You are claiming that all Christians have some shared item that is perfect…I am asking you to show me what the heck that is..but it is pretty clear that your either ducking the question or have little knowledge about the development of the various “Christian” canons.
Basically your argument is so absurd and purely without merit. You are claiming a commonality that just plainly doesn’t exist and if it does you refuse to provide any cites to show it is so.
There is no single Christian canon of scripture, there is no one single “New Testament”. You have not demonstrated that they hold any common idea at all outside of a belief that Jesus is the key to their salvation…which is something the LDS church holds too.
Without any real cites I am going to consider you a non-serious poster who lacks the base knowledge in this area to have a meaningful debate, or one that knows they are wrong and intends to “win” through attrition.
Luther wanted to remove Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation from the canon. He had serious issues with Jude, James, Hebrews, and Revelation…He made his own canon, something you don’t do when you think it is “Perfect”
The Greek Orthodox Canon Has several books not contained in the Catholic version.
So yes…they all had issues with the Damasian canon.
I am not sure what you mean by “functionally the same”, but tradition refers
to oral transmission, and scripture referrs to written transmission.
In any case tradition, according to the RCC, originated from the lips of Christ,
and so in no sense usurps his preeminence, or that of the complimentary written NT.
However, since tradition is not universally accepted by Christians it is not part
of the definition of Chirstianity, which must include only those beliefs common
to all Christians. Repeat: those beliefs common to all Christians.
I have identified two such beliefs. If anyone can identify more it won’t hurt my
feelings. However, drawing attention to the Christian inconsistencies and disagreements
has nothing to do with defining what a Christian is.
So what?
I earlier used the expression “interpretation” of scripture. Is that wrong? Are ExCP not interpretions of scripture? If not exactly what are they, brand new scripture?
They are not limited to just to hwo they read it, they become DOCTRINE. They are the direct word of god just as in the LDS church.
There is not a single author who was a direct witness to the speaking of Christ in the canon as we have it today. The stories that are were not written down until decades or generations after his death.
Paul never even claims to have seen him directly and never even really claims that he was a real in the flesh man.
The fact that you are trying to define “Christians” by “beliefs common to all Christians” proves how silly it is for me to waste my time debating with you.
The fact that you base your argument purely on “Circular reasoning” is more evidence that you are wasting my time.
Have a good day sir…come back if you can bring a valid argument not based purely on fallacies.
I’m not all that up on ex cathedra and I certainly don’t pretend that I am; however, I am up on the procecedure in the LDS church. In that particular church, stuff becomes scriptural when the pronouncement from the church president is accepted by the church.
How would we know where Jesus went? According to the bible, Gospel of John, 21:25* And there are also many other things – as many as Jesus did – which, if they may be written one by one, not even the world itself I think to have place for the books written.*
If this gospel is treated as canon, it leaves open all manner of claims to be made about the movements and activities of Jesus. Unless you can excise this verse (easy, really, it is the last one in the book), you can make no legitimate claims about what Jesus did not do.
I have made no assertion that you have to provide sources for your opinions.
I have merely noted that your opinions are, indeed, opinions formed from personal views and are not in any way “objective” as you have asserted.
So what? I have not claimed that “in the end” a change occurred. You asserted that all Christians (in your opinion) have accepted the New Testament without question and I have noted that that is not correct–as your own citataion to Wikipedia demonstrates. That Luther was persuaded to leave the texts alone does not demonstrate that the texts were never challenged.
Not really.
Nah. You are the one who is trying to create special definitions to defend your opinions. Koresh was a kook and followed a corrupt, even debased, form of Christianity, but trying to set him into some sort of special box outside Christianity does not actually mean that you have succeeded in creating that special box. Koresh was simply the most recent in a long line of Christians who have twisted Christian beliefs for personal self-aggrandizement. To be successful, they need to be inside the Christian tradition, even if they betray it in their personal lives.
And that is not, despite your desperate need for it to be so, hypocrisy. That they would support someone who would further their goals, even if that person was an atheist, would not be hypocrisy. Hypocrisy would be present if, for example, they had a tradition of asserting that only an evangelical Christian could be president, but while individual Evangelicals have held that belief, it has not been a tradition of the Evangelical movement since, at the least, the election of JFK, when a strong minority of Evangelicals did support him. It would be hypocritical of Evangelical Christians to support Romney if he proposed universal government funding for abortion, the burning of Creationist tracts, or any number of similar acts, but his platform is pretty consistent with the goals of Evangelical Christians and they disply no hypocrisy in supporting him over President Obama based on the relative positions of each candidate in respect to Evangelical goals.
You have yet to offer a position that actually needs refutation. I am willing to let you share your opinion, here. Simply pointing out that your claim of an “objective” standard is nothing more than your personal opinion is quite sufficient–and that I have done.
Personally, I find arguments about definition to be tedious: the purpose of language is communication and framing definitions in a narrow or broad manner is child’s play. So I’ll set all that aside. [hijack]
Agreed. As an aside, in recent decades the term “Christian” has adopted a newish usage meaning “Vaguely evangelical Christian conservative”. So if you volunteer “I am a Christian”, you are often implying that.
Around the turn of the 19th-20th century, “Christian” was used as an adjective implying “Charitable, generous in spirit.” That usage has fallen out of favor. An example might be, “Shoving Christmas down everyone’s throat really isn’t very Christian.” Today somebody might answer, “Oh yes it is”, alluding to the usage in the previous paragraph.
