Asking Saints to mediate for us would make a Saint a mediator. But the Bible is clear only Jesus Christ can be a mediator between God and man. So would asking Saint's to pray for us be mediation?

Also, can Saint's hear 1 billion prayers at once and pray to God to help 1 billion out. Does this make Saints omnipotent? Is this Biblical by any means?

Taken from
http://www.christianteenforums.com/Pope-Pr....html&st=25

If the inerrancy and God-inspired Gospel of John was that important it would be Biblical. End of story.

If the necessity of a Christian doctrine to be Biblical was that important it would be Biblical. End of story.

And etc etc...

(You should see why your argument is a bad one)

Christian doctrine is Biblical. But to you it's circular reasoning therefore irrelevant. But thats you. The importance of the Bible is noticed in the Bible, the importance of praying to saints is not.

Name all of them that arent just Catholic.

This post has been edited by Ronald: Nov 3 2009, 08:10 PM

The inerrancy of the Gospel of Matthew is not in the Bible.

The inerrancy of the Gospel of Mark is not in the Bible.

The inerrancy of the Gospel of Luke is not in the Bible.

The inerrancy of the Gospel of John is not in the Bible.

The inerrancy of the Acts of the Apostles is not in the Bible.

The inerrancy of Paul's Letter to the Romans is not in the Bible.

And so on and so forth. So don't be so hasty to start cutting out those things you don't find in the Bible.

I don't even need to use circular reasoning; based on your own premises, the Bible is unBiblical, because the Bible does not tell you that every book in the Bible we accept as being inerrant is in fact inerrant.

Paul's 2nd Letter to Timothy makes a gloss of Scripture, but it is invalid induction to propose that because Paul say Scripture is inspired that the Gospels, Acts, the Letters, are inspired. This is the logic that you would be proposing in that argument, which I hope you will not insult me to make;

1) Paul says all Scripture is inspired

2) Therefore the Gospel of John is inspired

I dearly hope and pray you see how such logic is invalid.

So when Paul wrote that "Scripture is inspired" what did he mean?

He meant something along the lines of "Scripture is inspired."

Seeing as he didn't give a comprehensive list of what he believed was Scripture (although we can gander it was the same Scripture other Jews were familiar with; the Septuagint), we can't extrapolate just because we'd like to. Hence you can't argue for the inerrancy of the New Testament on Paul's words here. It's 1) non sequitor, 2) circular, and 3) anachronistic.

2 Timothy 314But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

4

1In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
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How true is what I bolded?

No he didn't list what is Scripture. But the early Christians knew what was authentically written by apostles and what wasn't. The ones that were in contention, God saw to it that they were accepted. Therefore, all the books God saw fit to have put in the Bible are inspired and inerrant in the original autographs.

True but irrelevant; even worse, fallacious if you really presume to establish the inerrancy of Scripture through Scripture.



That's just begging the question. How do you know God "saw to it" that they were accepted? This sounds like just an arbitrary interpretation of ecclesiastical history.

IF Scripture is true, then this must be taken seriously to prove scripture. Therefore any very strong belief that will determine our salvation must be found within scripture.

The same way you "know" apostolistic succession is the way to go.

I'm going to say what Jesus said.

Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. - Matthew 22:29 KJV

I really think that this debate is unanswerable. I debated it before, and it worked out almost exactly the same way as it has this time around.
The Catholics (and Orthodox; it's easier to generalise as 'Catholics') assert that there is no distinction in the body of Christ between members of the body on earth, and members in heaven
The Protestants assert that that doesn't mean that everyone can hear each other, just as I can't hear most/any of the body of Christ right now
The Catholics assert that God has given the saints the ability to hear pleas from earthly members of the body
The Protestants ask "How do you know that?"
The Catholics say tradition
The Protestants say nuh-uh

The debate hinges upon whether Saints can hear our prayers. Whether they can or not is not provable through deductive logic, or inductive for that matter. It is something which we cannot know without divine revelation. And Catholics will assert that such divine revelation has been given through the means of the Catholic Church. Protestants, not believing such divine revelation, will not follow the argument.
Thus, you might as well skip to the chase and just argue whether Catholicism is true or not. (Not that I'm condoning doing that in this thread, or anywhere else on CTF for that matter). But it's just a waste of time trying to prove whether prayers to Saints 'work' (for lack of a better word) or not without resorting to whether the Magisterium is infallible.



Just so you know, AquinasD will have no problem in denouncing your argument by asking you what 'Scriptures' meant when Jesus said that. Whatever it did mean (Septuagint, Old Testament, Apocraphya, I don't know), it certainly didn't mean Hebrews. Or any other New Testament book.

