S-word wrote:If you wish to enter into a discussion on this topic, please feel free to do so, if not,
I will continue using the Bible as the authoritative source whereby to challenge the false theology of the catholic church and her daughter bodies that were spawned by her false teachings.
You have not offered anything in the way of substantiating your claims. It is clear from the outset that you regard the Cathoilic Church and Her teachings as rubbish. Being a former Catholic, I find your lack of understanding quite surprising.
You claim the Bible is an authoritative source. Who has given this Bible its authoritativeness? You?
Christ established a Church, gave Her His authority and then the Church by virtue of this authority, wrote the NT Scriptures and canonized the Bible.
The Catholic Church canonized the Bible at the Council of Rome 382 A.D. presided by Pope Damasus.
Taken from another forum (credit to Roll Tide):
Beginning in the first century, we know that the Apostles were still continuing to write scripture up until the death of St. John, around 100 AD. While many Christian communities had access to the four Gospel accounts, many other New Testament scriptures were only available in select locations. Few groups had access to *everything* that's now available in the New Testament, because the persecution of the church made it difficult to get a hold of all of this content. Remember, there were underground Christian communities stretching from Egypt to France, and any outside contact risked discovery. In any case, the first couple of generations of Christians actually had something BETTER than the Bible anyway... they had the living Apostles to teach them, and their immediate successors. (We have some of the writings of those first generation Christian leaders, btw, such as St. Ignatius and St. Clement, and they are KEY historical sources that reveal how early Christians practiced the faith and how they interpreted what scripture they had.) Nevertheless, most Christian beliefs were passed down through ORAL tradition, just as the Old Testament was a compilation of ORAL tradition that was generally only written down MUCH later (with some exceptions).
By the second century, the persecution of Christianity had died down just a little with the emergence of the Five Good Emperors. Nevertheless, Christianity was still in hiding. The bigger problem beginning to occur was the fractioning of Christianity into seriously heretical subgroups due to their isolation and the inability to agree on precisely what really WAS scripture! The lack of communication was causing radically differing beliefs to crop up in some of the more isolated locations. These were not small differences, like we see between Catholics and Protestants today, but heresies so great that almost all modern Christian groups would condemn them, such as Gnosticism, Docetism, and Arianism.
What were these heresies? Well, Gnosticism believed that the Bible contained "hidden wisdom" that only an elite scholarly few could interpret. They also added many, many forged books into their particular canon of the Bible. We know that they are forged because we can demonstrate that most were written at *least* 100 or more years after the books of the Bible that we use today. For this sect, the ONLY way to heaven was to crack the Bible code, and there was no use for the saving power of Jesus OR morality in this version of Christianity. ANYONE from Mother Teresa to Adolf Hitler was eligible to make it to heaven, if they could JUST crack that hidden code. (It's fairly obvious why this sect was condemned.) Docetists often went hand-in-hand with the Gnostics. They believed God was SO great, that he could NEVER humiliate Himself by becoming an actual human, because everything physical of this world (the flesh) was purely evil. In this version of Christianity, God had made a horribly flawed and imperfect world that was essentially a mistake. Only things from heaven, or the spiritual realm, were good. So... God created the *illusion* of Jesus being human, but He wasn't actually. It was just an apparition of God, and not a separate person. Further, because it was actually God, the death of Jesus on the Cross was a mere illusion that had NO real meaning. God created the *illusion* of suffering, but did not actually suffer Himself. Therefore, according to Docetists, we never really obtained salvation. Again, it should seem obvious why this belief was deemed heretical. The final and most problematic heresy was Arianism. This was a belief that was almost *opposite* of the Docetists. They believed that Jesus was simply a *normal* human being that God adopted as His Son. He had no special powers, aside from being a prophet. Essentially, the Arians completely deny the Trinity. They are similar in their beliefs about the nature of God to Jews, Muslims, and Jehovah's Witnesses. It took the Catholic (Catholic, of course, meaning "universal") Council of Nicea in 325 AD, which was a council that included representatives from all Christian groups worldwide, to declare this belief false.
Well, Christians had to take measures to counter their own rising factionalism. Remember that at this time many people already considered Christians just a tiny sect of an already small religion - Judaism. Were Christianity to fracture even more, it would eventually disintegrate from a lack of any core beliefs or structure. Fortunately, the Apostles had appointed bishops, presbyters (priests), and deacons as their immediate successors. Bishops especially took on an important role, because they would travel to meet with other bishops, share scriptures with each other that other regions might not yet be aware of, look after the well-being of their communities (and ask for help from others if necessary), and just generally kept each other on the same page. This universal church almost immediately became known as "catholic", referring to the universal beliefs that all Christians had to acknowledge in order to be genuinely considered Christian. To NOT be Catholic was to be Gnostic, Docetist, or Arian (among other sects). Again, these are all groups that would be widely condemned even by Protestants today. Without the crucial work of these early bishops, the Christian church might have fragmented out of existence.
