Doctrinal authority matters, otherwise everyone is just worshiping their own interpretation of God, and not the truth of God.
That’s happening anyway. The quest for doctrinal authority is a significant part of how we have the Talmud.
God can't have both predestined us and not predestined us, for example. It has to be one or the other and there should be an authoritative answer on it, or else people aren't worshiping the same God.
What does the price of eggs have to do with salvation? Let each man be convinced in his own mind. Simply do not create stumbling blocks, and try to bring brothers into correction slowly, in love, and on things that actually matter for salvation and obedience.
If I can be patient with Gnostics (even after they try to get me to renounce the name of God), a Methodist can be patient with an Episcopalian on liturgical disagreement, and in all cases with respectful love and without name calling.
Matthew 23:8 - for no one to be called rabbi/teacher, there can’t be doctrinal divisions where someone claims authority over the scriptures. Present a case, humbly. Correct grievous errors, humbly. Do your best to bear all things.
ONE body, brother, not 1000!
And I do not subscribe to the notion that God just left us high-and-dry to figure it out on our own.
You’re right! He left us the scriptures. :-)
I think of it as a test of, “How well do you understand My Character?”
If it was just rote memorization, it’s a lot less significant than someone discerning things through meditation on the scriptures day and night, yes?
Does that mean I’m right?
No.
Does that mean there needs to be division?
Also no.
Does that mean we can’t rebuke grievously incorrect practices before leaving and shaking the dust off our feet?
Also no, but it needs to be serious error, not something like determinism.
That’s happening anyway. The quest for doctrinal authority is a significant part of how we have the Talmud
Except it's not happening to the Church. The Church has held the same doctrines for 2000 years and hasn't capitulated on any significant doctrine in modern times.
The Church not folding on homosexuality, abortion, sex before marriage, contraception, no female priests, etc. absolutely means something, and the way I see it, it means God won't let them because He is in charge of His Church.
And the Talmud was never an attempt to be an authority or to explain the scriptures. It exists to explicitly deny them. It was written by Satan because he wants to be God. So He made his own scripture.
The Talmud is in no way similar to the Church doctrines, which all are based on scripture with a reasonable argument in their favor in all such cases. None of them are so diametrically opossed to God's very nature as the Talmud. The disagreements are primarily based on what the Bible is saying, what books count, and where authority lies.
Also, as a periphery argument to the inerrancy of Church Doctrine, I find this quote to be quite compelling:
“The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine – but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight”
― Hilaire Belloc
What does the price of eggs have to do with salvation?
We can simply change the disagreement to something regarding salvation, such as "do works matter", and then it becomes a salvation issue. This is the thing, any minor disagreement you can say isn't a salvation issue, and any major disagreement you will interpret the Bible for yourself and come to your own conclusion. But that's my problem here. The other guy did that too and came to a different conclusion. Where is the authority? Where is the Holy Spirit? Where is God in this kind of textual criticism? At the end of the day, if you can't convince each other, the Holy Spirit clearly didn't show up, the way I see it. There's no evidence of any divine presence, just people debating their view on the text.
And what if you're wrong? It's easy to say you're always open to new ideas (for what it's worth, as my own little anecdote, this is what I said to myself, and I prayed God would lead me always to the truth, and then I became Catholic lol) but at the end of the day if you're always following your own interpretation what evidence is there for the presence of God in your 2 or more vs the 2 or more who believe some other doctrine, significant or otherwise? I would think if He's present in both since they both believe in Him, that one gathering would repent of their false doctrine real quick.
To be clear, that's not to say He's not present where two or more are gathered, as He said He is, just that I don't think this is how doctrine is to be determined.
If I can be patient with Gnostics (even after they try to get me to renounce the name of God), a Methodist can be patient with an Episcopalian on liturgical disagreement, and in all cases with respectful love and without name calling.
This is exactly what the Church does. Just after doing it, they settle it once and for all as infallible doctrine based on the authority vested in the Church by Christ.
