#Sola Scriptura critique

[mindfulldsliving]

A Latter-day Saint Perspective on Sola Scriptura, Creeds, and Divine Revelation

A Latter-day Saint Perspective on Sola Scriptura, Creeds, and Divine Revelation For many Christians, “Sola Scriptura” serves as a central guiding belief, emphasizing scripture as the sole authority. But Latter-day Saint theology offers a different perspective—one that values the Bible deeply while also embracing modern revelation, prophetic authority, and a broader view of God’s work. When…

[thinkingonscripture]

A Biblical Critique of Roman Catholic Doctrine

The Roman Catholic Church holds to several major doctrines that are theologically flawed and inconsistent with Scripture. Perhaps the most significant error lies in Rome’s teaching that salvation, while initiated by grace, must be maintained and completed through works. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC §§ 2023), justification begins at baptism and continues through faithful…

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Roman Catholic Objection: “Sola Scriptura refutes itself because it’s not found in Scripture.”

Refutation:

Sola Scriptura is a theological conclusion drawn from Scripture, not a verse-by-verse quote.

Sola Scriptura means Scripture is the only infallible authority, not the only authority at all. The doctrine is rooted in texts such as:

—2 Timothy 3:16–17 – Scripture is “God-breathed” and “sufficient to make the man of God complete.”

—Acts 17:11 – The Bereans are commended for testing Paul’s teaching by the Scriptures.

—Mark 7:13 – Jesus rebukes tradition that nullifies the Word of God.

As Michael J. Kruger writes:

“The reformers never claimed that every doctrine must be explicitly stated in Scripture using the same words. Rather, it must be derived from Scripture by good and necessary consequence.” (Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited, p. 43)

Roman Catholic Objection: “You can’t even prove which books belong in the Bible without the Church.”

Refutation:

This assumes a Roman Catholic model of the canon, which Kruger critiques as circular.

According to Rome:

The Church determines the canon, therefore the Bible depends on the Church’s authority.

Kruger argues this wrongly subordinates Scripture to the Church:

“This view makes the authority of Scripture dependent upon the Church’s declaration, which turns the Church into the ultimate authority.” (Kruger, Canon Revisited, p. 91)

Self-Authenticating Canon Model (Kruger’s Response)

The canon is not authenticated by external authority, but is self-authenticating through the internal marks of Scripture, the work of the Spirit, and its apostolic origins.

Kruger defends a threefold model:

a. Providential Exposure – The books were recognized because God ensured they were exposed to the churches.

b. Attributes of Canonicity – These books bear divine qualities, such as:

Beauty and excellency (Ps. 19; John 7:46)

Unity and harmony (Luke 24:27; Heb. 1:1–2)

Transforming power (Heb. 4:12; Jer. 23:29)

c. Internal Testimony of the Holy Spirit –

“Just as the Holy Spirit authenticates Scripture to the individual believer, so He authenticates the canon to the church collectively.” (Kruger, Canon Revisited, p. 101)

Roman Catholic Objection: “No Church, no Bible.”

Refutation:

This confuses the role of the Church as a recognizer of the canon, not its creator.

The Church did not make the canon; it received and recognized it.

As Calvin says:

“As to their question — How can we be assured that this has flowed from God, unless we have recourse to a decree of the Church? — it is like asking, Whence will we learn to distinguish light from darkness, white from black, sweet from bitter?” *(Calvin, Institutes, 1.7.2)

Kruger puts it this way:

“The church is more like a thermometer than a thermostat. It does not determine the temperature (canon), but registers it.” (Kruger, Canon Revisited, p. 94)

Conclusion

Sola Scriptura does not refute itself, nor does it rely on the Roman Church for its foundation. The canon is self-authenticating: recognized through divine qualities, apostolic origins, and the Holy Spirit's testimony. The Church’s role was not to create Scripture, but to recognize what God had already given.

[darkmaga-returns]

Keys to a Stronger Movement Going Forward

The online wars involving the emerging New Christian Right (NCR) do not seem to be letting up. Skirmishes take place seemingly multiple times every week over various aspects of Christian nationalism, spicy tweets and memes from younger pastors that tick off older generations of faithful Christians, Trinitarian doctrine, natural law, and the traditional understanding of sola scriptura. The conference circuit is in full swing, with NCR critics launching critiques that tend to be more strawman than steelman. Recriminations are flying, and sometimes long-standing relationships end over a single social media post.

