Biblical inerrancy with respect to the creation narratives

[hugodrax]

The Fundamentalists are doing to biblical faith what the political Leftists are doing to culture and life: They are changing the definitions of words.

For example, gender used to mean "biologically male or female."

Likewise, inerrancy used to mean that the Sacred Scriptures are "truly inspired by God and faithfully handed down to us." We understood that Sacred Scripture is a collection of many genres -- books of history, mythology, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, and inspired songs.

While a Fundamentalist/inerrantist might want to add to this definition (like adding, perhaps, "free from error"), I can't imagine a Fundamentalist/inerrantist disagreeing with this definition. Can you provide an example of a Fundamentalist/inerrantist who does not agree with this definition? This should be an easy task, presuming that Fundamentalists/inerrantists distort language as often as Leftists.

I don't know any of these guys' names. So perhaps I am criticizing a secular straw man image of a Fundamentalist, rather than the real thing.

All I know is that the Bible is inerrant... And that life, the universe, and everything were NOT created in a literal six days.

So the meaning of inerrant must be larger than the creationist's interpretation of it.

I have very little contact with Fundamentalists. I have much more with inerrantists in general. I don't identify myself in the former camp, though I would in the latter. In other words, I would say that Genesis 1-2 are free from error, etc. I do not pretend to have every answer for every question about this subject.

I know that there are problems if one wants to consider Genesis 1-2 as poetic in nature, including:
- There are zero examples of Hebrew poetic conventions in these chapters.
- These chapters contain numerous uses of the Hebrew vav consecutive, which signals the historical genre.

I also admit that there is a possibility that God might have treated time as a dependent variable rather than an independent one during the act of creation, such that time itself had a rate of change. He is certainly big enough to do so.

I'm using "poetic" in its broadest sense. Not just meter and rhyme and other poetic devices.

Consider Lord of the Rings. It is certainly written in the form of a historic novel, and the author even presses this by claiming that it is a translation from a "Red Book of Westmarch," a supposedly authentic copy of testimony and writings from historical Hobbits.

It's still the language of poetry, and should be enjoyed as such. The truths are much deeper than if it were a mere historical account.

Likewise, the writers and readers of Genesis 1 did not believe that they were recording scientific history. That "firm teaching" was invented in the early 20th century by a sect of American Christians with the radical dogma that inerrancy must mean literally.
===================================================

I firmly believe in the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture. [I got into a long feud about with a liberal Catholic feminist who got herself hired as our parish's chief catechist. I ended up getting her fired, sad to say. But she believed that a lot of the New Testament wasn't really accurate. "Do you believe that Jesus really said that?" I couldn't teach that to our kids.]

But we have run up against the fundamental dispute between Protestants and Apostolic Christians.
- Protestants insist that the Bible is sufficient, and a Church can be built up Scripture alone.
- Apostolic Christians see that the Bible was never intended to explain itself. It was written to be used within a Sacred Tradition --first within Judaism, and in the fullness of time, within the Church that Jesus established.

This fundamental divide must necessarily shade the way that the believer understands "inerrancy."

The Bible isn’t “sufficient alone” it is IS alone.There is no other Word of God. There is no further explanation. God did not give us other written testimony of Himself. Anything not in the Bible is conjecture at best.

Ah. It always strikes me that those who have thrown out Tradition have created their own, unquestionable traditions and have replaced the old dogmas with new ones.

[Del]

The Fundamentalists are doing to biblical faith what the political Leftists are doing to culture and life: They are changing the definitions of words.

For example, gender used to mean "biologically male or female."

Likewise, inerrancy used to mean that the Sacred Scriptures are "truly inspired by God and faithfully handed down to us." We understood that Sacred Scripture is a collection of many genres -- books of history, mythology, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, and inspired songs.

While a Fundamentalist/inerrantist might want to add to this definition (like adding, perhaps, "free from error"), I can't imagine a Fundamentalist/inerrantist disagreeing with this definition. Can you provide an example of a Fundamentalist/inerrantist who does not agree with this definition? This should be an easy task, presuming that Fundamentalists/inerrantists distort language as often as Leftists.

I don't know any of these guys' names. So perhaps I am criticizing a secular straw man image of a Fundamentalist, rather than the real thing.

All I know is that the Bible is inerrant... And that life, the universe, and everything were NOT created in a literal six days.

So the meaning of inerrant must be larger than the creationist's interpretation of it.

I have very little contact with Fundamentalists. I have much more with inerrantists in general. I don't identify myself in the former camp, though I would in the latter. In other words, I would say that Genesis 1-2 are free from error, etc. I do not pretend to have every answer for every question about this subject.

I know that there are problems if one wants to consider Genesis 1-2 as poetic in nature, including:
- There are zero examples of Hebrew poetic conventions in these chapters.
- These chapters contain numerous uses of the Hebrew vav consecutive, which signals the historical genre.

