Where in the Canon Bible does RCC get their doctrines from?

Let me tell you something that happened to me. I was in my mid - twenties when my Grandfather died. When I finally saw my grieving Grandmother, she held my hands in hers and said: "I would love it if you spoke at Grandpa's funeral". Oh no I thought, then quickly said in response "It would be an honor" and that was going to be that.

Fast forward a few hours to 9 or 10 PM and there I am sitting at the desk with pen and paper. I scribbled some of this, a little bit of that, re-read what I had written, and then promptly rolled the paper into a ball and threw it in the wastebasket.

I then lay down but couldn't sleep. All those great times we had together were going through my head and I started to pray, asking God to help me out as I have simply got to get something going here. After a period of time I got up, sat at the desk, and the words just came flowing out from my head, through my arm to the pen and then onto the paper.

The next day at the funeral I had them crying and then laughing, and then crying again. Grandma came up to me afterwards and said my words were right on the money. I smiled, knowing full well whose words they really were. They were from the Holy Spirit my friend - and there was no illumination, but I had been completely inspired to be sure.

 

Reiterating something doesn't make it so. You cannot prove that the 39 books of the OT canon were the only books the Jews regarded as such in Jesus day. The fact is the New Testament was argued over as well by Christians. But eventually it was settled. 2000 years latter all Christians at least agree with the collection for the NT but the OT is still argued over. BTW Jesus only list 2 categories of scripture the Torah and the Neviim or the Law and the Prophets. Which leaves out several of your 39 books. Which means your authority for determining canon is extra scriptural. and at that you don't even turn to Christian sources of the day.

 

Walter, do you believe Jesus was a literal door and a literal vine? If not, why do you interpret this metaphorically but not His sayings about body and blood?

Also, apostolic succession, in the Catholic sense, is a fable, as John Wesley discovered. You cannot find a monarchical bishop in the NT.

I know the desire to fit in somewhere can make a person accept things that are not accurate. I have been there. I didn't think I fit into fundamentalist Baptists, or very liberal ones, either, so I tried to fit into various paedobaptist churches, including ones with so-called apostolic succession. But I eventually had to realize and accept that scripture and the earliest churches did not support paedobaptism or "apostolic succession". So, my only choices where I live are various Pentecostals or Charismatics, Church of Christ, or Baptists. I chose Baptists because I strongly believe the Baptist distinctives are reflective of scripture and the earliest churches.

 

I used to use the same 'I am the door', 'I am the vine, you are the branches' argument to challenge those who believed in The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist when I was a Baptist. The language in these passages is obviously meant to be taken metaphorically. Not so with the John 6 passages, certainly Paul didn't have a symbolic view of communion. I posted excerpts from early Christian writers previously in this thread but perhaps you missed them. I think they overwhelmingly show that the earliest Christians believed in the Real Presence. The abundance of headstones of infants that had died which lists the baptismal date upon them strongly indicates that infant baptism was practiced from the very start. When others on the board claim there just isn't any evidence the early Christians practiced infant baptism they are wrong. What about historical evidence that anyone believed a symbolic view of communion before the Reformers? Even Luther and the Eastern Church retained belief in the Real Presence. BTW, I believe he early Christians -- those taught by Christ, the apostles, etc. -- believed that the Eucharist IS a symbol, but not ONLY a symbol. They further believed that Jesus is truly present in (or through) the Eucharist. The historical evidence shows that they believed that Jesus' presence persisted until the bread and wine were fully consumed. Justin Martyr specifically notes that any extra was taken to the ill or infirm. That belief was held consistently for the first 15-16 centuries of Christianity, and continues to be held by the Catholic, Orthodox and similar churches.

If you don't want to believe it, that is fine. But to pretend that there is no evidence for the position seems to represent either some kind of deception or simple ignorance of history. (Granted: The fact that someone else -- even many someone's -- believe something isn't proof that it is true.)

I agree that the bishops in the NT had somewhat different roles. The Church grew FAST and the polity of the Church evolved. I don't find a problem with that. I find it interesting that even in 'The Convergence Movement' that belief in The Real Presence, paedobaptism and apostolic succession is retained. I am posting again some writings of the earliest Christians post apostolic. Can you show me any post apostolic writings that support your theology? On another board I participate on a member brought up the Anabaptist. Of course, they rejected 'Faith-Alone', a major fly in the ointment. Generally what I hear on this board is: 'Well, we have the New Testament!' Martin said there are early writings supporting Baptistic theology other than your interpretation of the NT but I have yet to see them. I am certainly open to investigate them if they exist.