As we transition away from a Christian practice and theology that was constructed for the positive world and dive headlong into the digital age, it was inevitable that cracks would emerge between various Christian camps. Expanding retrieval projects into areas that violate the modern liberal consensus and building battle-hardened institutions that can withstand the shockwaves of our age were always going to upset those who have been at the helm of various Christian legacy institutions. And major differences between how each different generation uses and understands social media was always going to exacerbate these divisions. 

Realizing that much of what has passed for conservative theology was actually an incoherent amalgamation borne not of the Reformers but the 20th century, the Reformed contingent of the New Christian Right is justly going back to the sources, looking to draw on old wisdom to help solve the deep-seated problems we face today. This theological realignment is just a bit behind the political realignment that began in 2015��which indicates that, at least in principle, these debates are somehow related to the very future of the United States.

[christophe76460]

QU'EST-CE QUE LA THÉOLOGIE RÉFORMÉE ?

Avez-vous déjà posé ou reçu les questions suivantes : Êtes-vous réformé ? Quand êtes-vous devenu réformé ? Est-ce une église réformée ? Ces questions sont courantes, mais il peut être étonnamment difficile d’y répondre.1

Alors, qu’est-ce que la théologie réformée ? À son niveau le plus fondamental, le terme théologie réformée fait référence aux conclusions théologiques découlant de la Réforme protestante. Les premiers réformateurs, tels que Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli et Jean Calvin, avaient des critiques acerbes et spécifiques de la théologie catholique romaine de la fin du Moyen Âge. Les réformateurs rejetèrent l’enseignement catholique romain sur la nature de la justification et la place de la foi salvatrice individuelle. Ils ont également rejeté les affirmations catholiques romaines sur l'autorité du pape, affirmant que la Bible seule détenait la place d'autorité finale dans les discussions sur la doctrine. En outre, ils rejetaient la conception catholique romaine du culte ainsi que la place et la signification des sacrements du baptême et de la communion.

Aujourd’hui, lorsque le terme théologie réformée est utilisé, il fait souvent référence à quelque chose de moins historique. Il fait souvent référence à une théologie qui reconnaît la doctrine de la prédestination et qui considère la Bible comme la Parole infaillible de Dieu. Parfois, il est également identifié aux soi-disant cinq points du calvinisme : la dépravation totale, l'élection inconditionnelle, l'expiation limitée, la grâce irrésistible et la persévérance des saints. Ce sont tous des enseignements importants de la tradition réformée, mais ils ne résument ni ne décrivent complètement la théologie réformée.

Un meilleur point de départ serait cinq déclarations appelées les cinq solas de la Réforme. Ces cinq solas (sola est le mot latin pour « seulement » ou « seul ») sont sola Scriptura (l'Écriture seule), sola fide (la foi seule), sola gratia (la grâce seule), solus Christus (le Christ seul) et soli Deo. gloria (la gloire de Dieu seule). Ensemble, ces solas expriment clairement les préoccupations centrales de la Réforme protestante, qui concernaient autant le culte et l'autorité au sein de l'Église que le salut individuel. Le « seul » en chacun est vital, et ils soulignent la suffisance de la Parole de Dieu et la nature gracieuse du salut, reçu par la foi seule, en Christ seul. Le dernier des cinq solas, soli Deo gloria, est la suite naturelle des quatre premiers. Cela nous rappelle que la théologie réformée comprend toute la vie en termes de gloire de Dieu. Être réformé dans notre pensée, c’est être centré sur Dieu. Le salut vient du Seigneur du début à la fin, et même notre existence est un don de Lui.

La théologie réformée affirme les cinq solas avec toutes leurs implications ; reconnaît le caractère central de l’alliance dans les desseins salvifiques de Dieu ; et s'exprime dans une confession de foi historique et publique.

Au-delà des cinq solas, il y a deux autres aspects de la théologie réformée à souligner. La première est la doctrine de l’alliance. Dans les Écritures, nous voyons que Dieu réalise ses desseins salvifiques au moyen d’alliances successives. En fait, la Bible parle d’une « alliance éternelle » globale, centrée sur la croix du Christ (Hébreux 13 :20). Les alliances fournissent le cadre biblique permettant de comprendre l’œuvre de Dieu en Christ et ses relations avec son peuple tout au long de l’histoire. Le caractère central de cette structure d’alliance dans la Bible et dans la vie chrétienne ne peut guère être surestimé, et les conséquences de la reconnaissance de ce thème central dans les Écritures sont tout à fait significatives. En effet, c’est l’une des raisons pour lesquelles le simple fait de mettre l’accent sur la prédestination, ou même sur les cinq points du calvinisme, ne rend pas justice à ce que signifie être un chrétien réformé. La théologie réformée est une théologie biblique entière, et l’alliance est le cadre biblique qui montre l’unité de l’Ancien Testament et du Nouveau, centrée sur le Seigneur Jésus-Christ.