I also admit that there is a possibility that God might have treated time as a dependent variable rather than an independent one during the act of creation, such that time itself had a rate of change. He is certainly big enough to do so.

I'm using "poetic" in its broadest sense. Not just meter and rhyme and other poetic devices.

Consider Lord of the Rings. It is certainly written in the form of a historic novel, and the author even presses this by claiming that it is a translation from a "Red Book of Westmarch," a supposedly authentic copy of testimony and writings from historical Hobbits.

It's still the language of poetry, and should be enjoyed as such. The truths are much deeper than if it were a mere historical account.

Likewise, the writers and readers of Genesis 1 did not believe that they were recording scientific history. That "firm teaching" was invented in the early 20th century by a sect of American Christians with the radical dogma that inerrancy must mean literally.
===================================================

I firmly believe in the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture. [I got into a long feud about with a liberal Catholic feminist who got herself hired as our parish's chief catechist. I ended up getting her fired, sad to say. But she believed that a lot of the New Testament wasn't really accurate. "Do you believe that Jesus really said that?" I couldn't teach that to our kids.]

But we have run up against the fundamental dispute between Protestants and Apostolic Christians.
- Protestants insist that the Bible is sufficient, and a Church can be built up Scripture alone.
- Apostolic Christians see that the Bible was never intended to explain itself. It was written to be used within a Sacred Tradition --first within Judaism, and in the fullness of time, within the Church that Jesus established.

This fundamental divide must necessarily shade the way that the believer understands "inerrancy."

The Bible isn’t “sufficient alone” it is IS alone.There is no other Word of God. There is no further explanation. God did not give us other written testimony of Himself. Anything not in the Bible is conjecture at best.

Who told you that?

Was it one of the Apostles?

"Bible Alone" is a dogmatic tradition invented by Martin Luther and accepted by the Protestant Fathers. It has failed to provide the unified church that Jesus prayed for at the Last Supper, that His disciples should be of one faith.
==================================================

The Apostles preached and taught and established a network of Churches. The Apostles were guided by the Holy Spirit, and their teaching is our heritage.

The New Testament Scriptures were written by the Apostles for the people who had already received the Apostolic teaching. St. Paul spent plenty of time with the Corinthians (18 months? 3 years? -- I forget exactly), preaching to them daily. Then he sent them a couple of Letters.

It is the sacred duty of the Apostolic Church to hand down the teaching of the Apostles -- both the preaching and the writing. And this is straight from St. Paul himself --

So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.

And if we want to know what a writing in Scripture means or doesn't mean, there is only one sure divine authority to guide us:

if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

In I Cor 11, St. Paul offers stern corrections to the Corinthians for getting the purpose of Divine Liturgy all wrong. They were more concerned with the coffee and donuts; they forgot they were receiving the Lord Jesus Christ. After writing them up a bit, St. Paul ends with this:

if any one is hungry, let him eat at home—lest you come together to be condemned. About the other things I will give directions when I come.

It is the duty of the Apostolic Church to remember what St. Paul taught them when he returned. We take this duty seriously. This is why the various ancient rites in the Eastern and Western Churches are still so strikingly similar, even when we have been sundered for centuries. The Holy Spirit protects His Truth.

[arank87]

The Fundamentalists are doing to biblical faith what the political Leftists are doing to culture and life: They are changing the definitions of words.

For example, gender used to mean "biologically male or female."

Likewise, inerrancy used to mean that the Sacred Scriptures are "truly inspired by God and faithfully handed down to us." We understood that Sacred Scripture is a collection of many genres -- books of history, mythology, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, and inspired songs.

While a Fundamentalist/inerrantist might want to add to this definition (like adding, perhaps, "free from error"), I can't imagine a Fundamentalist/inerrantist disagreeing with this definition. Can you provide an example of a Fundamentalist/inerrantist who does not agree with this definition? This should be an easy task, presuming that Fundamentalists/inerrantists distort language as often as Leftists.

I don't know any of these guys' names. So perhaps I am criticizing a secular straw man image of a Fundamentalist, rather than the real thing.

All I know is that the Bible is inerrant... And that life, the universe, and everything were NOT created in a literal six days.

So the meaning of inerrant must be larger than the creationist's interpretation of it.

I have very little contact with Fundamentalists. I have much more with inerrantists in general. I don't identify myself in the former camp, though I would in the latter. In other words, I would say that Genesis 1-2 are free from error, etc. I do not pretend to have every answer for every question about this subject.

I know that there are problems if one wants to consider Genesis 1-2 as poetic in nature, including:
- There are zero examples of Hebrew poetic conventions in these chapters.
- These chapters contain numerous uses of the Hebrew vav consecutive, which signals the historical genre.

I also admit that there is a possibility that God might have treated time as a dependent variable rather than an independent one during the act of creation, such that time itself had a rate of change. He is certainly big enough to do so.

