Eutychus' Church

[rkwright]

[quote name='Budge' post='1059630' date='Sep 9 2006, 01:07 PM']
This is where your train falls off the tracks.
[url="http://www.the-highway.com/dominus.html"]LINK[/url]
Apostolic succession is a myth.

"Today's apostles" if they were legitimate would not preach interfaithism and joining with the NWO system.

Rome makes claims to apostolic succession so you will follow.
[/quote]
[quote]
Terrible argument because no one in Prot churches claims infallibility for mere men.

If they err and go against God's Word, they are not to be followed.[/quote]
I'm glad you finnally picked a point at which to mount your argument.

If Apostolic succession is a myth, and the only source of truth we have is the Bible, then we can't trust the Bible.

I'll post here what JeffRC07 posted a while back... credits to him on the syllogism.

[quote]1.) The Bible alone is the sole authority in matters of faith and morals (premise).
2.) Only what is taught in the Bible can be known infallibly, or with absolute certainty (from premise 1).
3.) What books constitute the Bible is not taught in the Bible (premise).
4.) What books constitute the Bible cannot be known infallibly, or with absolute certainty (from 3 and 2).
5.) It is possible that an error was made in deciding what books constitute the Bible (from 4).
6.) Some books in the Bible might not be inspired (from 5).
7.) We cannot know which books in the Bible are inspired and which books are not (from 6, 3, and 2).
8.) We cannot know whether any particular sentence or teaching in the Bible is inspired (from 7).
9.) We cannot assert that anything held in the Bible is known with certainty (from 8).

Now, if we absolutely reject the conclusion (8), and this follows logically from only two premises, then we must reject one of the two premises. But (3) is a definitive fact, and cannot be denied. Therefore, we must reject (1). Thus we must reject Sola Scriptura.[/quote]

[MIKolbe]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1057998' date='Sep 6 2006, 02:32 PM']
I do believe you revealed there a LOT MORE about yourself, than you intended to do so.
[/quote]

Bravo!

you have JUST proved my point!

What i meant was that the inadimant object, a book, the Bible, does not physically speak. Moreover, it is incapable of interpretting itself. You THOUGHT i meant it does not 'talk' to me at all...even and perhaps ESPECIALLY in a spirital aspect. This would be wrong.

You mis-interpretted something i wrote. I mean, i wrote it, i know what i mean.

For example-

What if you were handed this sentence on a written on a piece of paper: "I never said you stole the money" Do you understand the meaning of that sentence?

I have a feeling your answer would be "of course (along with some ever-colorful commentary) There is nothing complicated about that six-word sentence. It's simple. Sure I understand what it means"

But do you really?

What is the man who wrote, "I never said you stole the money" meant the statement to read "[b]I[/b] never said you stole the money", implying [b]someone else[/b] said it. Or what if he meant "I never [b]said[/b] you stole the money.", implying that he may have [b]thought[/b] you stole the money, but never actually said so.

Or maybe he meant, "I never said [b]you[/b] stole the money", implying that [b]someone else[/b] stole the money. Maybe he meant, "I never said you [b]stole[/b] the money.", implying he felt you mismanaged the money, or maybe you lost it, or you did something else with it the he didn't approve of..but he wasn't saying you [b]stole it[/b]

or maybe he meant to convey the sense that, "I never said you stole the [b]money[/b]", implying it wasn't money you stole...

Seems like a simple 6 word sentence, but a variety of meanings can be concluded from it.

What is more complicated, that 6 word sentence, or the Bible? If even a simple sentence can be interpretted in a variety of ways, is it not much more likely that Scripture will yeild a huge number of possible meanings?

This leads to a theme of the question on this thread...

How can you know for certain which of the many conflicting interpretations is right?

[journeyman]

[quote name='Budge' post='1059630' date='Sep 9 2006, 12:07 PM']
This is where your train falls off the tracks.

Apostolic succession is a myth.

<snip>

[/quote]

Please define "myth."
Are you using the everyday meaning - as summarized in the second paragraph - or the more academic meaning - as summarized in the first paragraph - or would you like to open it up to the third and fourth paragraphs as well:
[size=1][i]The word itself comes from the Greek "mythos" which originally meant "speech" or "discourse" but which later came to mean "fable" or "legend". In this document the word "myth" will be defined as a story of forgotten or vague origin, basically religious or supernatural in nature, which seeks to explain or rationalize one or more aspects of the world or a society.