I'm basically asking if it's Biblical. All things that are believed by Protestants to be true are found numerous times in the Bible. Almost all things that Catholic's believe to be true which have nothing to do with what Protestant's believe are not found in the Bible, Praying to saint's being one of the main ones.

Also, I put emphasis on the word numerous. Anything that pertains to our Eternal Salvation should be mentioned many times in the Bible which all of us agree has authority.

Right, well the answer is no it's not Biblical. I'm sure the Catholics agree with me on this front.

But it just opens up the larger question of whether everything we believe has to be from the Bible. Consider the following two statements:
I believe everything in the Bible
Everything I believe is in the Bible

You see the difference? I side with the former.

how about

Everything I believe that pertains to my Eternal Salvation is in the Bible.

According to Catholic's this isn't true, and quite scary if you ask me.


Try this one....

I believe everything in the Bible about Eternal Salvation
Everything I believe about Eternal Salvation is in the Bible

That one makes sence.

Edit----

oh, and I want to add this one...

Everything in the Bible that pertains to my eternal salvation is found written several times

Funny how some will believe that something can lead us to eternal salvation that is not found in the Bible. However if we dont believe such a thing we can be condemed to eternal hell.

This post has been edited by Ronald: Nov 3 2009, 09:24 PM

But that's only because you're in the mindset of the Bible being the only infallible authority. If you had the belief that the Magisterium could be infallible too, there would be nothing scary about anything pertaining to our eternal salvation not being in the Bible.
It is quite a difficult mindset to get out of, I must admit, if one has been brought up to believe it (such as me). It took a while to try to think about things differently.



Right, but you've got to say why you choose the second statement over the first. Not in this thread though, we're kinda off topic, although like I say I do think it's the only way this debate will ever end.

(Also, I don't think this topic does pertain to our eternal salvation. I'm pretty sure you could go your whole life without giving half a thought to a Saint and still be saved, and still be a Catholic for that matter)

I was not brought up in such a mindset. I had no real beliefs and either God led me to Christ or the devil did for whatever reason... Which is not true.



I agree with both those statements. Also, it was gonna go here anyways so lets just keep going
What do you think about...

Everything in the Bible that pertains to my eternal salvation is found written several times
And yet some Catholic beliefs arent even found once?

Emphasize "several" btw

This post has been edited by Ronald: Nov 3 2009, 09:29 PM

Sure, IF. But unless you can prove that Scripture is inerrant, its no more valid or worthwhile than Harry Potter (and probably not as much fun).



I'm not just assuming apostolic succession is valid. I have history to back up my assertions; Jesus established the Church, the Church established apostolic succession, from there the Church shall exist throughout every age and land.

That's a historical argument. It isn't dependent upon any assumption. The history is backed up, because that's what the Church has always said about herself, from the very beginning. I don't need Scripture to know that the Church says she was established on Christ, and that she established apostolic succession through the Apostles. I can easily quote the documents pertaining to this. There's essentially no other way to represent the history of the Church except as beginning with her claim that Jesus founded her.



This can be differentiated to;

1) Everything I believe is in the Bible

Now allow me to demonstrate;

2) Everything in the Bible that pertains to my eternal salvation is found [several times]

3) Thus, the Bible pertains to my eternal salvation

1) Therefore, everything I believe [as a Christian belief] is in the Bible

From there, you know how I can disprove this by pointing out a numerous amount of your beliefs that aren't found in the Bible.

I know you want to disagree, thinking you limited your statement to being only about those things necessary for salvation. But, you see, if we've limited everything necessary to salvation being found in the Bible, then if I don't have the Bible (or have more than the Bible), then I will probably have either 4) a privation of the Biblical knowledge necessary to be saved or 5) a corruption of the Biblical knowledge necessary to be saved (i.e. Catholicism, Mormonism).

So you should be able to see that, based upon your presupposition, it is further supposed that one's beliefs must come from the Bible. And, seeing as not all your beliefs come from the Bible (in the first place), then you cannot uphold this claim.

Forgive me, I completely forgot about this topic.

Thats not what the arguement here is. The arguement is IF scripture is true then this must be taken very seriously. Because we both believe that it is true, then we should both be taking it seriously. However, no where within scripture which is useful for rebuking etc etc is there any hint of apostolistic succession or praying to saints.


This is all based on tradition, Jesus shot down tradition more than He lifted it up. Jesus never taught any of the things the Catholic Church is teaching.



Again, name all of them that dont pertain to Catholicism.

All your beliefs do come from the Bible plus some extra beliefs outside of the Bible, so this arguement works against you aswell. And again, I keep seeing not all my beliefs come from the Bible, I would really like you to name them...?