I'm using "poetic" in its broadest sense. Not just meter and rhyme and other poetic devices.

Consider Lord of the Rings. It is certainly written in the form of a historic novel, and the author even presses this by claiming that it is a translation from a "Red Book of Westmarch," a supposedly authentic copy of testimony and writings from historical Hobbits.

It's still the language of poetry, and should be enjoyed as such. The truths are much deeper than if it were a mere historical account.

Likewise, the writers and readers of Genesis 1 did not believe that they were recording scientific history. That "firm teaching" was invented in the early 20th century by a sect of American Christians with the radical dogma that inerrancy must mean literally.
===================================================

I firmly believe in the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture. [I got into a long feud about with a liberal Catholic feminist who got herself hired as our parish's chief catechist. I ended up getting her fired, sad to say. But she believed that a lot of the New Testament wasn't really accurate. "Do you believe that Jesus really said that?" I couldn't teach that to our kids.]

But we have run up against the fundamental dispute between Protestants and Apostolic Christians.
- Protestants insist that the Bible is sufficient, and a Church can be built up Scripture alone.
- Apostolic Christians see that the Bible was never intended to explain itself. It was written to be used within a Sacred Tradition --first within Judaism, and in the fullness of time, within the Church that Jesus established.

This fundamental divide must necessarily shade the way that the believer understands "inerrancy."

The Bible isn’t “sufficient alone” it is IS alone.There is no other Word of God. There is no further explanation. God did not give us other written testimony of Himself. Anything not in the Bible is conjecture at best.

Who told you that?

Was it one of the Apostles?

"Bible Alone" is a dogmatic tradition invented by Martin Luther and accepted by the Protestant Fathers. It has failed to provide the unified church that Jesus prayed for at the Last Supper, that His disciples should be of one faith.
==================================================

The Apostles preached and taught and established a network of Churches. The Apostles were guided by the Holy Spirit, and their teaching is our heritage.

The New Testament Scriptures were written by the Apostles for the people who had already received the Apostolic teaching. St. Paul spent plenty of time with the Corinthians (18 months? 3 years? -- I forget exactly), preaching to them daily. Then he sent them a couple of Letters.

It is the sacred duty of the Apostolic Church to hand down the teaching of the Apostles -- both the preaching and the writing. And this is straight from St. Paul himself --

So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.

And if we want to know what a writing in Scripture means or doesn't mean, there is only one sure divine authority to guide us:

if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

In I Cor 11, St. Paul offers stern corrections to the Corinthians for getting the purpose of Divine Liturgy all wrong. They were more concerned with the coffee and donuts; they forgot they were receiving the Lord Jesus Christ. After writing them up a bit, St. Paul ends with this:

if any one is hungry, let him eat at home—lest you come together to be condemned. About the other things I will give directions when I come.

It is the duty of the Apostolic Church to remember what St. Paul taught them when he returned. We take this duty seriously. This is why the various ancient rites in the Eastern and Western Churches are still so strikingly similar, even when we have been sundered for centuries. The Holy Spirit protects His Truth.

Del, if a teaching isn’t in the scripture how can you know it’s from the Apostles? Sola Scriptura is precisely the way one ensures their faith is aligned to the Apostles.

[smokadoro]

Who told you that?

Was it one of the Apostles?

"Bible Alone" is a dogmatic tradition invented by Martin Luther and accepted by the Protestant Fathers. It has failed to provide the unified church that Jesus prayed for at the Last Supper, that His disciples should be of one faith.
==================================================

The Apostles preached and taught and established a network of Churches. The Apostles were guided by the Holy Spirit, and their teaching is our heritage.

The New Testament Scriptures were written by the Apostles for the people who had already received the Apostolic teaching. St. Paul spent plenty of time with the Corinthians (18 months? 3 years? -- I forget exactly), preaching to them daily. Then he sent them a couple of Letters.

It is the sacred duty of the Apostolic Church to hand down the teaching of the Apostles -- both the preaching and the writing. And this is straight from St. Paul himself --

So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.

And if we want to know what a writing in Scripture means or doesn't mean, there is only one sure divine authority to guide us:

if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

In I Cor 11, St. Paul offers stern corrections to the Corinthians for getting the purpose of Divine Liturgy all wrong. They were more concerned with the coffee and donuts; they forgot they were receiving the Lord Jesus Christ. After writing them up a bit, St. Paul ends with this:

if any one is hungry, let him eat at home—lest you come together to be condemned. About the other things I will give directions when I come.

It is the duty of the Apostolic Church to remember what St. Paul taught them when he returned. We take this duty seriously. This is why the various ancient rites in the Eastern and Western Churches are still so strikingly similar, even when we have been sundered for centuries. The Holy Spirit protects His Truth.

