Featured Essential Doctrine from the Bible

The central premise of Bible alone Protestantism is.

The Bible is the sole rule of faith.

And the Bible gives clear teaching such that sincere believers will all agree on essential saving doctrines taken from scripture.

Examples of the premise.

“There are some things in the Bible that can be tricky to grasp. But that doesn’t mean that they’re impossible to grasp. And the perspicuity (clarity) of Scripture assures us that even when they are hard to grasp, the Author intends His words ultimately to be understandable by anyone.” Barry Cooper.

“All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.” Westminster Confession.

Sincere Bible alone Protestants aren’t in agreement on essential doctrines they garnered from Scripture. In fact nothing is settled.
They disagree on the necessity of Baptism and the Trinity for starters.

Thus the central premise is manifestly false by their disunity on essential doctrine.

 

All appeals to scripture are appeals to someone’s interpretation of scripture.

In Bible alone Protestantism there is no final arbiter for objective interpretation of scripture, thus essential doctrine is never settled. Truth is never established.

There are however hosts of subjective interpretations of scripture based on each man’s opinion, which can never be the basis for establishing essential doctrine.

Thus we see what has manifested from 500 years of Bible alone Protestantism is no agreement on essentials, in fact greater disunity as time passes.

Luther’s promise to the ploughboy fails, just give him a Bible and it will be clear, we’ll all agree at least on essentials.

Fail.

 

You didn’t read what I said. All appeals to Scripture are appeals to someone’s interpretation of Scripture.

Scripture can’t be the final authority, it simply ends in the unsettled circular mess we see in Protestantism, where each appeals to his own interpretations, coming out with his own doctrines.

 

Up to the point you interpret it, then the Church is the Authority. Whoever interprets it claims authority, it’s then a case of judging whose claims are legitimate. A sitting Justice or a guy on the street.

The Court itself is an Authority.

Catholics being traditional Christianity are originalists, we hold to the original interpretations and intent of the founders and writers, handed down in precedent/tradition.

Protestants are the innovators, they have interpreted everything under the sun from scripture, strayed far from the founders intent, by private interpretations of every kind.

Each bishop is an Apostolic Justice among the Church Fathers I quoted and is like a Supreme Court Justice but only he holds to a traditional interpretation of Scripture and hands down originalist intent.

The Protestant rebellion is like a citizen ignoring the sitting bench of justices and all preceding justices and interpreting the constitution for himself and encouraging everyone else to just pick up his pocket constitution and interpret for himself what laws he should follow.

It wasn’t by accident that it was a Catholic judge that pushed originalist thinking back into the United States Supreme Court recently.

 

The manifest chaos has been in Bible alone Protestantism, every wind of doctrine has been interpreted from scripture there Dave.

You have seen the Fathers interpretations of Scripture, your interpretations are alien to them Dave. They hold to Catholic interpretations of Scripture it’s plain and obvious.

 

Theological development is one thing, but totally contrary interpretations of Scripture is another.
What has happened in the last 500 years of Bible aloneism is complete divergence and scattering, on the same scriptures. They are still debating the basics with no consensus, but have constant dispute and dissension.

When I quote the Fathers, I quote ancient kindreds of my faith.

If I went back in time to Augustine, or Ambrose, Cyprian, Ignatius, Justin, Irenaeus and many others, we would share the same faith and interpretations of Scripture over a one and a half millenia span of time.
Bible alone Protestantism doesn’t even resemble its founders faith after 500 years. Luther would have you burned at the stake. They aren’t just alienated from the Catholic interpretations of Scripture, they are alienate from their founders interpretations of scripture and even each other.

It’s time see it for what it is, that fur lined, ocean going mess I referred to before. Don’t tell me it’s all just theological development, you have got to step back and look at this from an outsiders perspective for a second, it’s a shambles.

“while the Catholic Church possesses one and the same faith throughout the whole world, as we have already said.” Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1:10,3 (A.D. 180).

And not just one and the same faith throughout the world, but one and the same faith throughout time.

 

No we don’t. I have had a full volume set of The Fathers from a young age, I have hardly touched on them in quoting them to you.

I know what they say, and they don’t resemble bible alone theologies.

Baptist’s are a small subset of the Bible alone believers, but even among them theology isn’t settled.

 

Yeah, well I’m Captain Stubing, and you’re on The Love Boat.

 

What about all the other Bible alone denominations. Unitarians etc etc.

The Catholic Church is large because it is the oldest Church, it is only asset rich but those assets are where we worship on Sunday.
Vatican hill was pagan Rome’s garbage heap, where the bodies of Catholics killed in the arenas were dumped.

There were no Calvinists back then, and Augustine was a Catholic Bishop under the Pope.

Yes. Bible alone theology explains it alright.

Catholic sites are extremely tolerant, so long as you don’t call someone a poo poo head or something. They draw the line at poo poo head.
They actually actively seek to welcome everyone from every background and are the most popular forums you will find anywhere.

You can very openly profess your Baptist beliefs without fear of censorship.

I’ve haven’t called Baptist’s Pagan or Satanic or condemned them to hell as a group, but this is a common insult and experience for the diminutive Catholic community on this site. And very few voices rose to our defence. But we have to boldly defend our Christian Faith against these wrongful and prejudiced charges.

Besides, there is only one small sub forum entitled “ Other denominations “ for people to freely express their theology and perspectives.
This is a good thing, because sites that don’t do this become echo chambers and die out. Without different perspectives there is no real debate and learning of new things, this is what makes a site interesting.
I have learned many new things here, I really have, and appreciate it.

If you are concerned about hearing other beliefs and perspectives, the Other Denominations sub forum might be tough place to go on, because inevitably you will hear many other beliefs and perspectives you will disagree with, even strongly disagree with.