How can "sola scriptura" be possible?

An (undocumented) quote by Matt:

The advantage of sola scriptura is that it, via proper exegetical study, refutes the above heretical views, and supports the views that are Biblically based. It weeds out false doctrine such as that contained within the RCC, Anglican, Orthodox, and many others that you stated above. Lest you become offended, Matt, if I thought that either Anglican or Orthodox had all the correct doctrine then I would convert to either one of those religions wouldn't I? But they don't. They hold to various false doctrines. Doctrines which can be proven wrong via sola scriptura.

Since (as Brian as noted), we are more familiar with RCC doctrine, it is easy to take such doctrine and hold it up to the standard of Scripture and see whether it will stand or fall. In most cases it falls. Purgatory is a good example of that. What does the Bible say about this?

Isaiah 8:20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

"No light" is a strong phrase. It appears that (generally speaking) there is no light in the RCC, for when their doctrines are tested via sola scriptura, they fall. They cannot stand. The RCC do not speak "according to this Word," that is the Bible, as this verse is applicable to our times today.

 

Yeah, my point when I read the post. God breaks his own command by having the Ark of the Covenant built and the two Seraphim (image of them) with their wings out streched over the ark. It is then placed in the Holy of Holies and worshiped. Interesting.

 

I believe a fairly representative example of mainstream Orthodox teaching is offered by Sophia Fotopoulou: We have no historical data to indicate how long the Mother of God remained on earth after the ascension of Christ into heaven, nor when, where, or how she died, for the Gospels say nothing of this. The foundation for the feast of the Dormition is to be found in a sacred tradition of the Church dating from apostolic times, apocryphal writings, the constant faith of the People of God, and the unanimous opinion of the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church of the first thousand years of Christianity.

So with that I really have no reason to deny what the Church has always taught and believed. You may very well find fathers that speak contradictory to this, but generally, overall the Church fathers collectively teach this. And just b/c the earliest know writings aren’t until the end of the second century doesn’t mean it wasn’t believed earlier. Arguing from silence doesn’t work.

the_dormition_of_theotokos

In XC
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There is no patristic evidence of the Assumption of Mary until 200-300 years after this occured. It would have been an incredible testimony and confirmation of the truth of Christianity...except no one mentioned it. There are a slew of writings about Mary that develop later and they do not mention it either.
To this day, there are dramatically different accounts. It never happened. There is not an argument from antiquity.
Now back to images. The synagogues did not contain images of men. Can anyone name one archeologist or historian that contends they did?
Is everyone aware of the strong patristic argument against them..all FROM antiquity if you will.

 

God does no such thing. That is a blasphemous statement indeed.
What Agnus shows is a complete ignorance of the Ten Commandments.

Exodus 20:3-5 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

It is interesting to note that when I grew up as a Catholic, the children's catechism books stated the Ten Commandments by leaving out verses 4 to 6, making verse 7 the second command, and verse 8 the third command. Thus when you get down to verse 17--"Thou shalt not covet" you only had 9 commandments. To compensate for that they split that commandment in two: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors wife, and thou shalt not covet thy neighbors goods as two separate commands: 9 and 10.
They could not have verse 4-6 in the Ten Commandments knowing that they broke them every day.

What do these commands say?
Exodus 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
--The object of the command is Jehovah. God is speaking of himself. Idolatry is sin. You shall have no other God's before Jehovah.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
--Thou shalt not make unto the any graven image or even any likeness thereof..of what? Of God of course. Finish the statement. Jehovah is speaking of Himself. He is the object here. Idolatry is allowing anything to come between you and God. The worship of another god is idolartry, whether it is made in the name of Jehovah or the name of another god is sin. Jehovah says you shall not make an image of me. You shall not make an image of anything ....continue....

Exodus 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
--that you would bow down to, that you would worship in any way, that you would honor, venerate, adore, or serve. All of this is sin. Why.
Because God is a jealous God. He covets or desires the love, 100% of it, of His children. He will not share that love, that devotion, that worship with another such as Mary, any other saint, any other icon, image etc.