En outre, toutes les expressions dynamiques et durables du christianisme réformé ont des confessions de foi qui expriment leurs convictions. Les confessions réformées matures les plus connues comprennent la Confession belge, le Catéchisme de Heidelberg et les Canons de Dort (qui ensemble sont appelés les Trois formes d'unité) et la Confession de foi de Westminster, qui a ses propres catéchismes. Dès ses débuts, on a supposé que la théologie réformée s’exprimerait dans les confessions de foi. Par conséquent, être réformé, c’est être confessionnel, et être une Église réformée, c’est être un lieu dans lequel l’une de ces confessions historiques est professée, enseignée et suivie.

Qu’est-ce que la théologie réformée ? C'est une théologie qui 1) affirme les cinq solas avec toutes leurs implications ; 2) reconnaît le caractère central de l’alliance dans les desseins salvifiques de Dieu ; et 3) s’exprime dans une confession de foi historique et publique.

La théologie réformée est une bénédiction pour le peuple de Dieu. Dans notre salut, dans notre culte, dans nos églises et dans nos familles, Dieu est souverain et il est à l’œuvre pour accomplir ses desseins. A Dieu seul toute la gloire.

Oh, la profondeur des richesses, de la sagesse et de la connaissance de Dieu ! Combien ses jugements sont insondables et ses voies impénétrables !

« Car qui a connu la pensée du Seigneur,

ou qui a été son conseiller ?

« Ou qui lui a fait un cadeau

afin qu'il puisse être remboursé?

Car c'est de lui, par lui et pour lui que toutes choses viennent. A lui soit la gloire pour toujours. Amen. (Rom. 11 : 33-36)

- Jonathan Master

[hymnsofheresy]

Question from a Jew: why oppose the reformation? It was taught in my school as a pretty unanimously good thing (minus Martin Luther being a bit of an asshole)

I also was given the impression that the reformation was unanimously a good thing by my public school education until I really started studying it. I think some of the critiques of the Catholic Church were absolutely justified, especially when it comes to corruption within the institution and amongst the clergy. It is often presented by secular education as primarily a political critique of church policies... but it is a bit more than that.

New theological ideas were introduced by reformers, most of which I disagree with. When it comes to Luther, I am opposed to sola scriptura (scripture alone) and sola fide (faith alone). While I appreciate Luther's emphasis on the importance of God's grace, the de-emphasis on humanity's obligation towards each other (works) was disastrous. Calvinism is just... repulsive to me on a visceral level. Overall, I think the mystical tradition of the church suffered incredibly due to the rise in Christian rationalism caused by the reformation (that is not to say that I don't think mysticism exists in Protestantism, it certainly can show up).

Also, protestantism had plenty of... debatable negative consequences. Perhaps the most notable being capitalism. We can debate chicken and the egg when it comes to capitalism and protestantism, but the protestant reformation was absolutely intermingled with the dawning of western capitalism. It is not hard to argue that Protestant ideology played a role in enabling capitalism's rise. Hell, the labor culture of Catholic and Protestant countries noticeably differ to this day.

[guiltywisdom]

I feel you about being addicted to watching evangelical content… I was raised loose episcopal but then nothing for a while, then recently just general adult lesbian christ-follower and I find myself so fascinated by evangelical content. It’s just so freaking interesting like how they think and their theology. I thought I was just crazy for still watching that stuff even though I disagree with everything they say, I just can’t look away

Haha. Yeah. I don’t think I’d be able to survive if it wasn’t filtered through people who are critiquing their content but it’s also amazingly fascinating as you said. There are two major things to blame for their thought processes; literal reading and sola scriptura. If you read everything literally and take away all it’s historical and cultural context you are bound to end up with some pretty out there ideas which sure do make for some kind of cringe-funny content. I was raised vaguely Roman Catholic / out-of-communion Anglican/Orthodox so I never experienced evangelicalism in any form. Have you ever seen the film Marjoe? It’s a documentary from 1973 but somehow it’s almost like it was filmed yesterday and is endlessly entertaining. I very much recommend it to anyone reading this.

