rabbit of competing authorities any further.

As you wish but I will make some commens myself here and then oyu ca have the last word if you wish.

> The sides have been presented, and fairly so.  But I do have a few residual comments.

>You won’t be familiar with this because Anti-Catholics are DREADFULLY a-historical and don’t know about the theology of the Church.  Go and READ the early Church fathers.

>This is a DREADFULLY presumptuous assertion.  The apologetic circle in which I move is anything but ignorant of the ECFs. 

I could just as easily assert that Roman Catholics find it impossible to read the ECFs without anachronistically attaching modern Roman definitions to the words - and with greater justification. 

Then why do you guys disregard the Church Fathers? Maybe us Heretical Papists are all wrong onteh ECF’s, but you do not make and appeal to them AGAINST us!  Instead, you tell us their witness does not matter!  Tradition is irrelevant.  Sola Scripura - go, go, go! What else am I to conclude, especially when you tell me you “have the Word.” At least I quoted Augustine!

But if you will not listen to the likes of the early martyrs then you will not listen to me. I did not expect you too.  But I got to show we had a LOGIC and a case!

>You also should be more careful about tossing around words like ‘anti-Catholic.’ It is not bigotry to be told you are wrong.

I am not using the word ‘anti-Catholic’ as an insult but as a technical term.  An anti-catholic is one wh denies the catholic Church is a Christian instituion.  I HAVE to use a term distinct from mainstream protestantism to make it clear who I am referring to. I can’t just say ‘Protestants’ because I would end up making arguments with those who do not disagree with me!  I have to use a modifier.  So I am forced to use the term ‘antio-catholic’ since it already a well established term that people recognise, I use it.  I do not not mean it as an insult.  The temr ‘radical Traidtionalist’ denotes a subgroup in Roman Catholicism.  I can’t avoid the phrase.  It’s established jargon.  I don;t meant to offend but I am limited by jargon.  Coem up with a phrase recognised by other protestants that denotes a Protestant who does not believe the catholic Church is a non-Christian denomination and I’ll use it - but it must be a phrase other Protestants recognise.  Technically, the phrase “ROMAN Catholic” is historically a Protestant insult and not the actual name of my denomination that simply calls itself Catholic.  But I accept the term because it is commonly understood.

>You just demand to see everything written up like the bible which would make Tradition like the Bible and thus not Tradition!

I must say I find this argument mystifying.  You tell me that Tradition is teaching that cannot be written down.

No, it is LARGELY written down but not EXCLUSIVELY so.  See the councils of the church for a start!  But SOME of the source material has not been. You react as if every word Jesus ever said had to be written down there and then.  The Tradition of the Church (not just the Catholic Church actually -I;m arguing for a Christian consensus through Traditoin, not Catholicism here!) exists in the ECF’s as source material and is summarised in the Church councils.  You accept the Tradition of the Church in at least one respect - in the compilation of the new testament!  That’s Tradition!  You can’t escape Tradition!

> The only possible reason you couldn’t write it down is because you don’t know what it is yet. 

Tell that to at leats the first seven councils of the Church Universal which virtualy all Christian groups appeal to including carthage and Nicae.

>Then how does it differ in kind from Revelation?

Because it Can be cross checked with history!!!  Tradition = history!!  It’s quite simple.  We look at what the CHurch has always believed across history.  From HISTORY we can tell the Church has NOT found homosexual practice acceptable or endorsed by scripture.  From HISTORY, not JUST the Bible, we can tell TEc their reading of the Bible is bunkum.  This isn’t rocket science!

> Call it what you will, but in effect it becomes a blank cheque that Rome can write against any doctrinal debt desired.  And since only Rome can call itself to account, who is there to gainsay its proclamations?

Try the orthodox who also appeal to Tradition. Their theology is 95% the same as ours while being in schism for a 1000 years.  Odd since we have been innovating so much.

> Well, the guarantor is the Holy Spirit, you will say. 

Will I?

>Yes, that is what TEC says - the Holy Spirit has led us to do a new thing.

No. And if that was true, being another Church of the Zeitquist, as it were, we’d be joining forces (or at least making a non-aggression pact.) I invite you to read the source material that is available and take history seriously.  It’s not hard to trace the consensus of the Church’s teaching across history.  I’m not even appealing to Catholic Tradition here.  It is Tradition that PREVENTS us saying “The Holy Spirit is doing a new thing” (Hey, tradition is by definition an appeal to an OLD thing!) and that’s why the catholic Church has not capitulated on contraception, divorce, women priest, etc, etc!  If we were so busy innovating we’d be applauding TEc, not criticising it!

>Whether Tradition or experience, I call it spinach.

As you wish.  As I say, if you will not listen to Augustine, you will not listen to me.  But as least I get to show there is a logic and reason to the Pope’s comments and I recognise that 90% of the posters here, including Sola Scriptura evangelicals, UNDERSTAND what I am saying- and what the Pope is saying.  For that I am grateful.

Again, I re-iterate, I know the vast majority get it and I thank the poster here for their kind response to the Pontiff’s visit and I hope his words help in the battle, stiffen backs and boost moral. God bless you all - including you Carl. You can pray for my Regeneration. I’m going to have a prayer time now so get in quick and I might see thetrue meaning of scripture in the next half hour! 

"But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.” (Galations 1:8,9).
Amazing statement. No appeals to antiquity. No appeals to “apostolic succession”. If you want to appeal to antiquity, I could appeal to the so-called ‘super apostles’ that Paul had to contend with; the gnostic ideas that Paul and John had to deal with; the Nicolaitans; and the self-styled prophet ‘Jezebel’ of Thyatira. All of these people could have made a claim of being first century witnesses, living at the time of Christ & the apostles, etc. That means absolutely Zero, so stop appealing to the antiquity of the church fathers most of whom came later[in the case of Augustine, MUCH later] than those just mentioned if that means anything as far as knowing the mind of God any better than any other anointed teacher of any other era. It doesn’t. The “appeal” I make is the appeal of Galatians 1:8-9.
jedinovice writes: “Not that the scriptures cannot be understood but Tradition prevents distortion.” Why,of course! Exactly the same sentiments spoken by Jesus Himself(