I think you may be confusing tradition and Tradition there. I'll agree that Jesus wasn't down with the needless 'tradition' of just 'doing stuff the way it's always been done'. But Catholics argue that for Tradition (notice the capital T) which is the notion that truth is passed on through the Church.



In fairness Ronald, you have to concede that you don't know that Jesus did or did not teach X doctrine just because it doesn't appear in the Bible; since Jesus obviously said a lot of stuff not recorded in the Bible. Using the Bible only tells us what Jesus definately did say, not what he definately didn't.



I think he is referring to the notion of "Everything we believe about salvation must come from the Bible". THAT belief is not from the Bible.

I disagree, it is clear that the traditions Jesus did not like were the ones that did not pertain to Scripture. Wouldn't you agree?



Whenever I have a question about what Jesus thought about a legitimate topic pertaining to our Salvation you can find it somewhere in the Bible. Give me an example of where this is untrue.



Sure it is. The actual arguement he is trying to present is that the Bible never actually says "this is the Bible"

No. Jesus fought against the legalistic traditions of the Pharisees. Not tradition itself.

Actually, yes. The legalistic doctrines were in fact not scriptural. They would actually make up laws that weren't given by God. Look at the gospels.

Jesus being against the legalistic and pointless traditions of the pharisees had nothing to do with whether the traditions were spelled out in Scripture or not. Jesus didn't go up to the Pharisees, open his KJV and say: "You're tradition isn't in here. Therefore it's wrong to practice".

Heck, Jesus STARTED several traditions of His own that were certainly not in Scripture at the time... Communion anyone?

Also Jesus, being a Jew, would've celebrated traditional Jewish feasts such as Hannukah which, according to those who have thrown away the book of Maccabees, is not mentioned in Scripture.

----

By the way, just a general on-topic statement: my belief in the intercessions of the Saints has been very much strengthened over the weekend.

Scripture ought be taken very seriously, I know. However, that doesn't mean I should take your interpretation very seriously, especially when you make such a huge error as demolishing 2000 years of Catholicism's exegesis of Scripture in favor of pretending Catholics have never really opened a Bible.



There is a difference between tradition (little t) and Tradition (big T).

Further, your whole "refutation" here is totally irrelevant. Can you disprove my analysis of history here? It's very short and makes some very broad claims, certainly it would be easy for you to prove I was wrong about saying "I'm not just assuming apostolic succession is valid. I have history to back up my assertions; Jesus established the Church, the Church established apostolic succession, from there the Church shall exist throughout every age and land." It's a historical fact that the Catholic Church from the very beginning (of Christianity) recognized the necessity of having apostolic succession. If I'm wrong, you can just go to history.



I am not pretending all of my beliefs come from the Bible. Especially those of my beliefs about the Bible, they do not come from the Bible (that would be circular reasoning which is fallacious!).



Sorry to butt in on ZME here, but I have some excellent replies.

Jesus never advocated anything like sola Scriptura. Sure, He used Scripture, but using Scripture does not entail that one believes everything they believe comes from Scripture. That would be a non sequitor.



The canon of Scripture..?

What do you mean my interpritation anyways? You act like protestant's have such a huge difference in interpritation. Actually, the majority of our beliefs are yours aswell except Catholic's have beliefs that dont pertain to the Bible. If scripture says that it's good to use scripture to rebuke etc etc just because I'm a protestant doesn't mean we dont have the same interpritation, so it's not worth argueing.

I dont see where in this debate we have had a difference in interpritation of scripture.


A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet. Call it tradition, replace it with a capital T and say it was founded by the Church through the Holy Spirit. In the end they are still traditions created by the Catholic Church not pertaining to the Bible.

If the Pharisees used a capital T do you think Christ would have cared? (if there was such a thing) The Jewish traditions were traditions made by the Jews and considered recognized by men from God but outside of scripture.

Wasn't the Church founded on men who had accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior? Paul, Peter and John all accepted Christ therefore were apart of the Church. The men they preached to accepted Christ and therefore were apart of the Church. The things all of them wrote in the Bible they also taught to others, those who accepted were apart of the Church. Then those people had kids and told them of Jesus, they then became apart of the Church. Now, if thats true then whats your version of "Church?" Because that's mine.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ spread, it didn't stay confined to a certain group of people to establish the one Church you're thinking of. Instead it established a Church of all those who accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.




This arguement does not work because Jesus never advocated Apostolistic succession, or intercession of saints, or and especially exalting men above others. (infact He was against it...)

This post has been edited by Ronald: Nov 9 2009, 11:55 PM