The alternative to me appears to just be endless disagreement and no one ultimately coming to any sort of authoritative truth. And that is not the message of the Bible; that truth is impossible (I'll get back to this thought further down).
Also, regarding division as you mentioned further down in your reply, I'd say that there must be some division. Christ tells us He came to pit us against each other. This doesn't mean we should be devisive all the time, but putting our foot down on grevious error requires us to be divisive because we are dividing ourselves out from those we subscribe to such error.
I'd also argue that grevious error requires an authority on scripture, and how could we be that authority when the people espousing the error read the scripture the same as us? Who actually authoritatively settles the errror if not the Church?
Matthew 23:8
The preceding context is that Jesus is commanding the Jews to obey the Scribes and Pharisees. He tells the Jews to do as they say but not as they do, because what they do is bad and does not line up with the good things they say. So they're hypocrites.
It goes on to say to call no man father. Doesn't sound great for Catholics, does it? But it also sounds like Jesus is validating these people's positions, not saying the position is bad. His complaint is that they attempt to exalt themselves, are prideful, and aren't humble. His complaint isn't that the positions they hold are inherently bad. I mean, again, He tells the Jews to listen to what they say since they are their teachers
It's like how "Judge not" doesn't refer to judgement, but unrighteous, hypocritical judgement. These aren't meant to be taken as such staunch, declarative instructions on our actions, but are meant to tell us what should be in our hearts when performing these actions.
It's why Jesus focuses so intently on their hearts, but says nothing of their actions. The problem isn't being a scribe or "instructor", it's with doing it in a prideful way while looking to exalt oneself above others.
Jesus appears here to be telling us HOW to be instructors, teachers, scribes, fathers. In some translations, "scribe" is translated "teacher". So Christ calls them teachers and then later says they shouldn't be called teachers? Is Christ a hypocrite? I think not.
In 1 Corinthians 4:14-16 Paul says:
14 I write not these things to confound you; but I admonish you as my dearest children.
15 For if you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, by the gospel, I have begotten you.
16 Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ.
He's calling himself their father in verse 15, and it's translated directly as father in other translations. He also says to follow him as he follows Christ.
This would appear to be a direct contradiction if we take the speech by Jesus to be literal actions we should follow. (there are also other cases of the apostles using "father" in the Bible, in supossed direct contradiction to these words by Jesus)
As an aside, Paul is almost implicating a kind of hierarchy, which I also think is important to point out as frequent in the Bible regarding Heaven. While Jesus often says we are all the same and God is our master (though seemingly only in the context of our prideful squabbling over those distinctions between ourselves. He's more reminding us we have a master in Heaven, not saying to abolish all hierarchy), He also frequently alludes to a hierarchy, particularly in Heaven. It makes sense to me that this hierarchy would be mirrored in the Church (and by all accounts it is).
I've actually been developing this argument recently, because I recalled that before I became a Christian I watched Jordan Peterson, and he often points out in defense of hierarchy among Man that hierarchy is prevalent in nature.
Hierarchy seems to be baked into God's creation. It clashes completely with a literal reading of such verses as in Matthew 23. Hierarchy is so prevalent in nature, and so prevalent in the Bible, that I find it very easy to believe God intended a Church hierarchy as well. On top of this, for over a thousand years it's been commonly believed that the angels exist in a hierarchy. Also, that demons exist in a hierarchy, and that Heaven and Hell have "levels". This is nothing new. Good Christians have believed this for a 1000+ years. And many Protestants do as well regarding many of those things, I'm sure. It would seem everything has a hierarchy besides the Church ;)
Even God exists in a hierarchy. The Nicene Creed presents Christ coming from the Father, and the Spirit coming from Christ.
Obviously all members of the trinity are God, but merely the Father/Son distinction posits at least the appearence of a hierarchy.
You’re right! He left us the scriptures
Sort of; He inspired the scriptures, and the Roman Catholic Church compiled the Bible. By what authority does the Bible exist? Seems obvious to me that it's the Church.
