Moving away from the topic of boys
Submitted by Drifter on 2002-08-29 13:30:20, Thursday
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and onto the topic of religion: For several years I have questioned the protestant philosophy of sola scriptura (the bible is the word of God and it is as good as if he had written it with his own hand, it is unquestionable and it is the only source of truth). No denomination was able to give me a good explenation of why this is true (other than to believe it by faith). No denomination that is, until I encountered catholicism. Here is my problem with sola scriptura: 1. Christianity predates the bible. The bible was compiled many years after christianity had flourished. Therefore the bible cannot possibly be the definitive authority on christianity. 2. The bible did not exist when the authors of the various books in the bible wrote their books. Therefore such passages that say that all scripture is God-breathed cannot be assumed to apply to all scriptures found in the modern bible (which did not even exist at the time, not had many of its scriptures been written yet when these statements are made in the bible), it more likely reffers to the Old Testament which Jesus did endorse. 3. The books of the bible were compiled by men who picked and chose from among a vast amount of scriptures. These men decided which books they felt were inspired by God and which werent. Therefore our modern bible is the result of a committee decision made many years ago by men whose names are lost in history. How do we know these people made the correct decisions? how do we know we arent missing a scripture that was important, but they felt wasnt, or that we have a scripture in our bible that shouldnt be there? who gave them the authority to decide what the word of God is? and what makes their authority better than ours? if their authority is no better than ours, then could we ourselves add or take away scriptures to/from the bible? if not, then why not? they did it many years ago, why cant we do it today? 4. This one is mixed in with concern #3. How can we trust the authority of those people who put together the bible, if we know nothing about them? By trusting in the bible, we are trusting not only in the authors of the scriptures, but in the people who chose to compile those scriptures into a book called the Holy Bible. There are other concerns, but I will list only those 4 for now. Im interested in hearing other's opinions on the infallibility of the bible and/or the sola scriptura philosophy. |
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