Open Forum
Aug 11th, 2021 | By Bryan Cross | Category: Forum
This is a forum for questions and answers pertaining to the purpose of Called To Communion, namely, resolving through good faith dialogue the disagreements that presently divide Protestants and Catholics, by together pursuing unity in the truth. These comments will be moderated to ensure they comply with our posting guidelines, so please read those guidelines before posting. Thank you.
This is a great idea!
I recently participated in a Youtube dialogue (debate) regarding Christian authority. I took the Catholic position (as I am Catholic) and my dialogue partner took the Reformed position (he is Reformed). As we dug into the issue of authority, he espoused his view of sola scriptura, which I then countered. One verse he use as a foundational to his argument was 1 Corinthian 4:6, specifically, the word for “written” – gegraptai. Through my research I discovered that this verse was not used by the Reformers to support the formal sufficiency of Scripture. He stated that modern scholarship on this word has shown that St. Paul could be understood to be using this word in such a way. I am currently writing a response to this argument. Does anyone have a resource that reflects the modern scholarship of the word “gegraptai” as a support of the formal sufficiency of Scripture?
Thank you!
Well, it’s just the Greek perfect, meaning ‘has been written’ I see the person’s point – about ‘do not go beyond what has been written’ Pretty far stretch to take that to mean that everything a Christian believes has to have been written in Scripture. Leaves a couple of questions to be answered:
1) How do you know what constitutes Scripture? Of course we Catholics think Scripture comes from the Church. Jesus left no writing, so far as we know – and much that was written afterwards has never been considered Scripture by anyone.
2) Almost nothing that Reformed people (I was one for 25 years before becoming a Catholic) has been written in what Protestants call Scripture. Even Sunday worship is only know from the early Christians. Maybe the Seventh Day Adventists are more logical here!
Feel free to correspond by e-mail if you want – jjen009 at the usual gmail :-)
A Catholic friend recommended me to calvinist2catholic, and from there I got here. I view Scripture as the 66 book divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit through select men canon approved before Apocrypha was later introduced. I do not think Scripture came from the Church, I mean more than half came before the Church was established, rather God established Church and Scripture. By Church, I mean all Christians united under Christ. Should not all doctrine be examined by Scripture as the Bereans did (Acts 17:11)? And is not the Scripture our only sure means of examining our faith and practice as in 2 Timothy 3:16-17? And just saying, I agree Chrisitans should work together, after all we all affirm the creeds and Scripture at least. In essentials, unity; nonessentials, liberty; and all things, charity. Thanks.