Del, if a teaching isn’t in the scripture how can you know it’s from the Apostles? Sola Scriptura is precisely the way one ensures their faith is aligned to the Apostles.

The Catholic position is that tradition is held in just as high regard as Scripture. You appealed to a Protestant doctrine which was designed to oppose this very Catholic teaching. Del is an outspoken, dyed-in-the-wool Catholic.

Good luck with that!

[smokadoro]

Also, one answer to why (though hardly the only or best reason, just something that occurred to me) is that scientific theories based on observations have changed over time (and there's no guarantee they'll not change next week; those that don't change don't rock the boat). So there is some real value in the stability of accepting a belief as handed down.

The changes are honing in on the actual truth, so the new/replacement theory is "less wrong" than the one being replaced or superceded.

TL;DR version of the link: The Earth visualized as a sphere is less wrong than the Earth visualized as flat. However, the Earth is actually not a perfect sphere but is slightly oblong. So even the sphere is "wrong," but not as "wrong" as saying the Earth is flat.

[Stanley76]

God is what He is. He is the beginning and the end. He said so himself. He has always been, always will be and He is. What if time itself is a subjective human perception and open to different human interpretations?

[arank87]

Who told you that?

Was it one of the Apostles?

"Bible Alone" is a dogmatic tradition invented by Martin Luther and accepted by the Protestant Fathers. It has failed to provide the unified church that Jesus prayed for at the Last Supper, that His disciples should be of one faith.
==================================================

The Apostles preached and taught and established a network of Churches. The Apostles were guided by the Holy Spirit, and their teaching is our heritage.

The New Testament Scriptures were written by the Apostles for the people who had already received the Apostolic teaching. St. Paul spent plenty of time with the Corinthians (18 months? 3 years? -- I forget exactly), preaching to them daily. Then he sent them a couple of Letters.

It is the sacred duty of the Apostolic Church to hand down the teaching of the Apostles -- both the preaching and the writing. And this is straight from St. Paul himself --

So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.

And if we want to know what a writing in Scripture means or doesn't mean, there is only one sure divine authority to guide us:

if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

In I Cor 11, St. Paul offers stern corrections to the Corinthians for getting the purpose of Divine Liturgy all wrong. They were more concerned with the coffee and donuts; they forgot they were receiving the Lord Jesus Christ. After writing them up a bit, St. Paul ends with this:

if any one is hungry, let him eat at home—lest you come together to be condemned. About the other things I will give directions when I come.

It is the duty of the Apostolic Church to remember what St. Paul taught them when he returned. We take this duty seriously. This is why the various ancient rites in the Eastern and Western Churches are still so strikingly similar, even when we have been sundered for centuries. The Holy Spirit protects His Truth.

Del, if a teaching isn’t in the scripture how can you know it’s from the Apostles? Sola Scriptura is precisely the way one ensures their faith is aligned to the Apostles.

The Catholic position is that tradition is held in just as high regard as Scripture. You appealed to a Protestant doctrine which was designed to oppose this very Catholic teaching. Del is an outspoken, dyed-in-the-wool Catholic.

Good luck with that!

That's fair. I didn't intend to debate every Catholic on every point. We can agree to disagree, Del.

[Del]

Who told you that?

Was it one of the Apostles?

"Bible Alone" is a dogmatic tradition invented by Martin Luther and accepted by the Protestant Fathers. It has failed to provide the unified church that Jesus prayed for at the Last Supper, that His disciples should be of one faith.
==================================================

The Apostles preached and taught and established a network of Churches. The Apostles were guided by the Holy Spirit, and their teaching is our heritage.

The New Testament Scriptures were written by the Apostles for the people who had already received the Apostolic teaching. St. Paul spent plenty of time with the Corinthians (18 months? 3 years? -- I forget exactly), preaching to them daily. Then he sent them a couple of Letters.

It is the sacred duty of the Apostolic Church to hand down the teaching of the Apostles -- both the preaching and the writing. And this is straight from St. Paul himself --

So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.

And if we want to know what a writing in Scripture means or doesn't mean, there is only one sure divine authority to guide us:

if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

In I Cor 11, St. Paul offers stern corrections to the Corinthians for getting the purpose of Divine Liturgy all wrong. They were more concerned with the coffee and donuts; they forgot they were receiving the Lord Jesus Christ. After writing them up a bit, St. Paul ends with this:

if any one is hungry, let him eat at home—lest you come together to be condemned. About the other things I will give directions when I come.

It is the duty of the Apostolic Church to remember what St. Paul taught them when he returned. We take this duty seriously. This is why the various ancient rites in the Eastern and Western Churches are still so strikingly similar, even when we have been sundered for centuries. The Holy Spirit protects His Truth.

Del, if a teaching isn’t in the scripture how can you know it’s from the Apostles? Sola Scriptura is precisely the way one ensures their faith is aligned to the Apostles.