[woman-loving]

I can’t remember if I posted about it here or not, but the key insight I got from “It was a Dark and Stagnant Night (‘til the Jadids Brought the Light): Clichés, Biases, and False Dichotomies in the Intellectual History of Central Asia” by Devin DeWeese was that proposals to return to the “original” views of a (religious) tradition, as represented by texts, involve rejection of other sources of authority on that tradition which may be legitimate. And that, actually, it’s not a neutral intellectual position to accept that only a narrow selection of “original” texts are the truest sources of authority for what that tradition is or should be about. The article also challenged the dichotomy between “fundamentalism” and “modernity,” and re-stated the argument that fundamentalism is a “modern” phenomenon (while also pointing out some limitations of that argument in the Islamic case).

This author had an unfortunate tendency to speak in long, rambling sentences (unlike anyone you know here), but these were some passages that I liked:

Among the false dichotomies that ought to be highlighted in connection with Jadidisim, and with ‘Islamic modernism’ more broadly, is the opposition often posed between ‘modernity’ and ‘fundamentalism;’ it has been some 30 years since Martin Marty’s ‘Fundamentalism Project’ underscored the realization that the quintessentially ‘modern’ form of religion is fundamentalism, with its textuality, its call for individual engagement with textuality, its quantification of commitment, and its rejection of cumulative tradition sanctioned by communal endorsement rather than by scriptural literalism. Fundamentalisms, in short, far from being throwbacks to a ‘medieval’ past or relics of old-fashioned ‘tradition,’ reflect the actualization, in religious spheres, of many of the features said to be characteristic of ‘modernity.’[36]  Whether we accept, that is, the coherence and historical force of ‘modernity,’ or question the substantiality or usefulness of that category, we must acknowledge that religious fundamentalisms overlap significantly with what is usually said to define ‘modernity;’ this overlap in itself may highlight the problems with that concept, which even in its ‘academic’ definitions is typically framed in terms of a diminishing role for religion—a phenomenon relegated to the ‘pre-modern’ or ‘traditional’ world prior to the advent of modernity.[37]

The term ‘fundamentalism,’ of course, is used promiscuously today, but its ‘original’ religious sense, in Protestant Christianity, of stressing a reliance on literally-interpreted foundational scriptures and a rejection of intervening cumulative tradition, fits the Wahhābīs and Salafists as well; as discussed further below, it also fits the religious profile of the Jadid critique.

To be sure, the Wahhābī version of the fundamentalist emphasis on “sola scriptura” (as in the Reformation slogan) had roots in a long tradition represented by Ḥanbalī jurisprudence and by such figures as Ibn Taymīya, and in this regard one may object with some reason that it hardly belongs to ‘modernity,’ however that fuzzy concept might be plausibly defined; nevertheless, it is not accidental that the growing appeal of Salafist thought coincided with the Muslim world’s encounter with the West and with 20th-century ‘modernity,’ and in terms of attitudes toward the sources of religious authority, Muslim currents that are variously labeled ‘reformist,’ ‘fundamentalist,’ ‘modernist,’ ‘liberal,’ ‘rigorist,’ or ‘puritanical’ should be recognized as having much more in common than is sometimes acknowledged. We may with reason distinguish the goals of Muslim ‘modernists’ from those of Wahhābīs, Salafists, and others, but they share, among other things, a rhetorical dismissal of communal tradition, an emphasis upon the individual as the vehicle for change, and the conviction that ‘real’ Islam can be based solely on a ‘minimalist’ scriptural foundation.

---

To some extent this effort to distance the Jadids from Muslim ‘religious’ thought reflects the narrow, Protestant-style understanding of what ‘religion’is that prevails in Jadidocentric scholarship (and in much other scholarship on Islam in the Russian and Soviet contexts); in any event, the ‘genealogy’ of this effort goes back still further, all the way to Alexandre Bennigsen. In Islam in the Soviet Union (1967), by Bennigsen and Lemercier-Quelquejay, the authors insist that the initial phase of the Jadid program, which they call ‘religious reform,’ “sought to break with conservative traditionalism and, without repudiating what was fundamental, to render Islam capable of surviving in a modern world dominated by reason and the spirit of criticism.”[48] The key word here, by the way, is not “conservative” or “traditionalism,” but “fundamental;” it reminds us that there is much to religion that is not really important or even essential to it, and it thus reminds us that ‘reform’ will—indeed, must—entail a process of stripping things away from religion, leaving only what is “fundamental.” The specifics of what must be stripped away—and in the ‘developmental’ sequence proposed by the authors, this stripping away is necessary so that script reform, school reform, and political nationalism can follow—become clear as the authors continue: “narrow dogmatism;” “obscurantism;” “traditional theology;” “blind obedience to traditional authorities (taqlid);” and obstruction of “the right of every man to find in the Quran and the Hadith a reply to all religious questions.” The latter point, of course, sounds vaguely democratic, even revolutionary: mufassirs of the world, unite! It is Ibn Taymīya’s program, of course, and contemporary Salafists’, and, for that matter, Luther’s as well; but what is most telling is the absence of any explanation that the important ‘innovation’ here lay not in talking of “the right of every man,” but in talking only about “the Quran and the Hadith” as the sources to be mined in seeking answers to those “religious questions.” Portraying what was, and is, a restriction of religious authority (to the Ḥanbalī minimum) as an expansion of it, to “every man,” is only one small example of the misconstrued context, or the partisan bias, in such discussions, but it is worth noting nonetheless. [...]