Before Rome decided on the Bible through the Holy Spirit's guidance, every different Church all believed a different set of texts to be divine scripture. This is exactly what you say: They came together to figure it out once and for all, and then they agreed for 1000+ years until Luther came along. Once they decided, they all agreed to be bound by this doctrine based on the authority of the Church given by Christ, which they also believed in.
I mean, is the dueterocanon scripture? Or was Luther right? This is exactly what I mean by high-and-dry. It would appear under your system that God left us to figure this stuff out 2000 years later, instead of just including a glossary in one of the books, or giving us a Church to follow.
And while yes, meditating on the scriptures and seeking God is surely a good thing, it seems to me that no one, Catholic or otherwise, understands God's character very well, at least not well enough to know what is His Word or not. Even among Catholics, outside of set doctrine we must believe, it's a free-for-all. Everyone has a different opinion on everything, everyone is of their own mind and not of God's mind.
And outside the Church you get Mormons and shit. Are we to write off people who don't believe Christ is God as just misled? They base it on what they read in scripture, as all Protestants do.
It seems clear to me that we as individuals aren't meant to read the Bible and come up with our own interpretation. We need to come together, like you say, and settle significant matters of disagreement as one body. The Church does just this. And I'd say the authority is important, or you just end up with everyone agreeing to disagree, and eventually that extends out to people not believing in any basic tenant of the faith. We could say truth is unimportant outside of significant errors, but I just don't believe that. The truth of God is important, and He provides us the way to knowing this Truth.
John 14:23-26 reads:
23 Jesus answered, and said to him: If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him.
24 He that loveth me not, keepeth not my words. And the word which you have heard, is not mine; but the Father's who sent me.
25 These things have I spoken to you, abiding with you.
26 But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.
Firstly, it sounds like what many Protestants would describe as works based salvation.
Secondly, it establishes that the Holy Spirit will "teach us all things", which even if we take as figurative language, would still mean we're being taught many truths by the Holy Spirit.
So I guess I'd end with my initial comment's beginning: Where is the evidence of this among Protestants or others that don't subscribe to the idea of Church authority? It seems like there's no teaching of much of anything being granted by the Spirit, unless we say they just aren't listening, but then surely God would have know that's what would happen and not designed His Truth giving process that way. Nevertheless, it seems to me it's because the Spirit IS teaching us all things, and is busy working in the Church started by Christ and given to Peter.
That’s happening anyway. The quest for doctrinal authority is a significant part of how we have the Talmud.
What does the price of eggs have to do with salvation? Let each man be convinced in his own mind. Simply do not create stumbling blocks, and try to bring brothers into correction slowly, in love, and on things that actually matter for salvation and obedience.
If I can be patient with Gnostics (even after they try to get me to renounce the name of God), a Methodist can be patient with an Episcopalian on liturgical disagreement, and in all cases with respectful love and without name calling.
Matthew 23:8 - for no one to be called rabbi/teacher, there can’t be doctrinal divisions where someone claims authority over the scriptures. Present a case, humbly. Correct grievous errors, humbly. Do your best to bear all things.
ONE body, brother, not 1000!
You’re right! He left us the scriptures. :-)
I think of it as a test of, “How well do you understand My Character?” If it was just rote memorization, it’s a lot less significant than someone discerning things through meditation on the scriptures day and night, yes?
Does that mean I’m right?
No.
Does that mean there needs to be division?
Also no.
Does that mean we can’t rebuke grievously incorrect practices before leaving and shaking the dust off our feet?
Also no, but it needs to be serious error, not something like determinism.
Except it's not happening to the Church. The Church has held the same doctrines for 2000 years and hasn't capitulated on any significant doctrine in modern times.
The Church not folding on homosexuality, abortion, sex before marriage, contraception, no female priests, etc. absolutely means something, and the way I see it, it means God won't let them because He is in charge of His Church.
And the Talmud was never an attempt to be an authority or to explain the scriptures. It exists to explicitly deny them. It was written by Satan because he wants to be God. So He made his own scripture.