The Catholic position is that tradition is held in just as high regard as Scripture. You appealed to a Protestant doctrine which was designed to oppose this very Catholic teaching. Del is an outspoken, dyed-in-the-wool Catholic.

Good luck with that!

That's fair. I didn't intend to debate every Catholic on every point. We can agree to disagree, Del.

You bet! I am surprised that you don't have any knowledgeable and evangelical Catholics in your circle of friends. It's not like you live in the Bible Belt.

I will answer you question. I will pack a bowl of Erinmore Flake, and try to be brief.

This is a foundational fact of our faith: Jesus didn't write any scriptures. Jesus established a Church.

Most people are tempted to think that Jesus got this wrong. Jews wanted a new earthly kingdom, free of Roman rule. Modern Christians wish for an instruction manual. So did Christians in the early centuries, which is why much of the world embraced the Koran.

But we didn't get a kingdom or a manual. Jesus established a Church. On this, we all agree.

Apostolic Christians (Catholics & Orthodox) insist that, because He is God, Jesus got it right the first time. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to inspire and guide His Church, so that the Church could be a divine teacher, reliably guarding and sharing the Truth of Christ.... unable to be broken by the hands of fallen and fallible men.

This Church has a Sacred Scripture. This Church believes these that these Books are inspired by the Holy Spirit, and without error regarding what the Holy Spirit wants those books to say to us. Even though the Books were written and copied by fallen, fallible men. The protection that the Holy Spirit gives to His Church also applies to His Church's Scriptures.

This creates a bit of circular logic:
- We know that these Books are the inspired, inerrant Word of God because the Church say so.
- We know that the Church is trustworthy, because the Scripture says so. Sacred Scripture insists that "the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth." (1 Tim 3:15, for example)

In short, our faith in the Bible & the Church must hang together. They are either both TRUE, and guided by the Holy Spirit. Or they are both FALSE, and the works of lying, fallible men.

The only reason we believe that these Books, and no others, are the inspired words of God is because councils of bishops in the late 4th century gathered for the task of discerning which books were the true and inspired works of the Apostles -- among all of the gospels and epistles that claimed to be holy and inspired works. Either the Holy Spirit was guiding those bishops in truth, or He wasn't.

For believers, this does not present a problem. We have modern miracles, and modern saints, to confirm us in our faith. The Holy Spirit is still active in our world. The Church is still sanctifying our world. In spite of all the sins and scandals.

This includes the scandal of what happens to Sacred Scripture when it is ripped apart from the Tradition to which it was given. The central revelation of Christian faith is the Lord's Supper -- and yet, within a few years of declaring his faith in Scripture Alone, Martin Luther could do no more than stomp his foot and demand that THIS IS MY BODY! must be held as the literal truth of all Scripture. Yet even fundamentalist Bible Christians do not believe this.
==========================

I hope this helps!

This is joyful for me, and I have never held a moment of ill-will toward anyone who cares to dispute faith with me. I've made great friends through these discussions.

Hey.... you want to get together this winter and smoke some? Maybe do some sledding or fishing?
- We'd need an auger. And a snowmobile. (I don't have any gear!)

[tuttle]

Also, one answer to why (though hardly the only or best reason, just something that occurred to me) is that scientific theories based on observations have changed over time (and there's no guarantee they'll not change next week; those that don't change don't rock the boat). So there is some real value in the stability of accepting a belief as handed down.

The changes are honing in on the actual truth, so the new/replacement theory is "less wrong" than the one being replaced or superceded.

TL;DR version of the link: The Earth visualized as a sphere is less wrong than the Earth visualized as flat. However, the Earth is actually not a perfect sphere but is slightly oblong. So even the sphere is "wrong," but not as "wrong" as saying the Earth is flat.

I'm thinking more along the lines of how it impacts theology and doctrine.

On one hand, accepting a doctrine as handed down means you operate within those assumptions and with that paradigm as it pertains to what is true. Things like what it means to be human, how sin entered the world, mortality and death, and a host of other things are all at play. If you are continually honing in on the truth (it is assumed that such honing always leads to the truth and never astray) that means foundational beliefs can shift. Their solidity is in question merely because we never know when the honing process is done. What it means to be human, what it means to sin, etc, things which the Scriptures treat within a certain worldview, might (depending on the honing) actually shift away from what the Scriptures reveal.

If "God formed man from the dust" is more wrong than "God formed man via millions of years of evolution" then not only does this honing tell us something true (we assume) about humanity, it must also have something to say about the first more wrong 'truth'. We can not only say that a flat earth is more wrong than a sphere earth, but we can say that a flat earth is simply false! How much honing does it take for us to say that what the Scriptures reveal is not just more wrong, but flatly false?

And this isn't even some abstract theory. It happens all around us in individuals and denominations all the time.

