Hi JBF,
An ex-cathedra statement is an infallible teaching. Do you have anything that you teach, preach, practice etc that is infallible?
Can you show me a writing from the CC that says that the "Popes ex-cathedra statements (and certain doctrines of the church) are more authoritative than the Bible itself"?
How many "ex-cathedra statements" have been made by the Popes and what are they?
I agree with you that Scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. It does not say it is the final authority. The fact is Jesus said to his Apostles whatever they bind/loosen on earth will be bound/loosened in heaven. Did that practice end with them? In other words who on earth NOW has the final authority to decide what is authoritive and true doctrine?
Hi JBF,
An ex-cathedra statement is an infallible teaching. Do you have anything that you teach, preach, practice etc that is infallible?
Can you show me a writing from the CC that says that the "Popes ex-cathedra statements (and certain doctrines of the church) are more authoritative than the Bible itself"?
How many "ex-cathedra statements" have been made by the Popes and what are they?
I agree with you that Scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. It does not say it is the final authority. The fact is Jesus said to his Apostles whatever they bind/loosen on earth will be bound/loosened in heaven. Did that practice end with them? In other words who on earth NOW has the final authority to decide what is authoritive and true doctrine?
Hi Marymog,
It's possible to explain "ex Cathedra" in biblical terms that a sola scripturist would accept, but it is impossible to explain infallibility. That is because they stick to an invincible myth that blinds them from the true meaning of infallibility. The only definition they know is not in the Bible. You may as well use Chinese text.
Marymog said:
Can you show me a writing from the CC that says that the "Popes ex-cathedra statements (and certain doctrines of the church) are more authoritative than the Bible itself"?
So, are you saying that the Catholic Church does not teach this?
That's news to me...
And it takes away every reason we might have for division between Catholicism and Protestantism.
For the standard of Protestantism has been the concept of sola scriptura...
And if the Catholic Church now subscribes to this, they have come over to become like the Protestants and we can now come to unity over the teaching of God's word.
It’s not a matter of one thing being “more authoritative” than the other. All of that is the invention of the 16th century and the biblically bankrupt and meaningless notion of
sola Scriptura. The Bible presents Scripture-Tradition-Church as a “three-legged stool”: the rule of faith. All are in harmony; all work together. The notion that Church teachings are more authoritive the Bible is a man made Protestant tradition.
The Authority of Scripture is a Sacred Tradition of the historical indestructible Church that has never changed this. They compliment each other. Without the tradition of the Episcopate, you wouldn't have a Bible in the first place. So the sola scripturist is forced to put the tradition of the Biblical episcopate
down at every opportunity, and ignore the well documented evidence written before the books of the Bible were finally ratified. (Ante-Nicene Fathers) They have to make up their own history in order to survive.
Worse, they dream up Bible origin fantasies in order to get around the Authority of Tradition. To make matters even worse, they spin "Tradition" to be a dirty word. Sometimes they think that bad traditions defines all tradition. The discussion goes in circles, peppered with derailments in a 1000 pages of going nowhere.
It's not enough to say this verse or that verse proves "...the sole rule of faith". What has to be proven, by scripture alone, that the authority of Tradition (properly understood), and the teaching authority of the Church (both in harmony with Scripture)
is not needed as a rule of faith, or won't be needed at some future point, or is somehow above scripture. Followed by the endless process of reinventing the wheel.
The Biblical Rule of Faith