Debate on Scripture alone

Interesting debate by a guy that was Catholic and changed to Protestantism and by a guy that was Protestant and became Catholic!

Transubstantiation

the Canon

Did Early church father's teach faith alone?

Does the Bible teach faith alone for salvation?

Here is the quote on youtube further about this:

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John Martignoni talks about sola fide (faith alone). For this entire recording as well as other free downloads, please visit www.biblechristiansociety.com

In our last discussion article, we discussed the concept of sola scriptura (scripture alone), an invention of Martin Luther that states that the Bible is the only authority you need. In this article, I would like to discuss another concept invented by Luther during the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s. Sola fide (faith alone) states that a person is saved by his faith in Jesus alone. Luther taught that it does not matter what you do on this Earth, as long as you never lose faith in Jesus and his sacrifice, then you get to go to heaven. He taught that it does not matter if you are a murderer, prostitute, rapist, thief, or adulterer, as long as you never lose your faith in Jesus then you will go straight to heaven when you die. As Luther once put it, "No sin will separate us from the lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day." Luther taught that the Ten Commandments were just God's way of letting us know how much we are dependent on him as a savior, but God does not expect us to follow them because no one could follow them perfectly.

While many Protestants still practice this concept of faith alone today, Catholics believe in faith and works. We believe that what you do on this Earth does matter, and you will be judged for the life that you lived. Now this absolutely does NOT mean that Catholics believe that they are saved by works alone like some claim. We do NOT believe that we can work our way to heaven apart from Jesus or make God in debt to us by our works. We absolutely agree with Protestants that it is only by the grace of Jesus that we are saved and able to enter the kingdom of heaven. But faith without works is dead. In James 2:14-17 it says, "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well' but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead." James goes on to say in verse 19, "You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble." James makes a great point here. Even demons believe in God. So is believing in God enough to get to heaven? James also says in this passage, "Faith without works is useless" (2:20), "Faith is completed by works" (2:22) and "Faith without works is dead" (2:26). James also says, "See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone" (2:24). This is actually the only place in the Bible where the words faith and alone are found together, and it is saying that a person is not justified by faith alone.

Martin Luther knew that the Bible did not support his theory of sola fide, so he actually tried to take the book of James out of the New Testament, as well as the books of Hebrews, Jude, and Revelations. He later added them back after receiving heat from his peers, but referred to the book of James as an "epistle of straw." He also added the word alone to Romans 3:28 in his translation of the Bible so that it would read that we are justified by our faith alone. When questioned about adding to the Bible Luther said, "I will have it so, and I order it to be so, and my will is reason enough. I know very well that the word 'alone' is not in the Latin or the Greek text." Adding and removing from the Bible to make the scriptures fit his own manmade theology is something Luther had no problem doing. He used the Jewish canon of the Old Testament when writing his translation of the Bible because the Jewish canon had seven fewer books than the Old Testament the Christians had been using since the time of Jesus. He did this because the book of Maccabeus talked about prayer for the dead, and this went against Luther's theology of purgatory. This is why Catholics and Protestants have different Old Testaments today. And if Luther's peers had gone along with all of his ideas, we would have different New Testaments as well. The fact that Luther had to change the Bible 1500 years after Christ died should be enough for anyone to know that his teachings are his own ideas and not from God. If any Pope would have tried to remove books from the Bible, add words to the Bible, or refer to one book of the Bible as an epistle of straw, Catholics would never hear the end of it. Yet Martin Luther did this and many Protestants refer to him as a hero.

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from a comment here http://www.creedcodecult.com/what-counted-as-abrahams-righteousness/

The righteousness of God is the pistou Christou, the faithfulness of the Son of God in willingly laying down His life, that we may live, and thereby fulfilling the promises of the Father to Abraham and Israel. This righteousness is covenantal at the core, and has nothing to do with imputation. I believe this is part of Jason’s argument here, which is that one can read Romans 4 with that understanding and not once reach for extra nos imputation. I would urge you also to consider the evidence from the Apostolic Fathers regarding imputation in the reformed sense. It is completely absent from that record and should give one pause. One would think given the importance it holds for the reformed, one would find it somewhere in a 70 year time span of writings. But it is nowhere to be found.