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In the end, whether we acknowledge that the Jadid ‘reform’ program criticized ‘innovations’ and ‘superstitious accretions’ to the pristine core of ‘real’ Islam as part of their engagement with essentially religious issues, or insist that they did so merely as an opportunistic evocation of religious rhetoric in the service of a ‘secularizing’ mission, may be secondary to the broader problem entailed by either stance, which brings us back to the problem of bias: to point out the Jadids’ critique of ‘innovations’ and ‘accretions’ is one thing, but to take their side in that critique, explicitly or implicitly, is utterly irresponsible in scholarly terms. Where the admirers of the Jadids go astray—and indeed, where they do a serious disservice to scholarly understanding—is in failing to explain to their readers that substantial currents in Muslim religious thought, both in the past and at present, understand those ‘accretions’ as perfectly legitimate and indeed laudable facets of Muslim religiosity, or that the rhetoric of ‘purifying’ Islam of harmful ‘additions’ may equally be seen as ‘subtracting’ those legitimate facets from Muslim practice—indeed, from a viable religious vision with a rich intellectual tradition and deep social roots.

Instead of offering such an explanation and properly contextualizing the Jadid critique, however, Jadidocentric scholarship has simply assumed their critique was in defense of Islamic legitimacy (if not of ‘modernity’), that what they criticized was self-evidently a departure from ‘true’ Islam, that in their time only  the Jadids had the proper sense of Islamic rectitude, and that outside their circles all was innovation and corruption. These stances are utterly indefensible, historically and culturally; if Jadidocentric scholars have adopted them out of ignorance of ‘the other side,’ or through unfamiliarity with the body of sources that could articulate that other side, we might simply explain the biases of Jadidocentric scholarship as the unfortunate byproducts of the failure to bridge gaps in disciplinary or linguistic or ‘area’ training—though explaining them in this way does not amount to excusing them. Whatever the reasons, however, the unavoidable conclusion—namely that wittingly or unwittingly, Jadidocentric scholars have blithely adopted one side in a religious debate—is reason enough to seriously question their scholarship.

[nicklloydnow]

"“My definition for mysticism,” Rohr said, “is experiential knowledge of the Holy, the transcendent, the divine, God—if you want to use that word, but I’m not tied to it.” Experiential knowledge, which differs from textbook knowledge, “will always be spoken humbly, because true spiritual knowledge is always partial. You know you don’t know the whole mystery. But even one little peek into one little corner of the mystery is more than enough.”

(...)

As Rohr tells it, the contemplative mind went underground during the Protestant Reformation. It was still being taught in some monasteries as late as the fifteenth century, and in isolated places such as Spain there was “an explosion of contemplation” through the mystical writings of Teresa of Ávila and St. John of the Cross. But then came Luther’s sola scriptura and Descartes’s cogito ergo sum, both of which placed the dualistic, egoistic mind at the center. Guigo the Carthusian, a twelfth-century monk, spoke of three levels of prayer: oratio, or spoken prayer; meditatio, using the mind to reflect on a piece of scripture; and contemplatio, the wordless prayer of the heart. This is the moment, Rohr explains, when “you shed the mind as the primary receiver station. You stop reflecting. You stop critiquing or analyzing. You let the moment be what it is, as it is, all that it is. That takes a lot of surrender.” After the Enlightenment and its Cartesian dualisms, the contemplative mind—“our unique access point to God,” as Rohr describes it—“was pretty well lost.”

(...)

