What did Christians believe before the gospels and epistles were written? It's anyone's guess if all our beliefs need to come from the Bible 🤷♂️
Discussion
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Dunno if you all gave that other thread any time, but wow...
I'm reading Trent Horn right now, and it seems to me the Catholic objection to Sola Scripture is mostly sophistry. Protestants claim everything should be tested based on what's in the written scripture. It's not that tradition has no role, it's just subordinate to apostolic teaching. The real difference is our definition of "apostle", which for Catholics includes people other than the original 12 + Paul.
So wrt to your question above, the early Christians trusted the apostles, the people who 1. were eyewitnesses, and 2. were directly sent out by Jesus. We continue to trust those same people, with the help of human reason applied in faith down the centuries.
Don’t trust, verify
But this is not the one:
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Sola scriptura is the idea that there was nothing Jesus had to offer prior to the very moment the revelations were written.
That is a fallacy.
Jesus spent a good time telling doctors of the law they were more keen to the letters of the law than living the law.
He made all things new. Protestants ignore that. The thing is, Jesus Christ Our Lord made all things new even before his teachings were written down.
That’s literally not what sola scriptura claims.
You’re not just stupid, you’re a liar.
Life is easy when you’re allowed to lie about everyone.
Your church promotes anal sex, by the way.
Life is easy when you’re allowed to lie about everyone.
I could say "You claim our Church promotes something you enjoy," but I'll refrain from committing to statements of which I am not certain.
Conversation with you is verging on entirely unproductive. Ad hominem and insults are a great way to get muted.
I’m curious, what’s your understanding of what Sola Scriptura means? It’s something I still am processing.
I think it's the idea that every doctrine should be tested by scripture, and that scripture is enough for salvation, not that there aren't secondary doctrines external to scripture.
Read the article. I’m most struck by the emphasis on exclusivity and infallibility. I wonder why there is such a strong focus on such things.
Probably in distinction to Catholicism, which is not exclusive. Over-emphasis of exclusivity leads to a lot of confusion I think, because protestants always say "sola" and then have to walk it back from the plain meaning of the term. The perspicuity of scripture is also an interesting term that can mean a lot of things.
Okay, so if that sola is softened to mean highest singular, infallible, authoritative element, not the only element in the set of infallible authoritative things in Christianity, that allows for other forms of lower authority.
What would you say those might be? The Early Church Fathers? Ecumenical councils?
I wouldn't say lower authorities are ever infallible, but yeah, councils, church fathers, pastors, theologians, scholars, individual reason, community, church discipline, prophecy (potentially).
That makes sense. I suppose even the term Protestant is defined in distinction to Catholicism.
Also, so many obscure theological terms… 🫣
Sola Scriptura is the radical claim that you’re not allowed to make things up.
You actually have to prove what tradition is, and the only inerrant proof that can be demonstrated to exist is the Bible.
Rome was making up brand new dogmas like the Treasury of Merit and Purgatory, and using them to fleece the masses out of their wealth. That’s the alternative to Sola Scriptura, an Antichrist who steals your money.
The big question for me when I try to look at things from a Protestant lens is how you determine what the correct scriptures and correct traditions are. Protestants and Catholics disagree on what books should be included in the Bible. The chain of teaching and tradition on the Protestant side seems rather murky between the 3rd century AD and the Reformation.
Trusting inherited tradition and scripture depends on a long game of historical telephone, and I find that chain is more consistent through history within the Catholic Church.
How do you determine what Scriptural translations, books, and doctrines are trustworthy amid a confusion of historical and contemporary claims?
Totally fair question, hence why I'm reading Trent Horn. But I think one of the core issues that divides Protestants and Catholics is the need for epistemic certainty. Catholics want everything nailed down, and apostolic succession does that for them. Protestants (while often resorting to bad arguments in order to gain a sense of certainty) should be more comfortable with uncertainty.