The other problem I’m seeing with comments above is this: all of the comments on faith operate out of a western paradigm, ignoring the hebraic origin of the word: faith is derived from the hebrew word aman which is sometimes translated as support, nourish, confirm, make firm, make lasting. One of aman’s cognates is emunah often translated as faithfulness, trust which conveys the idea of firmness, steadfastness. This is seen for example in Ex 17:12, where God grants the victory against the Amalekites as long as Moses held his hands up. Was Moses doing the fighting and earning salvation for his people? No he wasn’t. Does that then mean that his faith was, as in the words of Jason Loh above, ‘an event in which the believer is completely passive’? Also an obvious NO. He still had to believe God, and obey His instructions to hold those arms up, by faith. In this picture, you see the fulness of the hebraic understanding of faith. Faith isn’t saying I believe this plane will take me to Jerusalem. That is the protestant understanding of faith. The proper understanding of faith is this: I step onto the plane, knowing it will take me to Jerusalem.

Abraham was initially justified by simply believing that God could do what He would do. But his faith in God extended beyond that initial justification into his whole life, as he showed that he was trustworthy, steadfast, faithful, even despite stumbles along the way. The problem with protestantism is that it wants to equate justification with the fullness of salvation, and exclude sanctification from the definition of salvation. Sanctification is the link between our initial and final justification at the judgment which will be on the basis of our works and words. This is most vividly seen in the parable of the talents which deals with salvation (Jesus said the parable of the sower was the key to the others): the last servant buries his talent/grace in the ground and at the return of the Master is thrown into the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. There is no way around this. This servant was justified through no works of his own, yes. The talent was granted him, yes? But then what happens? Does God say “You better not think you have anything to do now because I’ve done it all for you?” Or does he say “Go and trade until I return, make me a profit ON MY INVESTMENT”. God’s grace is an investment, not a passive deposit brothers. The sooner we wake up to that fact, the healthier western Christianity will get. The profit gained on that investment is gained by the grace of God, but nevertheless we must hold up our arms, knowing that we must be faithful to Him in all things, because Christ has made this possible (Gal 2:20).

The roots of extra nos imputation lie in the doctrine of penal substitution. And by penal, I mean the technical sense, the belief that God could not forgive or be reconciled before His wrath was satisfied. No doubt Christ is our substitute. But the penal aspect of the doctrine was a novum introduced by Anselm and later on by Calvin. As the EO have been trying to tell you for 2000 years, it was never in the deposit of the faith. God is not bound by necessity, not even to some concept of satisfaction that a human brain conjures up. He forgave freely in Christ Jesus, and it is mercy He desires, not sacrifice. As He said to the Pharisees, go figure that one out. As relevant today for a large swath of theologians. The self sacrifice He offers on the cross is one offered to end our need for endless sacrifice. We are the ones who need redemption and sacrifice, so God met us on our terms. I could get into Rene Girard here, but the post is getting too long.

Peace,

debate about justification by Catholic vs protestant

r. Walter Martin Debates Fr. Mitchell Pacwa of EWTN of the Catholic channel on the Doctrine of Penance. Taken from John Ankerberg Show.




John Ankerberg keeps leaving out James chapter 2 especially 2:14 What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works? Can That faith save him?
2:17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself."
2:21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? 22 You see that faith was working with his works and as a result of the works, faith was perfected...........24 You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone. However he does bring it up later.


John Ankerberg keeps using the phrase faith alone as being in the Bible---but the only place it is used is in James 2 where it says we are not justified by faith alone. The word alone is not used in the Roman passages.