Now, although all of the books in the canon that we presently use now existed, there was WIDE debate over which to use. A LARGE number of communities rejected Revelations, for example, along with a few others we currently use. MOST used the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Epistle of Barnabas, which are books no longer considered scripture today. There were other categories of books as well. Some were clear forgeries that consisted of poorly written folk tales. For example, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas purported to discuss the childhood of Jesus, complete with temper tantrums and a Jesus who routinely killed his schoolteacher out of anger with His powers, and then had to routinely raise him from the dead when an angry Joseph would come scold him. Some books, like the Didache, were *legitimate* historical Christian books that taught a LOT about how to practice Christianity, but were not necessary for salvation, and were NOT considered inspired. Still others were the forgeries of the groups such as the Gnostics. The problem with these is that some of them *seemed* genuine, and so some, like the Gospel of Thomas, were used by Christian communities throughout this period. Although some books, like the four Gospels, were pretty settled, MUCH debate remained about the rest. The leadership of the bishops and their oral knowledge, passed down from the Apostles, still seemed the best way to determine Christian doctrine.
When we get to the third century, the persecutions reach their peak. Several emperors persecute Christians mercilessly, including Diocletian. This is the period where you REALLY start seeing people being thrown to the lions in the arena, for example. Some consensus had arisen over the Gospels and most of the Letters of Paul, but the other letters and Revelation still remained in doubt (as does the authenticity of one of Paul's letters). The Didache, Shepherd of Hermas, and Epistle of Barnabas were generally still used by most Christians as if they were scripture. However, Arianism was growing, and several Gnostic texts were treated as if they were scripture, especially in Egypt, North Africa, and parts of the Middle East (most especially the Gospel of Thomas). Most Christians had at least HEARD of all of these books now, although they often weren't sure of which ones to use. This culminates at the beginning of the fourth century with Constantine and the Edict of Toleration. Finally, in 313, it was legal to be a Christian. The problem was... which TYPE of Christian. A consensus needed to be reached on precisely what were the MINIMUM beliefs necessary in order to call one's self a Christian. So, the Council of Nicea was called, and all the Christian bishops attended. They agreed to abide by the decisions of the council. This is where the Nicene Creed was developed, which formulates the basic beliefs of virtually all Christian groups today (whether they recognize the creed officially or not). Arianism was officially rejected, and most Arian bishops fell in line with the Catholic ones. STILL, however, there was NO Bible and no accepted canon, although it was now clear that this issue would have to be settled as well. The first step came when the Bishop of Rome (the pope) declared, for the first time, the canon of scripture that we see Catholics use today at the Council of Rome in 382 AD. Here is the actual decree:
"Likewise it has been said: Now indeed we must treat of the divine Scriptures, what the universal Catholic Church accepts and what she ought to shun.The order of the Old Testament begins here: Genesis one book, Exodus one book, Leviticus one book, Numbers one book, Deuteronomy one book, Josue Nave one book, Judges one book, Ruth one book, Kings four books, Paraleipomenon two books, Psalms one book, Solomon three books, Proverbs one book, Ecclesiastes one book, Canticle of Canticles one book, likewise Wisdom one book, Ecclesiasticus one book (also known as Sirach). Likewise the order of the Prophets. Isaias one book, Jeremias one book (at this time, Baruch was lumped in with Jeremiah),with Ginoth, that is, with his lamentations, Ezechiel one book,Daniel one book, Osee one book, Micheas one book, Joel one book, Abdias one book, Jonas one book, Nahum one book, Habacuc one book, Sophonias one book, Aggeus one book, Zacharias one book, Malachias one book. Likewise the order of the histories. Job one book, Tobias one book (also known as Tobit),Esdras two books, Esther one book, Judith one book, Machabees two books. Likewise the order of the writings of the New and eternal Testament, which only the holy and Catholic Church supports. Of the Gospels, according to Matthew one book, according to Mark one book, according to Luke one book, according to John one book. The Epistles of Paul [the apostle] in number fourteen. To the Romans one, to the Corinthians two, to the Ephesians one, to the Thessalonians two, to the Galatians one, to the Phillipians one, to the Colossians one, to Timothy two, to Titus one, to Philemon one, to the Hebrews one. Likewise the Apocalypse of John, one book. And the Acts of the Apostles one book. Likewise the canonical epistles in number seven. Of Peter the Apostle two epistles, of James the Apostle one epistle, of John the Apostle one epistle, of another John, the presbyter, two epistles, of Jude the Zealut, the Apostle one epistle."