This isn't an appeal for a literal reading of Genesis, nor even a condemnation of our vision of truth being honed, but we ought to be cautious and far-seeing in our 'honing' and more so when we can see how that honing might remove the very worldview of the Scriptures from under our feet.

[arank87]

Who told you that?

Was it one of the Apostles?

"Bible Alone" is a dogmatic tradition invented by Martin Luther and accepted by the Protestant Fathers. It has failed to provide the unified church that Jesus prayed for at the Last Supper, that His disciples should be of one faith.
==================================================

The Apostles preached and taught and established a network of Churches. The Apostles were guided by the Holy Spirit, and their teaching is our heritage.

The New Testament Scriptures were written by the Apostles for the people who had already received the Apostolic teaching. St. Paul spent plenty of time with the Corinthians (18 months? 3 years? -- I forget exactly), preaching to them daily. Then he sent them a couple of Letters.

It is the sacred duty of the Apostolic Church to hand down the teaching of the Apostles -- both the preaching and the writing. And this is straight from St. Paul himself --

So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.

And if we want to know what a writing in Scripture means or doesn't mean, there is only one sure divine authority to guide us:

if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

In I Cor 11, St. Paul offers stern corrections to the Corinthians for getting the purpose of Divine Liturgy all wrong. They were more concerned with the coffee and donuts; they forgot they were receiving the Lord Jesus Christ. After writing them up a bit, St. Paul ends with this:

if any one is hungry, let him eat at home—lest you come together to be condemned. About the other things I will give directions when I come.

It is the duty of the Apostolic Church to remember what St. Paul taught them when he returned. We take this duty seriously. This is why the various ancient rites in the Eastern and Western Churches are still so strikingly similar, even when we have been sundered for centuries. The Holy Spirit protects His Truth.

Del, if a teaching isn’t in the scripture how can you know it’s from the Apostles? Sola Scriptura is precisely the way one ensures their faith is aligned to the Apostles.

The Catholic position is that tradition is held in just as high regard as Scripture. You appealed to a Protestant doctrine which was designed to oppose this very Catholic teaching. Del is an outspoken, dyed-in-the-wool Catholic.

Good luck with that!

That's fair. I didn't intend to debate every Catholic on every point. We can agree to disagree, Del.

You bet! I am surprised that you don't have any knowledgeable and evangelical Catholics in your circle of friends. It's not like you live in the Bible Belt.

I will answer you question. I will pack a bowl of Erinmore Flake, and try to be brief.

This is a foundational fact of our faith: Jesus didn't write any scriptures. Jesus established a Church.

Most people are tempted to think that Jesus got this wrong. Jews wanted a new earthly kingdom, free of Roman rule. Modern Christians wish for an instruction manual. So did Christians in the early centuries, which is why much of the world embraced the Koran.

But we didn't get a kingdom or a manual. Jesus established a Church. On this, we all agree.

Apostolic Christians (Catholics & Orthodox) insist that, because He is God, Jesus got it right the first time. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to inspire and guide His Church, so that the Church could be a divine teacher, reliably guarding and sharing the Truth of Christ.... unable to be broken by the hands of fallen and fallible men.

This Church has a Sacred Scripture. This Church believes these that these Books are inspired by the Holy Spirit, and without error regarding what the Holy Spirit wants those books to say to us. Even though the Books were written and copied by fallen, fallible men. The protection that the Holy Spirit gives to His Church also applies to His Church's Scriptures.

This creates a bit of circular logic:
- We know that these Books are the inspired, inerrant Word of God because the Church say so.
- We know that the Church is trustworthy, because the Scripture says so. Sacred Scripture insists that "the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth." (1 Tim 3:15, for example)

In short, our faith in the Bible & the Church must hang together. They are either both TRUE, and guided by the Holy Spirit. Or they are both FALSE, and the works of lying, fallible men.

The only reason we believe that these Books, and no others, are the inspired words of God is because councils of bishops in the late 4th century gathered for the task of discerning which books were the true and inspired works of the Apostles -- among all of the gospels and epistles that claimed to be holy and inspired works. Either the Holy Spirit was guiding those bishops in truth, or He wasn't.

For believers, this does not present a problem. We have modern miracles, and modern saints, to confirm us in our faith. The Holy Spirit is still active in our world. The Church is still sanctifying our world. In spite of all the sins and scandals.

This includes the scandal of what happens to Sacred Scripture when it is ripped apart from the Tradition to which it was given. The central revelation of Christian faith is the Lord's Supper -- and yet, within a few years of declaring his faith in Scripture Alone, Martin Luther could do no more than stomp his foot and demand that THIS IS MY BODY! must be held as the literal truth of all Scripture. Yet even fundamentalist Bible Christians do not believe this.
==========================

I hope this helps!

This is joyful for me, and I have never held a moment of ill-will toward anyone who cares to dispute faith with me. I've made great friends through these discussions.