For example, what if we got the canonicity of James or Enoch wrong? Well, that's ok, other branches can have different opinions, but we believe in the same Jesus. This can of course lead to extreme branches like the liberal church, but apostasy is more a matter of disordered loves than doctrine anyway. Protestants rely on God's justice at the end of history for sorting out this messiness; Catholics rely on God's justice now through the Church for sorting it out. But neither approach really results in tidiness.
Catholics do like to have everything nailed down with precise distinctions. That's the main beef our Orthodox brethren have with us.
Catholics specifically (and I think all Christians broadly) love to live in tension between seemingly opposed claims. The Eucharist is really food but it's also really Jesus. The Bible is really written by humans in their own way, but it's also really the product of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We are really supposed to leave behind all they have in this world to follow Christ, but also the material world is really created good and is for our benefit.
It seems Protestants have their own flavor of tension with the nature of the church. Scripture is the source and end of the truths, but where does the canon of Scripture come from, and how can we be sure of its inerrancy?
nostr:nprofile1qqsf03c2gsmx5ef4c9zmxvlew04gdh7u94afnknp33qvv3c94kvwxgspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduq3xamnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7tpvfkx2tn0wfnszxmhwden5te0vd58y6tnw3cxjmrv9ehx7um5wgcjucm0d5w28rcn I understand that a point of agreement for most (but certainly not all) Christian churches is the doctrines proclaimed by the early ecumenical councils. How do you understand those councils and their teachings in the light of this discussion around the sources of faith?
The only way I can describe it is that those councils provide "clarity". I'm not sure if this undermines the protestant concept of the perspicuity of scripture (probably not, see 2 Peter 3:16) , but it seems to me that none of these confessions or councils are particularly innovative, only that they recognize truths already embedded in scripture (similar to how a constitution is descriptive rather than prescriptive).
This implies the protestant belief that any individual can access whatever truth is described by the Bible. But this doesn't mean your plumber can do it on his own in a "me and my Bible" sort of way. The individual needs resources in order to make a correct interpretation, some of which come from God through creation (reason, free time, access to scripture), and some of which come from God through the Spirit (faith, humility, a community of believers who co-labor with the individual). Councils are one of these resources.
Oh! I think I'm beginning to understand the nuance between our positions. I think the distinction between our positions on Scripture is that Scripture for you must be the root of anything believed on the level of intellectual assent of Faith. These would be dogmas, those things one must believe to be considered Christian.
Where we differ is that the Catholic position is that no dogma can contradict the Scriptures, but some things do exist not written in Scripture that also must be believed. In fact, in the Apostolic, that was the whole of the Faith. This is not to say that general revelation continues to this day, which is explicitly condemned.
Now that we do have Holy Scripture, does that for you imply a close to not only general revelation but also to any dogma not written, explicitly or implicitly?
Yes, you've got that exactly right. Everything that must be believed can be found in scripture. But then I'm hazy on what Catholics mean by "must". Does that mean there are certain doctrines exclusive to Catholic dogma that must be believed for salvation? Because if so, no protestant is saved (maybe the Orthodox would be). Or is it some other version of "must"? Because that starts to sound like Mormonism, which requires belief in the Book of Mormon in order to gain access to a kind of second-tier salvation. In their system, Christians are saved, just not rewarded as richly as Mormons.
Those things which must be believed are all the dogmas, those things solemnly declared as infallible in Church councils or in papal "ex cathedra" statements (very rare, BTW). A second tier of church teachings exist on the level of "must not oppose". The lowest level is theological opinion, which people do not bear obligation to believe, and on this level discussion is encouraged. I may be missing some level(s), but that's the gist.
It should be helpful to point out that belief is not what saves, but the grace of God, which the Church knows she does not control but cooperates with God as a conduit. I say this because an infant has no capacity to assent to a dogma, nor any young child for that matter, but if we are to believe that the promise is made to us and to our children (Acts 2:39), some way other than belief must exist to attain salvation.