Pope Damasus (reign A.D. 366-384),Decree of Council of Rome, The Canon of Scripture(A.D. 382),in DEN,33
That decree was then confirmed by much of the rest of the Catholic Church at the regional Council of Hippo in 393 AD. The Catholic bishops were the ones that were keeping Christian doctrine on the same page. They were the ones that had to be turned to for a decision in the matter (and confirmed by the head of the church, the Bishop of Rome, the Pope). While certainly it was the Holy Spirit that inspired the scriptures, it was also the Holy Spirit that *inspired* the Catholic Church to compile the canon and make sure that the correct books were contained within:
"Besides the canonical Scriptures, nothing shall be read, in the church under the title of divine writings.'. The canonical books are:---Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, the four books of Kings, the two books of Paraleipomena (Chronicles), Job, the Psalms of David, the five books of Solomon (this includes Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus), the twelve books of the (Minor) Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah (including Baruch), Daniel, Ezekiel, Tobias, Judith, Esther, two books of Esdras, two books of the Maccabees. The books of the New Testament are:---the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen Epistles of S. Paul, one Epistle of S. Paul to the Hebrews, two Epistles of S. Peter, three Epistles of S. John, the Epistle of S. James, the Epistle of S. Jude, the Revelation of S. John. Concerning the confirmation of this canon, the transmarine Church shall be consulted."
Council of Hippo, Canon 36 (A.D. 393), in HCC,2:400
The decree was even FURTHER confirmed by the Catholic Church at the Third Council of Carthage in 397 AD:
"[It has been decided] that nothing except the Canonical Scriptures should be read in the church under the name of the Divine Scriptures. But the Canonical Scriptures are:Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Josue, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, Paraleipomenon two books, Job, the Psalter of David, five books of Solomon (this includes Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus), twelve books of the Prophets, Isaias, Jeremias (including Baruch), Daniel, Ezechiel, Tobias, Judith, Esther, two books of Esdras, two books of the Maccabees. Moreover, of the New Testament: Four books of the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles one book, thirteen epistles of Paul the Apostle, one of the same to the Hebrews, two of Peter, three of John, one of James, one of Jude, the Apocalypse of John."
Council of Carthage III,Canon 47(A.D. 397),in DEN,39-40
Although a few people did express some doubts, the canon was not further challenged until the Reformation. In Catholicism, points of doctrine are not formally defined until they are challenged or under attack by some outside group. The Ecumenical Council of Florence reaffirmed the canon of scripture in 1442 as a constant teaching of the church for over 1000 years.
Finally, at the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church defined the canon of scripture INFALLIBLY so that it would never be challenged again. This does NOT mean that the church did not already hold to that canon of scripture. It simply means that it now felt the need to reaffirm it for all time.
Here is the decree of the Council of Trent in 1546:
Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures
"The sacred and holy, ecumenical, and general Synod of Trent,—lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, the Same three legates of the Apostolic See presiding therein,—keeping this always in view, that, errors being removed, the purity itself of the Gospel be preserved in the Church; which (Gospel), before promised through the prophets in the holy Scriptures, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, first promulgated with His own mouth, and then commanded to be preached by His Apostles to every creature, as the fountain of all, both saving truth, and moral discipline; and seeing clearly that this truth and discipline are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand; (the Synod) following the examples of the orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety, and reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament—seeing that one God is the author of both —as also the said traditions, as well those appertaining to faith as to morals, as having been dictated, either by Christ's own word of mouth, or by the Holy Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church by a continuous succession.
And it has thought it meet that a list of the sacred books be inserted in this decree, lest a doubt may arise in any one's mind, which are the books that are received by this Synod. They are as set down here below:
Of the Old Testament: the five books of Moses, to wit, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Josue, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two of Paralipomenon, the first book of Esdras, and the second which is entitled Nehemias; Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, the Davidical Psalter, consisting of a hundred and fifty psalms; the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaias, Jeremias, with Baruch; Ezechiel, Daniel; the twelve minor prophets, to wit, Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Micheas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggaeus, Zacharias, Malachias; two books of the Machabees, the first and the second.
Of the New Testament: the four Gospels, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the Acts of the Apostles written by Luke the Evangelist; fourteen epistles of Paul the apostle, (one) to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, (one) to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to Timothy, (one) to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews; two of Peter the apostle, three of John the apostle, one of the apostle James, one of Jude the apostle, and the Apocalypse of John the apostle.
But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema. Let all, therefore, understand, in what order, and in what manner, the said Synod, after having laid the foundation of the Confession of faith, will proceed, and what testimonies and authorities it will mainly use in confirming dogmas, and in restoring morals in the Church."
This goes a long way at illustrating the KEY role that the Catholic Church, through the pope and its bishops, played in the formation of the canon of scripture.
Given the fact that the Catholic Church did indeed canonize the Bible from Her authority given to Her by Christ (Mt 16: 18-19), how does it follow that your claims that Catholicism's teachings are false?
Furthermore, it is written that the Church,
not the Bible, is the
"pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim 3: 15). How can you use the Bible to challenge the Catholic Church's teachings when as matter-of-fact, the Bible was not even around when the Apostles started to
orally preach the Good News?