The Talmud is in no way similar to the Church doctrines, which all are based on scripture with a reasonable argument in their favor in all such cases. None of them are so diametrically opossed to God's very nature as the Talmud. The disagreements are primarily based on what the Bible is saying, what books count, and where authority lies.
Also, as a periphery argument to the inerrancy of Church Doctrine, I find this quote to be quite compelling:
“The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine – but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight” ― Hilaire Belloc
We can simply change the disagreement to something regarding salvation, such as "do works matter", and then it becomes a salvation issue. This is the thing, any minor disagreement you can say isn't a salvation issue, and any major disagreement you will interpret the Bible for yourself and come to your own conclusion. But that's my problem here. The other guy did that too and came to a different conclusion. Where is the authority? Where is the Holy Spirit? Where is God in this kind of textual criticism? At the end of the day, if you can't convince each other, the Holy Spirit clearly didn't show up, the way I see it. There's no evidence of any divine presence, just people debating their view on the text.
And what if you're wrong? It's easy to say you're always open to new ideas (for what it's worth, as my own little anecdote, this is what I said to myself, and I prayed God would lead me always to the truth, and then I became Catholic lol) but at the end of the day if you're always following your own interpretation what evidence is there for the presence of God in your 2 or more vs the 2 or more who believe some other doctrine, significant or otherwise? I would think if He's present in both since they both believe in Him, that one gathering would repent of their false doctrine real quick.
To be clear, that's not to say He's not present where two or more are gathered, as He said He is, just that I don't think this is how doctrine is to be determined.
This is exactly what the Church does. Just after doing it, they settle it once and for all as infallible doctrine based on the authority vested in the Church by Christ.
The alternative to me appears to just be endless disagreement and no one ultimately coming to any sort of authoritative truth. And that is not the message of the Bible; that truth is impossible (I'll get back to this thought further down).
Also, regarding division as you mentioned further down in your reply, I'd say that there must be some division. Christ tells us He came to pit us against each other. This doesn't mean we should be devisive all the time, but putting our foot down on grevious error requires us to be divisive because we are dividing ourselves out from those we subscribe to such error.
I'd also argue that grevious error requires an authority on scripture, and how could we be that authority when the people espousing the error read the scripture the same as us? Who actually authoritatively settles the errror if not the Church?
The preceding context is that Jesus is commanding the Jews to obey the Scribes and Pharisees. He tells the Jews to do as they say but not as they do, because what they do is bad and does not line up with the good things they say. So they're hypocrites.
It goes on to say to call no man father. Doesn't sound great for Catholics, does it? But it also sounds like Jesus is validating these people's positions, not saying the position is bad. His complaint is that they attempt to exalt themselves, are prideful, and aren't humble. His complaint isn't that the positions they hold are inherently bad. I mean, again, He tells the Jews to listen to what they say since they are their teachers
It's like how "Judge not" doesn't refer to judgement, but unrighteous, hypocritical judgement. These aren't meant to be taken as such staunch, declarative instructions on our actions, but are meant to tell us what should be in our hearts when performing these actions.
It's why Jesus focuses so intently on their hearts, but says nothing of their actions. The problem isn't being a scribe or "instructor", it's with doing it in a prideful way while looking to exalt oneself above others.
Jesus appears here to be telling us HOW to be instructors, teachers, scribes, fathers. In some translations, "scribe" is translated "teacher". So Christ calls them teachers and then later says they shouldn't be called teachers? Is Christ a hypocrite? I think not.
In 1 Corinthians 4:14-16 Paul says:
14 I write not these things to confound you; but I admonish you as my dearest children.
15 For if you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, by the gospel, I have begotten you.
16 Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me, as I also am of Christ.
He's calling himself their father in verse 15, and it's translated directly as father in other translations. He also says to follow him as he follows Christ.