So many of the mistakes in American Christianity, Rohr told me, are a result of dualistic thinking, which is “inherently antagonistic, inherently competitive. You’re forced within the first nanosecond to take sides. Republican-Democrat, black-white, gay-straight . . . go down the whole list of what’s tearing us apart—the dualistic mind always chooses sides.” He is sympathetic to those who disaffiliate from religion. But he still believes in faith’s power to instill awe, to bind and heal, to return us to ourselves, to God, and to one another. At the center of that return lies the contemplative mind.

(...)

I was also reading Cassian’s Conferences and considering the author’s role as chronicler of the early Christian monastic movement in Egypt, a kind of fifth-century immersion journalist of the soul. Cassian describes Christian life as a journey toward puritas cordis: purity of heart. If that is the destination, the vehicle is silent prayer.

Ontological wonder, tenderness, puritas cordis, pondering scales of mercy: these seemed like activities worthy of my meager efforts, and I felt a similar hunger for those things among other contemplatives, those who were also leaving the barnacled, empty supertanker of Christendom and boarding smaller, more nimble vessels.

“Does mysticism need a church?” In his introduction to the Conferences, the Cambridge historian Owen Chadwick poses this as a central conundrum in early monastic thought, a question that was very much alive among the modern contemplatives. “The individual experience of the divine is overwhelming,” Chadwick writes. “It passes beyond the memory of biblical texts and every other thought. . . . Might it be that holy anarchy is nearer to God than ordered ecclesiasticism?”

Like Cassian, I was more drawn to holy anarchy. And yet, in the process of fleeing broken ecclesial institutions, didn’t the new contemplatives also constitute a body politic? What was the Universal Christ conference if not a new form of church? It’s possible to see organized religion as a necessary evil, something that could be dispensed with once individuals reach some higher plane of awareness, but that seems facile. Humans depend on patterns and structures. Forms change, but we still need them to provide some kind of continuity of thought and praxis, just as we depend on forms to build community, which is the other piece missing in the laissez-faire approach. In an essay titled “The Mystical Core of Organized Religion,” the Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast readily acknowledges that “mysticism clashes with the institution.” And yet, he admits, “We need religious institutions. If they weren’t there, we would create them. Life creates structures.”

(...)

In his book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Merton describes an incident he experienced in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 18, 1958, as he stood on the corner of 4th and Walnut Streets.

“There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun,” he writes.

I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes . . . It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven . . . I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.

It is striking that Merton’s epiphany occurred not in a monk’s cell or cathedral alcove, but on a busy street in Louisville. Sartre famously said that “hell is other people,” but for Merton, and for Holmes, Bucko, McCrary, Rohr, and so many of the contemplatives I met, other people are not hell; they are portals to paradise.

One paradox of the contemplative life is the way in which it engenders, even demands, participation in a community. “The life of a Christian is not a solo act,” McCrary told me. “Jesus went to the desert alone to pray, but he was always building community. It’s a both-and.” The reverse is also true. Rohr: “How you relate to your spouse, your children, your dog—that’s how you’ll relate to God.”

The gate of heaven opens for us all, but the hinge swings outward as much as inward, leading not into some hermetically sealed chamber, but a spacious meadow where we find every person we’ve ever known, a field of solitaries loved beyond measure, a destination as near as our next breath."

[pazodetrasalba]

Faith (& 4)

Dear Caroline:

Continuing with the comment of your long post: it is true that Protestantism has placed a great bonus on faith (there is a reason why Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura are Reformed mottos), but one could say that they have only taken to the extreme what was already there -say, in the Pauline epistles or the theology of Augustine of Hippo-. And Christianity has been notoriously intolerant about hair-splitting, Byzantine disagreements on very minor differences in belief (the councils and heresies of late antiquity come to mind, along with Gibbon's oft quoted jest that 'the profane of every age have derided the furious contests which the difference of a single diphthong excited between the Homoousians and the Homoiousians'). But even if we are the worst offenders, I would insist that no living religion, however pragmatic and focused on acts and rituals, can subsist in the long term if its core tenets and articles of faith are no longer believed in. Christianity without the Resurrection and giving creed to Jesus' messiahhood is reduced to an empty shell (Personal Postchristianity would be an apt moniker, perhaps?) . And you yourself bear witness to this by your reference to the EA ritual you participated in and which was so meaningful to you.

Then again, in most cases, I suspect faith functions on a continuous spectrum instead of discretely, and except for an infinitesimally small set of people, believing in God is a certain probability greater than 50%. I would be willing to push the boundaries further down -let's say to the thirties- and still be willing to admit that such a person is still a limited believer, but in cases like yours or mine, I suspect the probability just borders too closely to 0.