Hey.... you want to get together this winter and smoke some? Maybe do some sledding or fishing?
- We'd need an auger. And a snowmobile. (I don't have any gear!)

Del, no ill-will from me either. Ever. Let me share a little background on myself since nobody asked. I was raised in an orthodox Lutheran household by parents who were as well. My family has been Lutheran going back to the 17th century which is about as far back as we can trace. I attended Lutheran primary school, high school, and college. Two of my uncles are Lutheran pastors. My mom has an uncle who is a Lutheran pastor. My wife is Lutheran as is her entire large family with several Lutheran pastors on her side as well. Her grandfather was a Lutheran pastor. All of my friends are Lutheran or lapsed Lutherans. So, as Luther would say 'What does this mean?' It means that I need to remind myself that the great big world is mostly NOT Lutheran and that when I open my mouth to discuss Christian Faith I need to remember that Sola Scriptura is not a universally accepted doctrine. This forum is very good for me because it gives me a chance to learn so much from all of you. I would rather say "Del, what does a Catholic think about X?" and do more listening than talking. I am very firmly a Lutheran and love my church and our traditions and doctrines but I am glad to hear what others think.

I gave up ice fishing last year because of the expense related with the dang gear! I just don't get out on the ice often enough.

[FredS]

Arank - In a different thread, I wrote:

. . . We don't need Scripture to tell us how to worship!

Take note of this Protestants. It is one of the fundamental differences between your church and the RCC. I'm not saying Catholics reject Scripture - Del wrote "Of course, Scripture is indispensable in helping us to understand why" - just that they don't think one can live by Scripture alone. Absent tradition. The backstory if you will.

Notice also that Del often writes of "Bible Churches". One would assume that includes Brother Jeremiahs Fellowship At The Well Church that opened last month in the empty PetsMart building down at the strip mall, based on nothing more than Brother Jeremiahs bible knowledge and charisma, and any other church that says the Bible is all they need.

This is a fairly fundamental difference and we'd all do well to understand it at the outset.

This was aimed at you, arank, trying to head off the discussion below.

The Bible isn’t “sufficient alone” it is IS alone.There is no other Word of God. There is no further explanation. God did not give us other written testimony of Himself. Anything not in the Bible is conjecture at best.

Who told you that?

Was it one of the Apostles?

"Bible Alone" is a dogmatic tradition invented by Martin Luther and accepted by the Protestant Fathers.

Del, if a teaching isn’t in the scripture how can you know it’s from the Apostles? Sola Scriptura is precisely the way one ensures their faith is aligned to the Apostles.

[Del]

Back on topic:

The Bible is True, and we mustn't let this get in the way of our understand of Genesis 1 and the Big Bang!

[Thunktank]

Pope Pius XII encyclical Humani Generis.

It honestly explains things better than all of us combined.

38. Just as in the biological and anthropological sciences, so also in the historical sciences there are those who boldly transgress the limits and safeguards established by the Church. In a particular way must be deplored a certain too free interpretation of the historical books of the Old Testament. Those who favor this system, in order to defend their cause, wrongly refer to the Letter which was sent not long ago to the Archbishop of Paris by the Pontifical Commission on Biblical Studies.[13] This Letter, in fact, clearly points out that the first eleven chapters of Genesis, although properly speaking not conforming to the historical method used by the best Greek and Latin writers or by competent authors of our time, do nevertheless pertain to history in a true sense, which however must be further studied and determined by exegetes; the same chapters, (the Letter points out), in simple and metaphorical language adapted to the mentality of a people but little cultured, both state the principal truths which are fundamental for our salvation, and also give a popular description of the origin of the human race and the chosen people. If, however, the ancient sacred writers have taken anything from popular narrations (and this may be conceded), it must never be forgotten that they did so with the help of divine inspiration, through which they were rendered immune from any error in selecting and evaluating those documents.

39. Therefore, whatever of the popular narrations have been inserted into the Sacred Scriptures must in no way be considered on a par with myths or other such things, which are more the product of an extravagant imagination than of that striving for truth and simplicity which in the Sacred Books, also of the Old Testament, is so apparent that our ancient sacred writers must be admitted to be clearly superior to the ancient profane writers.

[ChildOfGod]

I've held a sort of different line on this that I haven't expressed here. I DO NOT hold this as truth and DO NOT believe anyone else should hold this belief - it's just something I've concocted that may make sense to some... Does an author always start with the creation of the universe, tell every detail about what happened since up until the time of the birth of the main character? No. An author starts the story at the time that matters and we all make assumptions about things, history, the physical universe, etc., that happened before page 1. Like any author, perhaps God created the Universe with a past? That is he created it having had dinosaurs and meteor impacts and extinctions, etc.? Is that heretical?

I don't mind authors of fiction who presume a fictional past.

I am troubled by the thought of a God of Truth who creates a real universe with a fictional past.

I certainly wasn’t suggesting God created a fictional past. How can that which is measurable be fictional?