This would appear to be a direct contradiction if we take the speech by Jesus to be literal actions we should follow. (there are also other cases of the apostles using "father" in the Bible, in supossed direct contradiction to these words by Jesus)
As an aside, Paul is almost implicating a kind of hierarchy, which I also think is important to point out as frequent in the Bible regarding Heaven. While Jesus often says we are all the same and God is our master (though seemingly only in the context of our prideful squabbling over those distinctions between ourselves. He's more reminding us we have a master in Heaven, not saying to abolish all hierarchy), He also frequently alludes to a hierarchy, particularly in Heaven. It makes sense to me that this hierarchy would be mirrored in the Church (and by all accounts it is).
I've actually been developing this argument recently, because I recalled that before I became a Christian I watched Jordan Peterson, and he often points out in defense of hierarchy among Man that hierarchy is prevalent in nature.
Hierarchy seems to be baked into God's creation. It clashes completely with a literal reading of such verses as in Matthew 23. Hierarchy is so prevalent in nature, and so prevalent in the Bible, that I find it very easy to believe God intended a Church hierarchy as well. On top of this, for over a thousand years it's been commonly believed that the angels exist in a hierarchy. Also, that demons exist in a hierarchy, and that Heaven and Hell have "levels". This is nothing new. Good Christians have believed this for a 1000+ years. And many Protestants do as well regarding many of those things, I'm sure. It would seem everything has a hierarchy besides the Church ;)
Even God exists in a hierarchy. The Nicene Creed presents Christ coming from the Father, and the Spirit coming from Christ.
Obviously all members of the trinity are God, but merely the Father/Son distinction posits at least the appearence of a hierarchy.
Sort of; He inspired the scriptures, and the Roman Catholic Church compiled the Bible. By what authority does the Bible exist? Seems obvious to me that it's the Church.
Before Rome decided on the Bible through the Holy Spirit's guidance, every different Church all believed a different set of texts to be divine scripture. This is exactly what you say: They came together to figure it out once and for all, and then they agreed for 1000+ years until Luther came along. Once they decided, they all agreed to be bound by this doctrine based on the authority of the Church given by Christ, which they also believed in.
I mean, is the dueterocanon scripture? Or was Luther right? This is exactly what I mean by high-and-dry. It would appear under your system that God left us to figure this stuff out 2000 years later, instead of just including a glossary in one of the books, or giving us a Church to follow.
And while yes, meditating on the scriptures and seeking God is surely a good thing, it seems to me that no one, Catholic or otherwise, understands God's character very well, at least not well enough to know what is His Word or not. Even among Catholics, outside of set doctrine we must believe, it's a free-for-all. Everyone has a different opinion on everything, everyone is of their own mind and not of God's mind.
And outside the Church you get Mormons and shit. Are we to write off people who don't believe Christ is God as just misled? They base it on what they read in scripture, as all Protestants do.
It seems clear to me that we as individuals aren't meant to read the Bible and come up with our own interpretation. We need to come together, like you say, and settle significant matters of disagreement as one body. The Church does just this. And I'd say the authority is important, or you just end up with everyone agreeing to disagree, and eventually that extends out to people not believing in any basic tenant of the faith. We could say truth is unimportant outside of significant errors, but I just don't believe that. The truth of God is important, and He provides us the way to knowing this Truth.
John 14:23-26 reads:
23 Jesus answered, and said to him: If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him.
24 He that loveth me not, keepeth not my words. And the word which you have heard, is not mine; but the Father's who sent me.
25 These things have I spoken to you, abiding with you.
26 But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.
Firstly, it sounds like what many Protestants would describe as works based salvation.
Secondly, it establishes that the Holy Spirit will "teach us all things", which even if we take as figurative language, would still mean we're being taught many truths by the Holy Spirit.
So I guess I'd end with my initial comment's beginning: Where is the evidence of this among Protestants or others that don't subscribe to the idea of Church authority? It seems like there's no teaching of much of anything being granted by the Spirit, unless we say they just aren't listening, but then surely God would have know that's what would happen and not designed His Truth giving process that way. Nevertheless, it seems to me it's because the Spirit IS teaching us all things, and is busy working in the Church started by Christ and given to Peter.