 

I will post these excerpts again and ask you if they support your symbolic only view or a symbolic/Real Presence view? As a Catholic I take Jesus very literally when He says in John 6: "truly truly I tell you my flesh is real food and my blood real drink".
Yet you say it's meant only symbolically, I disagree. Would St. Paul have written that people got sick and died from unworthily eating and drinking a metaphor?

Now, unfortunately, we can't ask St John himself what he meant and we don't have any other writings of St John that make the issue much clearer. However, you know that we have many writings of one of St John's DISCIPLES and student: St Ignatius of Antioch. And he is VERY clear about the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist (see quotes below). We also have another disciple of St John AND St Ignatius of Antioch, St Polycarp - and he's also very clear that it wasn't just a symbolic meal.

Should we listen to St Ignatius? Well he was actually ordained by St Peter as well.
So based on the evidence of two of St John's disciples, we can now rightly say that the tradition handed to them from Jesus to St John to the Fathers was the very real Catholic/Orthodox presence of Jesus in the Eucharist - not just a symbolic one.
See the beautiful continuity and the importance of Apostolic succession? This is what you as a Baptist can't demonstrate. Here are more early Church Fathers writings on the Eucharist, there are many many more:

Ignatius of Antioch
"I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David; and for drink I desire his blood, which is love incorruptible" (Letter to the Romans 7:3[A.D. 110]).

"Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes" (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).

Justin Martyr
"We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).

Irenaeus
"If the Lord were from other than the Father, how could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his blood?" (Against Heresies 4:33–32 [A.D. 189]).

"He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase unto our bodies. When, therefore, the mixed cup [wine and water] and the baked bread receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life—flesh which is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord, and is in fact a member of him?" (ibid., 5:2).

Clement of Alexandria
"’Eat my flesh,’ [Jesus] says, ‘and drink my blood.’ The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients, he delivers over his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of his children" (The Instructor of Children 1:6:43:3 [A.D. 191]).

Tertullian
"[T]here is not a soul that can at all procure salvation, except it believe whilst it is in the flesh, so true is it that the flesh is the very condition on which salvation hinges. And since the soul is, in consequence of its salvation, chosen to the service of God, it is the flesh which actually renders it capable of such service. The flesh, indeed, is washed [in baptism], in order that the soul may be cleansed . . . the flesh is shadowed with the imposition of hands [in confirmation], that the soul also may be illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh feeds [in the Eucharist] on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may be filled with God" (The Resurrection of the Dead 8 [A.D. 210]).

Hippolytus
"‘And she [Wisdom] has furnished her table’ [Prov. 9:2] . . . refers to his [Christ’s] honored and undefiled body and blood, which day by day are administered and offered sacrificially at the spiritual divine table, as a memorial of that first and ever-memorable table of the spiritual divine supper [i.e.,
the Last Supper]" (Fragment from Commentary on Proverbs [A.D. 217]).

Origen
"Formerly there was baptism in an obscure way . . . now, however, in full view, there is regeneration in water and in the Holy Spirit. Formerly, in an obscure way, there was manna for food; now, however, in full view, there is the true food, the flesh of the Word of God, as he himself says: ‘My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink’ [John 6:55]" (Homilies on Numbers 7:2 [A.D. 248]).

Again, is it true or false that the Christian Church prior to the 15th century has generally, consistently held that Jesus is present in the Eucharist, and that this presence is something more than merely symbolic or spiritual?

 

Names Rebel1. We are told often "hundreds of early church fathers only saw things my way", but we don't get any names.

All this connects to the canon of scripture. There is no holy spirit inspired table of contents. The book you have is a result of Anglican bible altered in the print cheaper form of 66 books. First books got moved to the index, footnotes, to non inspired, to down right unbiblical.


If I shove you in a library with 1000s of separated books, gospels and epistles, along with their forgeries, alternates and fakes. You are not going to pick out the exact 66 books that were already picked out for you.

Someone put a bible in your hand and you trusted their authority on what you were handed is genuine.

When we look who your teacher trusted and your teacher's teacher, you are eventually going to hit up on a Canon of scripture ,list of books held by early church father who ends up being Catholic.


Look for the book list of the BIBLE! "well its right here in my bible" <---That is called circular reasoning.

Hunt down where the list comes from and who is holding the scriptures..


Cardinal Newman said, "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant."

