Subject: Sola Scriptura supported by bible? |
Bible Note: "So let's tie this together. If Mathison, being persuasive and well reasoned, and having documented his work superbly, began to teach that the doctrine of the trinity was a fabrication and can't be proved historically or in scripture, would you believe him?" Of course not. As I said, the man is not infallible, and the nature of God, when taking infallible Scripture together as a whole, is clearly Trinitarian. And that is true regardless of whether the Council of Nicea was ever convened or not. You wrote: "You see the early church, you know, the guys that actually wrote the NT, didn't teach the doctrine of the trinity." They did teach that there is one God, that the Father is God, that the Holy Spirit is God, and that Jesus is God. It is also clear from their writings that the Father is not the Son nor the Spirit, and that the Son is not the Spirit. Put 'em together, what do you have? Instant TRINITY! See? The doctrine of the Trinity is a prime example of what I am talking about. The Council of Nicea was not a bunch of folks sitting around saying to each other, "I wonder what God is like." It was not some political manuvering or scheming or acquiescence to paganism. It was learned, gifted men of the church coming together, examining the Scriptures, taking into account the writings of the early church fathers (who did express Trinitarian elements), and coming to the conclusion that God is one Being, eternally existing in three Persons. The Council of Nicea was not infallible, but they were right, and they used as their basis the authoritative writings of Scripture, and not merely human conjecture or opinion. "I am not saying that I don't believe in the trinity. I think I have to spell that out for you. You apparently have trouble with hypothetical stuff." My problem is not that I think you deny the Trinity, but that you seem to think that the reason that the Christian God exists in three Persons is because the church says he does, rather than the church saying that God is triune because HE has revealed Himself to be such. Again, the church does not create truth, nor is it infallible. But God has gifted the church so that, using the Scriptures as their sole infallible guide and the sole source of revelation after the apostolic age, they can come to an understanding of the truth. "You say the Bible is the only reliable source of truth, but what do you do if two people disagree about what it says, or what it means? How do you resolve this? Do you appeal to a person, like Mathison?" I did not say that the Bible is the only RELIABLE source. I said it was the only INFALLIBLE source. The church is reliable as far as it adheres to the apostolic tradition, which is infallibly inscripturated in the New Testament. The church does play a very important role in the correct discernment of truth. However, it is not a separate source of revelation nor infallible. And that is the difference between the early church (i.e. pre-medieval) and the later RCC: the more it saw itself as beyond the possibility of error; the more it saw itself not as a community coming to a correct discernment of the truth, but bound by the pronouncements of the Bishop of Rome; and the more it saw itself as a source of God's revealed truth rather than the interpreters of it, the more it drifted from being correct. --Joe! |