Furthermore, in the context of this document, all myths are, at some stage, actually believed to be true by the peoples of the societies that used or originated the myth. Our definition is thus clearly distinguished from the use of the word myth in everyday speech which basically refers to any unreal or imaginary story.

A myth is also distinctly different from an allegory or parable which is a story deliberately made up to illustrate some moral point but which has never been assumed to be true by anyone.

Some myths describe some actual historical event, but have been embellished and refashioned by various story tellers over time so that it is impossible to tell what really happened. In this last aspect myths have a legendary and historical nature.
[url="http://www.pantheon.org/articles/m/mythology.html"]http://www.pantheon.org/articles/m/mythology.html[/url]
[/i][/size]

Apostolic succession is or is not a fact. The current holder of the See of Rome traces his office back through almost 2000 years, naming office holders by name, and dates of office.
This level of record-keeping is comparable to that tracing the geneaology of Jesus through David and back to Abraham. Or of the Old Testament priests and prophets back to Moses' brother Aaron.
You can argue the list has errors. You can argue the office holders do not meet our standards of holiness and did not merit the post. You can argue the Bishop of Rome was not intended to be the servant of the servants of Christ. But there is a list. That takes the concept out of the realm of myth, at least as defined in everyday terms.

I do not have evidence for this, perhaps one of the more learned members of the community can confirm or deny this, but I believe the Church maintains records of ordinations, so that it can continue to document the succession of present priests and bishops to the apostles. I can envision that the records may have omissions as the Church has seen its members and facilities attacked over the centuries, and portions may have been destroyed.





[quote name='Budge' post='1059630' date='Sep 9 2006, 12:07 PM']
Terrible argument because no one in Prot churches claims infallibility for mere men.

If they err and go against God's Word, they are not to be followed.

<snip>

[/quote]

If they err and go against God's Word, how do you know not to follow them?

Who tells you of the error?
How do they tell you?
What evidence do they offer?
Why do you believe them and not your pastor?

I will grant you that if someone were to teach, for example, that man was not made in God's image, most anyone could see the discrepancy by merely reading Genesis.

To keep the thread confined to its original topic, perhaps any examples could be directed to why you feel the Catholic Church is not the church Jesus founded, and your Church is.

If you are willing to concede the Catholic Church is the church Jesus founded, then perhaps the thread can move to where you think it abandoned its founder and how your Church did not.

[SJP]

Budge, Eutychus

How can it be that the Holy Spirit leads you to believe one thing, and the Methodist down the street something entirely different, and the Pentecostal something else?

Surely God does not lie, He is Truth.

So how is it that you and the X number of other Christian denominations all claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit when you teach and believe different things?

[Eutychus]

[quote]
How can it be that the Holy Spirit leads you to believe one thing, and the Methodist down the street something entirely different, and the Pentecostal something else? [/quote]

Pretty much the same way ONE pope says papal infallibility is a heresy and another proclaims it as a dogma. Or one regime burns Joan of Arc at the stake for heresy, and another makes her a saint, one decries usury the loaning of money at interest, another starts the Vatican Central Bank, to do just that. One regime witholds the cup from the laity, another does not, one bans eating of meat on Fridays, down the road, poof, that is history.

The Holy Spirit is not in error, men are, always were, always will be.

Even if they call themselves MAGICSTEERINGTHEM or not.

[Mateo el Feo]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1060384' date='Sep 10 2006, 07:06 PM']
Pretty much the same way ONE pope says papal infallibility is a heresy and another proclaims it as a dogma. Or one regime burns Joan of Arc at the stake for heresy, and another makes her a saint, one decries usury the loaning of money at interest, another starts the Vatican Central Bank, to do just that. One regime witholds the cup from the laity, another does not, one bans eating of meat on Fridays, down the road, poof, that is history.

The Holy Spirit is not in error, men are, always were, always will be.

Even if they call themselves MAGICSTEERINGTHEM or not.
[/quote]Which pope are you going to blame for the death of Joan of Arc?


[quote name='Eutychus' post='1060384' date='Sep 10 2006, 07:06 PM']The Holy Spirit is not in error, men are, always were, always will be.[/quote]So, the entire contents of the Holy Bible rely on the use of mere men as authors and translators. Why not apply your absolute statements to these cases? Or, maybe you only trust the original authors and the KJV translators who are the exclusive exceptions to your rule. LOL