So I find myself agreeing with your unnamed fried quite a lot, although I also find your critique of her valid, and yet I would frame it differently. You are a person of the activist sort, Caroline, which means that when you believe, you believe wholeheartedly, and give yourself away completely into the cause. From within such a mindset, it makes perfect sense to expect it to change everything and affect all your thoughts and decisions, as you say. Yet your friend's tepidness might come from a certain hedging-of-bets that comes out of the inevitable uncertainty of religious belief. Like, you might make the leap of faith -credo quia absurdum- but still be rational enough to be aware of the fragility and weak epistemic status of your beliefs, and therefore invest only partially, and all the less so in the difficult, unpleasant and unsavory consequences. It's a little bit like a hedged Pascal's Wager - if you believe in God and he doesn't exist, it is not true that you 'lose nothing', as the Frenchman said, because moulding your life around said belief and its rules will imply pain, sacrifices and numerous deprivations that will substantially decrease your individual pleasure, flourishing and quality of life in the only world there is.

Quote:

Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

Blaise Pascal

[theandrewbass]

“At the Diet of Worms, Luther did not say, ‘My conscience is held captive by my contemporary culture, by the latest Gallup poll, and by the latest survey that describes what everybody else is doing.” He did not say, “My conscience is influenced by the Word of God.” In essence, he said, “I am in captivity to the Word of God. That is why I cannot recant.’” Great words from Dr. RC Sproul. 

I have heard far too many “Christian” arguments critiquing the authority of the New Testament. Statements such as “Well Paul was affected by his culture when he wrote this” generally lead their discussion. 

The most ironic aspect of this argument is not the obvious disregard for scripture, but the assumption that comes with that statement. 

It is easy for us to argue that Paul and the other authors of the New Testament were affected in their writing by the culture around them, but never could we be experiencing that issue!

No, we are far too smart and developed as a society to ever have our minds impacted by the cultural norms of the day. Who cares if those guys were walking and talking in real time with the living God-man while he was on earth? We’re so smart now that we know Paul more than he knew himself!

Obviously this is not true. 

The authors of the New Testament were definitely human. They had imperfections and false opinions that were the result of their culture, just like us. But we can not assume that those imperfect opinions made their way into scripture.

Here is why: the Apostle Paul, and the author authors of scripture, their opinions were human-inspired, while the scripture they wrote was God-inspired. 

The authors of scripture were the vessel for God’s Word arriving to us. Paul’s letters are not his best attempt to convey what he learned from Jesus, they are the direct truth of God inspired by God Himself, transferred through the pen of the Apostle Paul. 

Without affirming this truth, scripture becomes anything we want it to be. Even worse, it becomes anything our culture says it is. 

When you sacrifice the principle of inerrancy, you sacrifice the timeless authority of scripture. And the only standard for deciding what parts of scripture are worth keeping is left up to the influence of a depraved culture who is in opposition to God. 

This goes for our conscience as well, and the root of RC Sproul’s argument. 

We must be clinging to truth lest our conscience’s be dulled and our opinions be influenced by a God-hating culture. We must, like Luther at the Diet of Worms, be in captivity to the Word of God.

Sola Scriptura

[alexandr-searching]

Reminder!

Most Protestants give the rest of us a bad name. I deeply apologize for the inconvenience. Not all of us despise the Saints, Creeds, Holy Fathers, and Tradition. Not all of us are approve of Iconoclasm. Not all of us critique sects of Christianity we know nothing about. Not all of us believe that only Non-Denoms are going to Heaven. Some of us love all of Christendom. Don't on us because of a few bad apples. We can discuss the Filioque, Sola Scriptura, and other major Protestant cornerstones afterwards.

[septembersung]

Being familiar with his Introduction to the Devout Life, I think of him more as a devotional writer than an apologist, but his Catholic Controversy is just fantastic. The book is a series of apologetical tracts which De Sales, as Bishop of Calvinist Geneva, wrote. Catholicism, at the time, was illegal, yet through Catholic Controversy and other methods, St. Francis De Sales managed to convert something like 72,000 Calvinists back to Catholicism. The tract I found most persuasive was called “The Protestant Violation of Holy Scripture,” and I find that it just turns the sola Scriptura critiques right around. St. Francis goes through three chapters showing first, that Scripture is a true rule of Faith; second, that we should guard Scripture jealously; and third, that Scripture includes the Deuterocanon, as defined by the ecumenical Councils of Trent and Florence, and which had previously been established at the Council of Carthage well over a thousand years before the Reformation. Having affirmed the very thing which Catholics are alleged to deny (that Scripture is a rule of Faith which should be jealously guarded in all of Her parts), St. Francis turns the tables onto the Reformers, asking in Chapter 4, “Such are the sacred and canonical books which the Church has unanimously received and acknowledged during twelve hundred years. And by what authority have these new reformers dared to wipe out at one stroke so many noble parts of the Bible? They have erased a part of Esther, and Baruch, Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Machabees. Who has told them that these books are not legitimate, and not to be received? Why do they thus dismember the sacred body of the Scriptures?” He spends chapter 4 answering back (easily) all of the usual oppositions to the Deuterocanon, showing that arguments like “these are Greek books, not Hebrew” aren’t even true of all of the books (since books like First Maccabees were written in Hebrew). By the end of the chapter, it’s clear that most of the anti-Deuterocanonical arguments are pretextual.