Thus God says: do not make images of gods, even images of Jehovah.
Do not bow down before them.

On a regular basis the RCC violates this command.

The Ark and the cherubim were not images of any god. They were images that God commanded Israel to make to remind Israel of the presence of God. Cherubim were fashioned after angels. They stood on a box like structure, hardly an image of a god. No one bowed to them. No one worshiped them. To make this accusation is blasphemous.

In our house I have pictures, many images of my wife and children. They are images. I do not worship my family.
One thing I will not permit is a picture or image of Christ. Why? Christ is God.
It is a violation of the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not have any graven images or likeness thereof.

 

Matt said...

It stuns the mind. Simply beyond belief.


Mike

 

Guess God broke His own law, then, when He became Incarnate as Jesus Christ. Feel free to stone Him if you wish. I'd rather not.

That was my point above, Mike, BTW. Yes, it does stun the mind. Utterly. Completely. That's the Incarnation for you. Glad that you're beginning to see the Truth at last.

 

Hardly. It's the crux of the matter, and it's that which you consitently fail to address. Doubtless you will say that it's thundered from the Scriptures, much as you claim of the equally unscriptural doctrine of sola fide. But it ain't there. Not you, not anyone, can adduce a single verse of Scripture to substantiate your wild claims

 

I was referring to CARM's claims, not SS itself

Or it demonstrates CARM's lack of ability to string together a coherent argument.

 

But they did contain images right?

In XC
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Look I don't believe God was contradictory. I'm making a point you keep quoting "do not make an image either from anything in the earth or in Heaven above" Then you say that this includes God. Well, lets follow that logic. Angels are in heaven. They are creatures of heaven. They are on the Ark of the Covenant. The ark of the Covenant is in the Holy of Holies. The prayers of the high priest is directed to the ark with God in mind. And image is made of angels that are creation. God made an error. Or did he? He doesn't want us worshiping anything else that is not him! Idols were just that other gods. But what about things that represent God? Not to worship them but to have them as a tool to keep us in mind of God. Surely the ark was such an instrument. and also the seat of God in the temple. You keep quoting verses that say don't make an idol I'm sure there is a verse that says don't make an image of God. quote that.

 

Not undocumented, but taken from an email I sent to my in-laws. All of it is my own work, apart from that which I correctly attributed to Doubting Thomas, and all of it has been posted on the BB before

Expand, please. What do you mean by "proper exegetical study". Study undertaken by you? The aforementioned Methodist? Or a Pentecostal?

Which one? The one with the DCs or the one without?

What is meant by that phrase? What in particular is "the testimony"? In the age of the New Covenant, I would say that that equates to Apostolic Tradition. Doubtless you will say otherwise. Who is to judge between our divergent interpretations of the Scriptures? I don't trust mine to be right and neither do I trust yours, since we are both sinful creatures. But I do trust the word of Christ's Church on the matter since that is in accord with His own promises as recorded in Scripture (the Discourse at the Last Supper according to St John as referred to by me above).

 

Also, this is the same hang up a lot of Muslims have with christianity. Through out crosses, pictures of Jesus, etc....

 

I do. At least the Muslims understand the concept properly.

 

I already did.

Exodus 20:4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

Why is it so hard to understand?

 

Yes, study undertaken by me, and everyone else who is interested in finding out the truth. Listen, when Ireneus makes the absurd claim that Christ lived until he was 80 years of age, do you think that you have the ability to dig into the Scriptura, and using sola scriptura, invalidate his claim? It really isn't that difficult, and it shows how unreliable the ECF's writings were.

Use a concordance. That is what a person would do using "Scripture only." He would then find the word "testimony" is used often, in fact a multitude of times, much of it referring to the Word of God. Read Psalm 119, where the author often uses the word "testimony" as a synonym for God's Word. Don't try to fit your pre-conceived theology into the Bible. Let the Bible speak for itself.