 

The earliest churches were not free to decide their own doctrines, and the individual Christian was not free to decide things for him or herself either. There was a distinct leadership from the get go (the Apostles and then the Bishops) , a leadership empowered by God Himself in the form of Jesus Christ to decide things and thus teach the faithful about the newly emerging Christian faith.

 

Interesting how the Catholic Church just happened to affirm and compile the exact same 27 books of the NT you assert were already recognized, compiled, and in the 'Baptistic churches' you claim must have existed from the very start.

One of the main errors you modern Protestants believe in is that the Bible was written as an exhaustive textbook on how to practice the Christian Faith, exclusively. It was not compiled for that purpose. One of the criteria about which books were included in the New Testament was, which books were read from in the Catholic liturgy? Thus, the Church is not the Church "of the Bible," rather, the Bible is the holiest library "of the Church" (Acts 2.42; 1 Timothy 3.15).

 

Rebel1,
Can you answer my question about St. Ignatius and the early Christian ALL believing in the literal Eucharist? Again, Ignatius was a disciple of John writing only 10 years after John wrote his gospel, on his way to be martyred. Did Ignatius corrupt what John taught him about the Eucharist? I've never heard of a corrupt martyr. Chances are, and common sense tells us, Ignatius was holy, and the corruption happened later, with the Protestants corrupting the doctrine of the Eucharist.

 

Why would we want to do that? We have it from the words of the Bible that the apostasy occurred during their own times (Acts 20:29-31; 1 Timothy 1:3-4; 1 John 2:18-19; Jude 4). We may read the fathers for our own interest, but doctrine we take only from the Bible.

No, we shouldn't. Where does Paul say that he ordained Ignatius? And why would it matter if he did? All sorts of wicked people have been ordained by good people, starting with Judas Iscariot. I'm not saying Ignatius was wicked, but he is wrong in a number of areas.

 

The Holy Spirit wrote the NT and arranged that it should be accepted by Christians, which it has been. Church councils merely rubber-stamped what Christians had believed for years.

The 'Roman Catholic' church did not exist when the books of the Bible were written and read by the early Christians. The Scriptures are self-authenticating. They do not need synods and councils to authenticate them. Paul quotes from Luke (1 Timothy 5:18 and Peter calls Paul's writing 'Scripture.' (2 Peter 3:15-16). The Church did not give the Scriptures to the people. God the Holy Spirit gave them to the churches, which consist of people.

 

Firstly, you need to understand that the term 'the law and the prophets' as used by the Lord Jesus, means the whole of the OT Scriptures (c.f. John 10:34 where our Lord refers to a Psalm as being 'law.').
Secondly, the Lord Jesus gave endorsement to the O.T. Scriptures. He built arguments based on single words of those Scriptures (Matthew 22:45; John 10:34). Like wise the writer to the Hebrews argues on the basis of the words 'today' and 'rest' (Hebrew 3:7-11). All cited quotations are from the O.T. as we have it today. The Holy Spirit has ensured that we have the right books in our canon. The Council of Carthage in 397 merely gave an official gloss to the practice of the churches for many years in respect of the N.T. The O.T. canon was set forth by Jerome at around the same time, but again only confirmed what the churches had followed for years.
The word 'apocrypha' means 'hidden things' and was so called because it was not read out in the churches precisely because it was not considered to be Scripture. So it remained until the Council of Trent in 1546, when the apocrypha was needed to give a veneer of authority to some of the doctrines of the Church of Rome.

 

" The Scriptures are self-authenticating."

Indeed which is why the NT quotes the Septuagint Old testament and not the authority of the pharisees who killed Jesus and decided to create their canon decades after the assumption in response to the christian threat.


It sounded like a great idea to have the official Jewish canon, but they didn't even bother to check the date(after Jesus Died) and assumes Christians was not officially Israel.

Its like saying the scriptures of the Golden Calf is legit because the WRONG Jews say its canon and ignoring the RIGHT Jews altogether. The Christians are the TRUE and RIGHT Jews.

 

They are not. Someone, some group of people had to decide which of the writings that were circulating would be included in the Canon of Scripture that all Christians would accept - and that would be the leaders of the One Universal Christian Church, and the Holy Spirit directed them in that task.

 

So there were no leaders (Bishop's) of the new Christian Chuch, none that were to continue on after the crucifixion and the death's of the Apostles? Yeah right. The historical record my friend tells us otherwise. You can keep your blinders on and continue living in self imposed ignorance, the only one you are fooling is yourself.

 

Agreed,

It was Catholic.