The efficacy of the Bible and its being the final authority does not depend on man's agreement. It is settled in Heaven (Heb 4:12; Mt 24:35). When you are preaching the Gospel or witnessing, the Word of God is powerful regardless of man's understanding or admission of the fact. A bank robber can threaten the cashier with a shotgun and the cashier can say, "I don't believe in shotguns." The power of the shotgun does not rest on her belief about it.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC POSITION

Dr. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, "Theology, like faith, accepts as the source of its knowledge Holy Writ and Tradition (remote rules of faith) and also the doctrinal assertions of the Church (proximate rule of faith) - this latter means the day by day teaching ministry of the church through the pope and the bishops united with the pope. It is designed to take things from scripture and tradition and apply them in a living way, hence its being called the proximate rule of faith."

Three pillars holding up the Church: Bible, Tradition, Magisterium  

I. THE WORD OF GOD

A. First problem - which Bible? RC Bible has 7 more books and additions to Daniel and Esther. Arguments against the Apocrypha   (called deutero-canonical books by Catholics)

1. The Palestinian Jews did not accept it (Romans 3:2)

2. Jerome included it in his translation but noted that it was not canonical.

3. It was not fully recognized as canonical until the Council of Trent in1546

4. Errors: Judith 1:1 Nebuchadnezzar king of Assyria ruled in Nineveh

Baruch 6:2 - you will be in Babylon to seven generations

Tobit 12:8,9 - give to the poor. . such generosity will . . wash away all your sins.

5. Unsureness - 2 Macc 15:38.

B. According to the Council of Trent. Biblical interpretation could be only according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers, but they were rarely unanimous. There are only 7 verses that have been infallibly interpreted - John 3:5 (Baptism); Luke 22:19 (Mass); 1 Corinthians 11:24 (Communion); John 20:22 (Holy Orders); John 20:23 (Penance); Romans 5:12 (Original Sin) and James 5:14 (Extreme Unction).

C. Modernistic Interpretations. "Religious truth is presented in various ways in the Bible. . . historical fact, fictional stories, myths. . . all events. . . in the Bible are not to be taken as literal reports. For example, Genesis 1 to 11 are not history. Contemporary Catholic Catechism, 1973.

D. RC Attitude toward Bible. In 1229, the Council of Toulouse, "We prohibit the permitting of the laity to have the books of the Old and New Testament." John O'Brien: "it must be abundantly clear that the Bible alone is not a safe and competent guide because it is not now, and has never been, accessible to all and because it is not clear and intelligible to all and because it does not contain all the truth of the Christian religion." If, as Catholics claim, the Catholic Church is the Mother of the Bible, we have a classic example of child abuse.

II. TRADITION

Catholic Encyclopedia quotes re Tradition:

XV, p. 10. "[the Church] succeeds in recognizing through the obscurities and inaccuracies of ancient formulas portions of traditional truth, even though they are mixed with error."

VI, p. 136. "Substituting of false documents and tampering with genuine ones was quite a trade in the Middle Ages."

III, p. 484: "Writers of the 4th century were prone to describe many practices as of apostolic origin which certainly had no claim to be so regarded." The Catechism of the Council of Trent said the Apostles Creed started on the Day of Pentecost and that Matthew used holy water.   Both have been discarded by most modern theologians

obscurities, inaccuracies, error, tampering, false claims - this is what RCs admit Tradition is.

III. THE MAGISTERIUM

The living teaching office of the Church; bishops united with the pope and the pope himself.

A. Papal infallibility   - only been one certain one since 1870 (1950, Assumption   of Mary)

The trigonometry test - Karl Keating said that if the pope were infallible in trigonometry and were to take a trig test of 100 questions, he would not have to get them all right - he could leave his paper blank, proving that infallibility is not the power to say correct things, but God's keeping you from saying incorrect things. If you don't say anything, you don't say anything wrong.

He speaks infallibly in Latin, so an infallible translator and an infallible printer is needed in order for the infallible statement to be read by English speaking people.

Theologians say some of the pope's encyclicals   are infallible, but you don't have an infallible theologian to tell you what is infallible.

B. Collegiality of Bishops is a doctrine that came out of Vatican II and says Bishops share the teaching authority of the Church, but they have to be unanimous and the pope is the Bishop of Rome. If every other Bishop said yes, and the pope said no, his veto would carry the day.

C. All this means instability. Remote rules of faith are interpreted by the proximate rule of faith, which is unstable. The result is that it doesn't matter what the Bible or Tradition say; it matters what the Pope says they say. And he speaks once every 80 - 100 years.

IV. WE HAVE A MORE SURE WORD OF PROPHECY

2 Peter 1:16-19. More sure than subjective revelation (what we see and hear)

God's Word - remote but made proximate by the Holy Spirit

"THIS IS THE RECORD" (1 John 5:11)

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