St. Francis de Sales on Sola Scriptura

[christophe76460]

Sola Scriptura

« Sanctifie-les par la vérité ; ta parole est la vérité. » Jean 17:17

« Dans la période qui suivit la Réforme, l’attitude orthodoxe à l’égard de l’Écriture se trouva soumise à des attaques d’une violence croissante.

Dans l’Église catholique, l’autorité de la Bible était déjà affaiblie par le fait que, depuis des siècles, les Pères de l’Église étaient invoqués de préférence à l’Écriture lorsqu’il fallait défendre un point de doctrine. C’est alors que, par réaction contre la Réforme protestante, l’Église catholique romaine prit, en 1546, la décision de placer officiellement la tradition de l’Église à côté de l’Écriture comme seconde source de révélation, égale en autorité à la première … Ce geste eut des conséquences tragiques pour l’Église catholique, ainsi que le montre le développement constant de doctrines mal fondées comme la vénération de Marie et des saints … La préférence, ancrée au cœur de l’homme, pour les traditions plutôt que pour la Parole absolue et infaillible, enlève inévitablement à la Parole la primauté en matière d’autorité.

Dans le protestantisme, l’attaque vint de la soi-disant haute critique. Pendant un certain temps, en raison de leurs principes et de leurs vives polémiques contre le catholicisme, les Églises protestantes restèrent attachées à l’infaillibilité de la Bible. Mais au 18e siècle et surtout au 19e, l’examen critique des Écritures appuyé sur un rationalisme naturaliste parvint à détrôner la Bible de la place qu’elle avait précédemment occupée. Pour l’église du siècle du rationalisme, la Bible devint la parole de l’homme au sujet de Dieu et de l’homme, et non plus la parole adressée à l’homme par Dieu. Pour finir, ayant rejeté le caractère unique, le caractère divin de la Bible, de nombreux critiques rejetèrent aussi son autorité.

L’Église catholique a affaibli la conception orthodoxe de la Bible en haussant les traditions humaines jusqu’au niveau de l’Écriture. Les protestants ont affaibli la conception orthodoxe de l’Écriture en abaissant la Bible au niveau des traditions. Les différences sont grandes, mais les résultats furent analogues… : dans les deux cas, le caractère particulier de l’Écriture a été oublié, son autorité abandonnée, et la fonction de la Bible, voix de Dieu parlant à l’Église pour la réformer, a été perdue de vue ».

(Extrait de : « Le Dieu souverain », J.-M. Boice)

Quel avertissement pour tous les croyants d’aujourd’hui à rester ou à revenir à la Bible et à elle seule !

[itunesbooks]

More Biblical Evidence For Catholicism - Dave Armstrong

More Biblical Evidence For Catholicism Dave Armstrong Genre: Christianity Price: $2.99 Publish Date: August 18, 2011 Publisher: Lulu.com Seller: Lulu Enterprises, Inc. My purpose is to accumulate biblical arguments in support of distinctively Catholic doctrinal positions, with Protestant readers particularly in mind. I also touch upon the closely related subjects of sola Scriptura (the Protestant notion of Scripture Alone), the Catholic Church's high regard for Holy Scripture, and critiques from our separated Christian brethren with regard to matters of ecclesiology (Church) and Tradition. Additionally, a fair degree of emphasis has been devoted to certain common and erroneous charges against the Catholic Church and to dialogue (back-and-forth discussion), so that readers can have a sense of interaction with opponents of various Catholic doctrines, and how they might be answered from Scripture, history, and reason. Almost all of these chapters came about as a result of challenges and dialogues undertaken via e-mail and Internet lists and bulletin boards, from mid-1996 through to mid-2000. http://dlvr.it/R5KrQh