So if God created the universe with a big bang ("In the beginning, God created the heavens..."), let a few billion years of change occur, eventually assembling the Earth and then resumed the narrative ("...and the Earth."), would that be compatible with the point you were origionally trying to make? That omission of the history between "the heavens" and "the Earth" does not prove its absence?

I would be glad to represent that point for you, as that is exactly how I believe it went down.

That wasn't actually my take, but it is an interesting perspective that I'm glad to have read.

[smokadoro]

You bet! I am surprised that you don't have any knowledgeable and evangelical Catholics in your circle of friends. It's not like you live in the Bible Belt.

I had not known any knowledgeable/evangelical Catholics at all in my life up until discovering CPS. Nor have I ever known any Eastern Orthodox. That was one of the fascinating aspects to this particular community, that there are representatives of (probably all?) major... what's the way to phrase it without reigniting Catholics vs. Protestants again... branches of Christendom here. Folks who believe the whole teaching of their church and can defend it over and against other perspectives, often very persuasively. You, Del, in particular opened my eyes to Catholics by your posts throughout the years. We have lots of pew-warmer Catholics around here who go through the motions. (There's lots of Protestants who do that too... not saying that's just a Catholic thing.) I for one very much appreciate the opportunity to participate in such discussions.

[Del]

You bet! I am surprised that you don't have any knowledgeable and evangelical Catholics in your circle of friends. It's not like you live in the Bible Belt.

I had not known any knowledgeable/evangelical Catholics at all in my life up until discovering CPS. Nor have I ever known any Eastern Orthodox. That was one of the fascinating aspects to this particular community, that there are representatives of (probably all?) major... what's the way to phrase it without reigniting Catholics vs. Protestants again... branches of Christendom here. Folks who believe the whole teaching of their church and can defend it over and against other perspectives, often very persuasively. You, Del, in particular opened my eyes to Catholics by your posts throughout the years. We have lots of pew-warmer Catholics around here who go through the motions. (There's lots of Protestants who do that too... not saying that's just a Catholic thing.) I for one very much appreciate the opportunity to participate in such discussions.

Thank you Catholic faith & culture has suffered a lot in recent decades. Pew warmers who haven't ever met Christ, and their lives don't show any signs of living faith. It's no wonder that our children just wander out and never come back. We have neglected to evangelize our own.
=========================================

This fellowship of faith-sharing really is something truly special about CPS.

I was in the same position, when I joined in 2008. In my case, I had never met a Christian who was a convinced, believing Calvinist. I thought his theology was extinct among the living.

[michigander]

This lecture by John Lennox offers a perspective that holds to the inerrancy of scripture while allowing for an old earth view.

His lecture starts at 10 minutes, but the introduction is entertaining if you're so inclined to listen. I believe his lecture is only about 45 minutes and then there is a Q&A.

[Joshoowah]

This lecture by John Lennox offers a perspective that holds to the inerrancy of scripture while allowing for an old earth view.

His lecture starts at 10 minutes, but the introduction is entertaining if you're so inclined to listen. I believe his lecture is only about 45 minutes and then there is a Q&A.

Yeah, Lennox is good. There's also Polkinghorne, John Walton (world renowned expert in Ancient Near Eastern culture), Peter Enns, and so many others. To me, it just shows there is room for disagreement in this whole "all or nothing" type of debate. Our early church theologians disagreed and yet remained in communion. We could learn a lot from that.

Sent from my CPH1723 using Tapatalk

[michigander]

This lecture by John Lennox offers a perspective that holds to the inerrancy of scripture while allowing for an old earth view.

His lecture starts at 10 minutes, but the introduction is entertaining if you're so inclined to listen. I believe his lecture is only about 45 minutes and then there is a Q&A.

Yeah, Lennox is good. There's also Polkinghorne, John Walton (world renowned expert in Ancient Near Eastern culture), Peter Enns, and so many others. To me, it just shows there is room for disagreement in this whole "all or nothing" type of debate. Our early church theologians disagreed and yet remained in communion. We could learn a lot from that.

Sent from my CPH1723 using Tapatalk

I agree.

I think there's also value in being open minded for at least two other reasons:

1) It's not a good idea to be dogmatic about things that aren't central to our faith.
1.a) As science discovers new things we need to be open to adjusting our thinking without feeling like it's compromising our belief system (referene John Lennox's
discussion of the church's previous stance on an earth centered universe.)
2) Being dogmatic over issues that conflict with science unnecessarily projects the premise that in order to become a Christian one must adopt these (non-essential) beliefs (e.g. a young earth or even a Geometric Universe if this was 1500 years ago).

That's deeper than I have ever wanted to wade into a Theological discussion, and clearly I'm in over my head.

So to quote Forrest: "that's all I have to say about that".

[hugodrax]

Who lit the tuttle Beacon?