Salvation goes beyond the immediate scope of the discussion, but it is a worthwhile detour.
All that to say, some things a person must believe if he is able to intellectually assent (capacity and knowledge of the subject), but the will and mercy of God is not limited to a person's ability to believe.
> Acts 2:39: "For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him"
Salvation, in the Catholic view, comes through God's free gift of faith to the soul, provided we willingly accept that gift and allow God's grace to work within us. That gift of faith is given in Baptism. So all baptized Christians have salvation open to them. The Church that Jesus founded, and its sacraments, is the privileged dispenser of additional grace which helps us along the way to cooperate with that gift of faith and allow God to do His work within us.
Yes, absolutely agree on that. Though Protestant, I practice infant baptism for my kids. But I guess the value of being Catholic would be that (in Catholic terms) you're in the least incorrect branch of the church, which most faithfully stewards God's grace. But of course once again the challenge becomes how you authenticate that. This is up to the individual believer, although of course unbelief does not invalidate authenticity.
Man! Infant baptism too?! You're not too far away, brother.
"Least incorrect," however technically correct literally, does imply the possibility for error. One Catholic belief is that the Church never errs, though her members may, a promise made by Christ in Caesarea Philipi. (Matt 16 supports this but is not immediately apparent and a bit of additional reasoning is needed to show it is true.)
I think I agree with most or all of what you said. Scripture is our primary baseline for truth, because that is the store of God's revelation.
Your point about needing resources to correctly interpret Scripture is well-taken. The next challenge that I can see, then, is discerning which faith communities are most likely to have the best interpretations to weigh against in your own faith journey.
The Catholic claim, of course, is that there has been a single unbroken instance of such community founded by Christ and continuing to the present day.
Yes, but I think you're conceding the point that there isn't a right or wrong branch of the church, just a spectrum of better/worse ones. Meaning Catholic tradition may be valuable, but is fallible, which is not how Catholics usually talk about Catholic dogma.
I don't want to completely concede the point. I think that without that unbroken line of tradition, you get thrown into a sea of epistemic uncertainty, because then at some point everyone is doing the same thing, reading the book and doing their best to interpret it in a vacuum.
The church that traces itself back to Christ Himself is on a different level, since it receives its Scriptural interpretation straight from the author. We would expect any church making that claim to teach with absolute authority, and we would judge the correctness of other faith communities by how closely they align with that main stem of tradition.
If no one can make that claim and back it up, then yes, I'd say that all Christian churches are fallible. But of course, I do think the Church of Rome correctly claims that unbroken succession.
Which of course brings us back to epistemic certainty as a presupposition of the Catholic faith. What justifies epistemic certainty being a premise?
This is probably where the finer points of the argument start to go beyond my present knowledge, but I can tell you how things look from my perspective.
If I have the choice between two churches, one of which claims to have privileged and certain access to the Truth, and another which claims to have access to the Truth, but without the same degree of certainty, I'm going to go with the former, so long as it can provide sufficient evidence to support that claim. The Roman Church's claim to magisterial authority, per se, is not in itself why I remain Catholic (I am a cradle Catholic), but the weight of evidence suggesting it is the church Christ founded makes me trust its claim to authority.
More broadly, I am convicted that there is an absolute truth out there to be known, even if it can be difficult to discover. I know some schools of thought doubt the possibility of epistemic certainty in and of itself, but I've never found those ultimately convincing.
So I hold that there's a truth to be known and that there is evidence pointing to the Catholic Church as the keeper of that truth, and so I trust its Tradition and Magisterium.
Does that get at what you're thinking of regarding epistemic certainty as a premise? Do you think it is not a justified premise?