Debate about Penance from Catholic and Protestant view

Debate between Father Pacwa and Dr. Walter Martin

a conversion to catholic faith

private interpretation/Luther?

and from



from another source on  comment 261 here   http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/03/jason-stellman-tells-his-conversion-story/

 Talk all you want about “the Spirit of God”; everybody claims the Spirit of God for what they confess; what matters here is the method by which they discern that it’s the Spirit of God talking, not just their own opinions. Thus everybody uses “exegesis and hermeneutics which draw upon reason, evidence, tradition,” yet by such means, many reach doctrinal conclusions opposed to those of many others. Who has the authority to say that their conclusions are Spirit-certified? Catholicism answers that question clearly, with reference to the authority of the Magisterium as the authentic interpreter of Scripture and Tradition. To the extent your paradigm answers it, it does so only with an academic magisterium. Having spent a good portion of my adult life in academia, I am not impressed with that. If you put any random selection of people with terminal degrees in theology into a room together, you’ll get as many opinions as there are people in the room.

see also http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/06/play-church/

and article and comments ;http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/whose-lens-are-you-using/

Interpretation of Scripture

"Who has the right and authority to say what Scripture means? Those from whom it was handed down, i.e. the Apostles, and the successors of the Apostles, and the particular Churches governed by the successors of the Apostles. The Scriptures belong to the Church, and are rightly known in and through the Church, not through the private interpretation of every Joe Blow who thinks he knows better than the Church what the Scriptures mean."

from comment 95 here

Purgatory?

scripture alone?

from comment

comment 63 here http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/whose-lens-are-you-using/

Neither Augustine nor Cyril were sola scripturist. A rightly held high view of scripture does not make one a sola scripturist.

“But when proper words make Scripture ambiguous, we must see in the first place that there is nothing wrong in our punctuation or pronunciation. Accordingly, if, when attention is given to the passage, it shall appear to be uncertain in what way it ought to be punctuated or pronounced, let the reader consult the rule of faith which he has gathered from the plainer passages of Scripture, and from the authority of the Church, and of which I treated at sufficient length when I was speaking in the first book about things.” 
Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 3,2:2 (A.D. 397).

“But those reasons which I have here given, I have either gathered from the authority of the church, according to the tradition of our forefathers, or from the testimony of the divine Scriptures, or from the nature itself of numbers and of similitudes. No sober person will decide against reason, no Christian against the Scriptures, no peaceable person against the church.” 
Augustine, On the Trinity, 4,6:10 (A.D. 416).

Augustine’s quote is clearly not about the tradition and authority of the church but specifically about ‘other letters’ which were thought by some to be canonical.

Cyril was not sola scripturist either.

“But in learning the Faith and in professing it, acquire and keep that only, which is now delivered to thee by the Church, and which has been built up strongly out of all the Scriptures….Take heed then, brethren, and hold fast the traditions which ye now receive, and write them and the table of your heart.”
Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 5:12 (A.D. 350).

Here is St. Cyril’s Catholic understanding of the rule of faith. Elsewhere, St. Cyril points to the Church not to Scripture for the definition of the canon: “Learn also diligently, and from the Church, what are the books of the Old Testaments, and what those of the New” (Catechetical Lectures ,4:33).

If Cyril DID teach sola scriptura than ya’ll have a problem. Because Cyril’s
Catechetical Lectures are filled with his forceful teachings on
the infallible teaching office of the Catholic Church (18:23), the
Mass as a sacrifice (23:6-8), the concept of purgatory and the
efficacy of expiatory prayers for the dead (23:10), the Real
Presence of Christ in the Eucharist (19:7; 21:3; 22:1-9), the
theology of sacraments (1:3), the intercession of the saints
(23:9), holy orders (23:2), the importance of frequent Communion
(23:23), baptismal regeneration (1:1-3; 3:10-12; 21:3-4), indeed a
staggering array of specifically “Catholic” doctrines.

comment 64

 Chrysostom was no sola scripturist either.

” ‘So then, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye were taught, whether by word, or by Epistle of ours.’ Hence it is manifest, that they did not deliver all things by Epistle, but many things also unwritten, and in like manner both the one and the other are worthy of credit. Therefore let us think the tradition of the Church also worthy of credit. It is a tradition, seek no farther.” John Chrysostom, Homily on 2nd Thessalonians, 4:2 (A.D. 404).