That is not in the Bible is it? The fact that testimony is equated to "the Word" is in the Bible, makes my interpretation much more viable. You are only reading your theology into the Bible. You are not letting the Bible speak for itself.

I trust the Word of God itself to be right. It bears record of itself. And that is what I mean by proper study. You want to compare it with Tradition and the ECF, both of which have strange ideas. I compare it with what the Bible has to say in other places. The Bible is harmonized without contradiction. There is no need to compare it with others, or hold others at higher esteem than even the Bible as it so seems.

 

You mean "Irenaeus"? Could you please cite your source (not someone else writing, but from the horses mouth...authentic)...I've done multiple Google and Yahoo word searches for "Ireneaus" "Christ" "lived" "80 years" and have came up with nothing.

In XC
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What about the different traditions of Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, other Orthodox churches? Who is right there if it's traditions we should go by? Which one of these churches/groups should we rely on for interpretation?

 

I'll let Matt answer himself, but I'd like to give my .02.

The Eastern Orthodox Church with consists of the Patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandra, all of which keep the faith of the First Seven Ecumenical Councils, all keep the original Creed and use the same Liturgy.

The Roman Catholic Church consists of the Patriarchate of Rome and she too keeps the faith of the First Seven Ecumenical Councils, only Rome broke away from the other Patriarchates mentioned above around 1054. Rome uses a slightly different Creed and I'm not sure of their Liturgy. Rome recognizes other Councils that the Eastern Orthodox doesn't.

The "other" Orthodox Churches, you must mean the "Oriental Orthodox". They split around the year 500 over the Church teaching in regard to Christ's Humanity and His Divinity. The Oriental Orthodox recognizes only the First 3 Ecumenical Councils. But some Oriental Churches have recently came back to the Eastern Orthodox Church, especially the ones in Africa.

Then in the 1500's Protestantism is hatched from the egg of Rome.

From there YOU have to decide by doing your own study, reading of Scripture and praying to determine which one is authentic. Christ promised to build a Church, protect the Church and remind the Church of all things until the end of the ages.

Was the Church in complete chaos until the Reformers figured it all out? Were the Oriental Orthodox correct in denying the Churches teaching on Christology? Does the Roman Catholic Church look like the authentic Church in light of Papal claims of infallibility and other doctrines born from Rome. Has the Eastern Orthodox Church kept the faith and preserved the faith since the beginning? Or are the Churches of Christ the NT Church or the Landmark Baptists, are they the NT Church preserved by Christ.

It's questions that no one can answer for you and answers that can't be answered via a Message Board. It took me every part of 4 years to wade through this...but I'm glad I did, that's for sure.

In XC
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Regarding the red -- I looked high and low when I was doing my comparison a few years ago and you will not find one within Orthodoxy. My ultimate conclusion was after much research on different issues is it would be impossible for them to accomplish. This would require unity of agreement, which frankly they do not have on many issues. You can research many questions and find two different answers, none of which are authoritative. They will say these issues are not important. I basically concluded that "important" is defined by what we can all agree on. Ask an Orthodox if artificial contraception is okay -- you will get two answers. Ask if Mary was sinless -- you will get two answers. Ask if Mary was assumed into heaven -- they will say we believe this but it isn't dogma. Ask if baptism removes the bondage of original sin -- you will get two answers.

Last fall the Russian Orthodox delegation walked out of the Catholic-Orthodox theological talks not over disputes with the Catholics, but with their fellow Orthodox they are in communion with.

Many deep theological questions are answered with "it's mystery" (which I personally find okay) but with a disdain for those who probe more deeply or are challenged to do so by those who question. Although I did find one good article by an Orthodox clergyman who stated that as more Protestants had become interested in Orthodoxy they were having to come up with much better answers than "it's mystery" so perhaps more definitive answers are to come.

But if you're waiting for an "authoritative" body of knowledge that will explain the Orthodox position like the Catholics have in the cathechism -- I wouldn't hold my breath. I don't believe at this point in their existence it is possible for them to do.