> never found this ultimately convincing
Neither are they absolutely certain of it, necessarily by their own position 🤣
Interesting, while I do believe in absolute truth as well, I think there are many things we aren't given to know about (angels for one), that are hidden from the church by design. Many sects that claim certainty about the spiritual world are cults (mormonism, prosperity gospel). So I'm suspicious of claims of certainty, especially when faith (the substance of things not seen) is such an emphasis in Scripture. I can't comment on the reliability of Catholic tradition, it's something I hope to read more about.
you can know truth by results
if someone says x+y=z and it doesnt, then that is not true
the bible is full of falsehoods when interpreted literally as are most ancient texts
alas you have muted me lol
There is a long history of Scriptural interpretation that deals with the question of how it ought to be taken. An argument like "the creation narrative in Genesis is literally false" doesn't really address what Christians claim about Scripture (depending on which schools of Christian thought you ask, anyway).
dont throw out the baby with the bath water
how do you reconcile with your eyes vs what is written in the bible? the vast existence of the universe, apparent history of so much other life, planets, faiths?
do you know god? or do you know what some have written of god?
there is a 'long' history of people trying to understand our existence
the bible aligned with scientific knowledge is much more interesting
What do you mean by that?
I've never found the Bible and science to be incompatible. Personally, I find it evident that we live in an old, vast, and complex universe, as we've come to understand through scientific inquiry.
I also hold that God is the ground of all being, that He actively sustains all that is, and that He works in and through created things for the good of His creation.
I find both beliefs to be mutually compatible.
the bible taken literally does not always match science exactly, eg genesis, but becomes interesting when you see science does align in some way like floods, hominids etc
when you look at the bible as a human oral tradition then written it is remarkable it has the facts it does, given mans flaws
i like to imagine the view point of the people in the bible when trying to understand it, as what did people then know and understand about the world around them and how that might affect what they thought
science also offers tremendously deeper understanding about principles in the bible
It depends on what principles you're looking for in the Bible. Science doesn't have much to say about theology.
This is so hard for secularists to fathom, for whatever reason. It helps at least a little when they see the list of Catholic clergy who have made some of the most important scientific discoveries and authored the greatest theories. Georges Lemaître I think is one of the biggest for our day and age.
secularists often throw the baby out with the bath water, they usually have misunderstandings to say the least but so too do many religious types and are prone to some absurd quackery, i think both are actually after you look at covid and some atheists, sam harris for example
True. Quakery comes from all over. The error seems to be similar: the primary source of belief needs to say something about the other domain of thought.
Science can't say what's right or wrong, and religion doesn't say how electricity, gravity, and computers work.
i disagree as science does say what is right and wrong with facts tho you are obviously refering to morals which i am sure it can go into too
either is free to talk on the other
science is or can be a religion, tho obviously this point depends how we define either
What is moral, what is good, and what is beautiful are things that science can't judge. Science can observe that certain things result in preferred outcomes.
For example, by science one may observe the law of reciprocity results in better social cohesion, but science doesn't judge whether social cohesion is good per se. That would be the person's own judgment that comes from somewhere other than the scientific method. Science can go further to observe that people in society generally prefer cohesion, that the longevity of those people may be higher, that suffering may be lower, etc. if the law of reciprocity is followed by the members of the society, but it cannot judge whether those are good things. Good is a human element one imposes upon science, a presupposition when once engages in the scientific method.
i disagree, as science can talk to anything that may be measured or maybe better said known
good and morals are better defined as that which is survival and science can talk a lot on survival
the bible talks extensively on the topic of survival, infact moral lessons go hand in hand with it
i do agree that human intelligence generally limits its view point, but luckily it is not the only intelligence
science has something to say about everything
much theology would be in psychology, but i would say true theology and science are one and the same
science is the knowledge and study of existence and existence is or of god, theology is the study of god and so also existence
i see religions (particularly earlier) as forms of science, catholics have particularly intertwined the 2
i see truth as a path to god, i theorize reality has fundamental lies to it too
You're right, we Catholics view all fields of knowledge as working together in pursuit of truth.
The way I, and I think many others, commonly make the distinction is that science qua science usually refers to studies of nature the material world. Theology is the study of God specifically, and together with philosophy deals with spiritual realities more broadly. So there's typically a spiritual/material split between theology and the natural sciences.
