The majority of non-Catholic Christians who view the Bible as the sole authority on matters of faith and morals also believe in the sufficiency of scripture to bring the individual Christian to salvation. The doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture states that an individual Christian, by opening the Bible and reading the words on the pages, will have enough information to be able to figure out how to make it into heaven.
The sufficiency of scripture presupposes it's completeness and therein lies a major difference between Catholics and non-Catholics; the former insist that not everything Christian is explicit in scripture and the latter insists as a matter of dogma, that everything Christian must necessarily be.
There are also many other things which Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written. (John 21:15)
In the closing sentence of the Gospels, St. John tells us that only a very small portion of what Jesus did was actually written down.
He presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he had suffered, appearing to them during fourty day and speaking about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)
In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke tells us of the forty day period between the resurrection and the ascension and how Jesus appeared to the apostles, teaching them about the kingdom of God. What exactly Jesus said about the kingdom of God though, is not stated - at least not explicitly.
From these two passages, we see that the Bible clearly states, beyond a shadow of a doubt in fact, that it does not contain everything Jesus did nor everything he said. Therine lies another glaring difference between Catholics and non-Catholic Christians; the former believe that as Jesus is God, everything he did and said while among us as a human being, whether written in the Bible or not, is important. The latter however, must necessarily believe that only the small portion of the things which Jesus did and said, that which has been recorded in the Bible, is important.
Catholics know the things which Jesus spoke about during the forty days in which he appeared to the apostles and the "many other things which Jesus did" as Tradition (with a capital T). "Bible alone" Christians, no matter what they profess to believe, must believe these to be irrelevant, or at best, redundant.
Infant baptism is a perfect example. Bible only Christians argue against infant baptism using the logic that since it is not explicit in scripture, it should not be part of Christendom. Catholics however, ask several hard questions including:
- Is infant baptism implied anywhere in the Bible?
- Does the Bible allow the possibility of infant baptism? Is it prohibited?
- Does infant baptism make logical sense based on what we know from the rest of the Bible? Does the Old Testament hold any clues as to God's will with regards to the salvation of infants? How is this born out in the New Testament?
- What were the political, economic and social contexts under which the authors of sacred scripture and their intended audience operated? To whom were the authors of sacred scripture writing? Where did they live and what were their lives like?
- Can we find outside of the Bible, examples of early Christians who engaged in the practice?
- Relative to the bullet above, how widespread was the practice, how close to mainstream Christianity were the leaders of these Christians, etc.?
And so forth.
The point is not to argue infant baptism but to point out how illogical Bible-only Christianity really is. One need only ask if the "Altar call" is scriptural or where the word's "Accept Jesus into your heart" is in Scripture to illustrate this point.
The Bible is the unerring word of God. Many Christians take this to an illogical conclusion that it is the only way to know God. Catholics however, believe that God was more generous than to leave his children with a collection of books wich took close to one hundred years to write, wasn't compiled into an authoritative collection for nearly three hundred years and which wasn't able to be printed, circulated and widely read for over 1400 years as the only authoritative source of information on Him and His will.
The moral law - ideas and principals such as justice, honesty, kindness, and bravery, written indelibly on the hearts of men by God in whose image we are made - is a good starting place. The natural order - the fact that birds can't refine oil into gasoline and that if we were to throw a snake off a cliff it would not glide gently to safety is another place to look. Those things which Jesus did and said, that portion of which was written down in what we know today as the Bible is certainly a place where all Christians should search. The writings of the early Christian leaders - the Church fathers - is a rich source. The living tradition of the Church - that portion of Jesus' teaching which was not written down, but which has been handed down orally, in sacred art and music, in beliefs and customs, through the generations, is yet another. All these are sources of Christian faith.
For Bible-only Christians, all faith begin with the front cover and ends with the back cover of the Bible. But this bible itself tells us that it is incomplete. So before you jump ship and set yourself adrift on the Evangelical sea of uncertainty, consider what you are giving up. For it is only within the living tradition of twenty centuries of Catholicism that the "Many other things which Jesus did" become clear.
-Tim-
Hi Tim,
ReplyDeleteI'm a pastor of a Reformed church in Alberta, Canada. I came to your blog through a post concerning Mary's Ultrasound. I thought your original post there was both humourous and pointed.
I can see by your post here that there's more nuance to the Roman Catholic Church's use of Tradition than I have previously understood. Conversely, when Reformers insist on Sola-scriptura, they're saying that the written Word, the closed canon has ultimate authority, which governs Tradition.
I understand that the scriptures contain the breathed Word of God, useful for teaching, rebuking, training and correcting for righteousness. Thus they are set apart, just as Jesus, the Word, is set apart from the rest of his humanity on account of his divinity. God's Word is set apart because it is inspired by God.
Tradition--the teaching and instruction and practice of men and women such as Ignatius, Julian of Norwich, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Luther, John Paul II, though inspired through the work of the person of the Holy Spirit, do not have the same authority as scripture. Yes, they can be useful, helpful and informative, in as much as they reflect the pure teaching of scripture. Where they contradict scripture, they ought to be rejected.
It is not as though bible only Christians reject everything else, if they did, then they'd have to reject preaching and teaching as well!
It is interesting to note that the Belgic Confession (an apologetic written by Guido DeBres in the 1500's) states "There is no salvation outside the church."
Oh, yeah, to answer your challenge that the Bible isn't enough to bring people to salvation, how then do we understand what St. John meant when he says, "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (Jn 20:30-31).
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