“Do not hold aloof from the Church; for nothing is stronger than the Church. The Church is thy hope, thy salvation, thy refuge. It is higher than the heaven, it is wider than the earth. It never waxes old, but is always in full vigour. Wherefore as significant of its solidity and stability Holy Scripture calls it a mountain: or of its purity a virgin, or of its magnificence a queen; or of its relationship to God a daughter; and to express its productiveness it calls her barren who has borne seven…”
Chrysostom, Eutropius, 2:6 (A.D. 399).

“It is an easier thing for the sun to be quenched, than for the church to be made invisible.”

John Chrysostom, In illud: vidi Dom. (ante A.D. 407).

end quote

“But when proper words make Scripture ambiguous, we must see in the first place that there is nothing wrong in our punctuation or pronunciation. Accordingly, if, when attention is given to the passage, it shall appear to be uncertain in what way it ought to be punctuated or pronounced, let the reader consult the rule of faith which he has gathered from the plainer passages of Scripture, and from the authority of the Church, and of which I treated at sufficient length when I was speaking in the first book about things.”
Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 3,2:2 (A.D. 397).

from comment 13 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/12/justification-catholic-church-and-the-judaizers/

 When I say that we (Catholics) read Scripture through the Fathers, you respond by saying that Scripture is more authoritative than the Fathers. Of course Scripture is more authoritative than the Fathers. That’s not the question. The question is whether we come to Scripture through the Fathers, or we use our own individual interpretation of nuda scriptura to critique the Fathers, accepting from the Fathers only what fits our nuda scriptura interpretation, and rejecting what doesn’t. (And thus making the Fathers hermeneutically superfluous and irrelevant.) Because Catholics are not ecclesial deists, we don’t use nuda scriptura to critique the Fathers; we come to Scripture through the Fathers and the Tradition.

also here  comment 94 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/01/clark-frame-and-the-analogy-of-painting-a-magisterial-target-around-ones-interpretive-arrow/

 There is no such thing as scripture – by itself – being the “defining definition”. What does that mean? In every case – every single case – always – unavoidably – inevitably – without exception – what is presented for human belief is an *interpretation* of scripture. By itself, scripture (the 66 books of the Protestant bible) is a collection of words and symbols on paper, bound together in a codex. Itsmeaning, the doctrines it is said to contain, always involve some agency extracting from those words, sentences, paragraphs and books, a series of concepts proposed as doctrines for belief. And that extraction process is done by some human agency, perhaps with or without divine assistance and protection; but by some instrumental human agency nonetheless. The act of human interpretationprior to acquisition of scripture’s meaning is literally unavoidable.

Even if you never communicated “Ted’s interpretation of scripture” to anyone else, but simply retained it within your own mind, your interior beliefs about the doctrines which scripture contains will have been filtered through your own set of background assumption, expertise (or lack) in the biblical languages, etc., etc. Every claim you have made on this site about “what scripture teaches” (as if it just leapt off the page without filtering through your mind or someone else’s before becoming communicable concepts) is nothing less than Ted Bigelow’s personal *interpretation* of the words, sentences, paragraphs and books of scripture. There is no getting around that fact. The question is not whether we receive the truths of scripture through the lens of some human (perhaps divinely assisted) interpretation thereof. We do and we must – full stop. The only question is *whose* interpretation?

For this reason, you cannot credibly suggest that you alone, unlike confessional Reformed and Catholic Christians (and however other many communions you wish to name), are exempt from necessarily operating within an interpretive tradition/paradigm, so that you alone imbibe the pure, un-interpreted, sap of scripture acting as its own “defining definition” (whatever that would mean). Until someone reads and interprets the words, no concepts, propositions, doctrines, emerge for belief. A book just sits on a table – inert. Only when the words in a book are interpreted by a person(s) does an object of belief or assent become re-cognizable. No, you most definitely operate within an interpretive tradition – your own.

Therefore:

Any interpretation of Scripture that leads Ted Bigelow away from Ted Bigelow’s personal interpretive doctrines gets the same response from Houston. Fill in the blank with what you choose: *Ted Bigelow-ism*, 3FU, RCC magisterial Tradition, Orthodox tradition, Confession x, etc.

You are not exempt, nor is any biblicist, from this situation.

Dr. Robert Fastiggi debate to consider

Karl Keatings debate to consider