I actually think we'd do well to quit pushing theology and natural science into opposite corners as if they're opponents in a boxing ring. We should let them work together more.
exactly
The Bible is inspired but it was also written by humans in a human way, which means many parts of it likely came out of oral tradition and such like you describe.
My personal suspicion (and not Christian doctrine by any means) is that the flood narrative in Genesis and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah refer to ancient cataclysmic events that can be understood through a naturalistic lens. Other things, like the crossing of the Red Sea and the sun standing still for Joshua and the Israelites are more likely miracles as we would commonly recognize them.
Either way, God is at work throughout.
I would say I know God through what I've been taught, through what I've read in Scripture, and through personal experience.
I don't think it is true that faith necessarily implies uncertainty. As I understand it, faith is a kind of spiritual perception granted by God. It is a different certainty than that which we obtain by experiencing things through our senses, but not, as far as I know, a belief in the face of inherent doubt.
I think it's also worth pointing out that cults defend their claims of certainty by attacking dissidents. An institution with legitimate truth claims would allow people to freely come to an understanding of that truth, which is indeed what the Church does.
There are also surprisingly few things the Catholic Church binds believers to hold as true. Much of the body of belief is subject to ongoing refinement over time.
Part of this conversation forked from a reply I was not included or I just simply never got the notification for resulting in hours of conversation I have missed.
this conversation keeps coming across my feed, and im so tempted to speak. but nostr:npub1jlrs53pkdfjnts29kveljul2sm0actt6n8dxrrzqcersttvcuv3qdjynqn is doing such a great job of staying measured and respectful. going to honor that and stay zipped.
I want the smoke lol where they at
He's a rare breed, I gotta say 🤣 I hope you say the same of me
As an aside, these are the sorts of conversations I love having. These are real and meaningful.
Same here, appreciate the sharpening brother
I do love some good interfaith dialogue
I like this tension, or really a harmony, between things as a real place to live. Even energy itself only does work in a gradient (electricity flows only with a voltage differential, things only roll down hill toward lower states of potential energy, high pressure pushes toward lower, etc.)
The virtues are the healthy mean between vices (courage balances recklessness with cowardice, and liberality balances frivolity and avarice). So too with the Faith do we find a tension or harmony between things: God is One yet also Three, we humans are animal yet also spiritual, and The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us yet is eternally begotten of the Father.
I'll have to think on this more.
Hey! I'm always glad to see people engage with the issue, regardless if you agree.
We can both agree that all ought be tested against Scripture, but where we might not is if anything outside of Scripture must be believed.
In the Gospel of John (21:25), it is written that not all of what Christ did and said were written down, for it would fill the libraries of the world. This definitely leaves room for things to which Christ intended for us to hold fast but were yet not written down explicitly (2 Thess. 2:15, "...either by word of mouth or by our letter").
Some things remained oral after the Apostolic Age, and this would include things like the nature of Christ (one person in two natures, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, etc.), the Trinity explicitly stated (three persons in one being), etc.
Holy Scripture is the highest but not the only authoritative element of Holy Tradition.
Yeah, and I haven't even finished the first chapter of his book yet so we'll see where it takes me. I'm glad I'm not a theologian, because this stuff is so hard to parse!
I find Trent's approach level headed, but I agree that he sometimes goes deeper or more complex than absolutely necessary. I have too many books already on my "gotta read this sometime" list, but his 'Why We’re Catholic' should probably be on it. Also, Jimmy Akin's 'The Bible Is a Catholic Book' is another I need to read someday.
The Orthodox Church would say, they believed what we believe today.
That's the definition of 'orthodox', right teaching. The one exception I can think of is their stance on divorce and remarriage. Where the early Church always forbade remarriage, the modern Orthodox Churches say it's okay after an episcopal blessing.
whats a genetic reason for monogamy?
the bible says belief does not come from it