I see your point but I for one miss that usage, though I suspect that the Tahitians were alluding to a subset of morality. If applied to a someone of another faith, one could politely speak of a spirit that any Christian could aspire to. [/hijack]
I was thinking of the 1,500 years between the Council of Nicaea and Joseph Smith’s founding of the Mormon faith.
I’m aware that it took Christianity a few centuries to work out exactly what beliefs their collective experience implied. But they did settle on a set of core beliefs, and with the exception of some spinoffs like the Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christian Scientists, they’ve held to them ever since.
The Mormon position, as I understand it (feel free to correct me, Monty), is that Christianity as practiced in the Old World got off to a good start in the first century A.D., but lost its way soon after. Meanwhile the New World Christians, who got the Word when Jesus preached to the lost tribes of Israel in the Americas after his resurrection, kept the true faith but lost an apocalyptic battle in 421 A.D., and that true faith was lost until Joseph Smith found certain artifacts 14 centuries later.
IOW, non-Mormon Christianity, from the LDS POV, is kinda sorta the real thing, but still pretty much an inferior product. But they sure want the world to consider them to be part of that lineage that went astray.
It’s like they’re simultaneously looking down on Old World-descended Christianity, and feeling like they’re on the outside of it looking in (and trying to squeeze through the door just long enough for the group photo shoot). Makes me think this is more an issue for a psychologist than a theologian, if one could put a whole denomination on the couch.
The early Eastern Church does not have James, 2nd Peter, and the 2nd and 3rd epistles of John or the book of Esther but does ave the book of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah.
Many in modern sects of the eastern church believe the Old testament laws are in effect including limitations on worship during menstruation etc…
This was also true of most Protestants who used the Geneva Bible which was a much more forceful translation than the later KJV.
Most who have adopted the KJV say the OT rules are not in effect.
Some used the Greek texts as source, some the Latin, some went back to the Hebrew.
It was not until the Council of Trent of 1546 that Roman Catholic church codified their canon.
All if this is after the discovery of the new world and as close or closer to the time of Joseph Smith than first council of nicea was to the time of Christ.
But I am free to have my mind changed by any evidence anyone wants to provide that shows there is one common canon among all who wish “earn” the label of Christian.
Personally I think churches that self identify themselves as Christian is probably the best method.
OK, so which of: (a) the Roman Catholic Church, (b) the Eastern Orthodox Churches, or (c) the Protestant reformers of the 16th through 18th centuries, believed in something other than the triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being the only God there is?
And are you claiming that either the nature of the Trinity, or its being the only divine entity, could not be considered ‘core beliefs’ of Christianity over that time period?
But yes…without dumping the “Monotheist” claim they created quite a mess there with the trinity.
IIRC the Eastern church uses it as a metaphor and not literal but Mormons are not the only nontrinitarianist sects there are others like the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
You are mistaken. You are refuting claims not made.
I have not claimed that any NT version is perfect. What I did claim (post#131) is that a defined Christion believes the NT is culminating, perfect, and final. Since the NT version is not stipulated, it is to be presumed discretional. Nor did I claim all NT versions are identical, a requirement not necessary to enable a defined Christian to consider the version of his choice to be culminating, perfect and final. Got it now?
I’m all shook up.
You are mistaken.
Luther did not make his own canon. He retained all the books of the 5th century canon: Wiki: Books of the Bible
So: according to your own source you were completely wrong, and I was I was completely right: ex cathedra pronouncement is considered legitimately distinguishable from scripture, and the RCC otherwise conforms with my definition.
Unfortunately for you, you have tied LDS presidential manifestos to the bandwagon of ongoing revelation, placing them outside my definition, thereby solidifying my side of the argument, rather than your own. Live with it.
You need to work on your attitude.
Don’t hurry back. My foot needs a rest from kicking your ass.
It would be nice if you read your own source material, from that link
And DUH they day they are finding new meaning in the old texts to fit their modern views…that’s what you have to do when your source of “authority” is the fact that the book was written by a random number of unknown authors from the bronze age through to the iron age.
Stop right there. Yes, those who rightly consider themselves Christian assert that the NT perfect and final.
Stop right there. This is the first appearance of the word “revision” in our debate. More on that below.
Notwithstanding only in the the case of interpretations which unambiguously agree that the NT is perfect and final.
(There are plenty of other matters to quarrel over. The Trinity is by itself a source of potentially everlasting controversy).
Yes.
Revision does matter because it would be incompatible with perfection and finality.
Because it would be incompatible with perfection and finality.
Also, there are other grounds for considering LDS to be unChristian.
Consider this: would revelation reintroducing the events and Gods of the Homeric cycle, and placing them on an equal footing with the OT-NT canon and the canonical God be Christian or unChristian? If you say unChristian, as I think you must, then consider how Mormon extra-canonical revelation describes events as fantastic as the events of the Homeric cycle, and of much greater duration (several centuries vs about 40 years). Furthermore, Mormon tradition that human beings might in some afterlife become Gods themselves is even more radical than reintroducing the Homeric pantheon, (potentially billions of new Gods compared to a few dozen; blurred division between human of divine) and, if you will pardon the expression, is even more unChristian.
Yes, and I am also sure my goalpost defence is proof against your muddled semantic argumentation.
Actually, it does. The filioque was a dispute over a theological point that not one person in 100, (probably not 1 in 1,000), understood, and it did not change the basic understanding of either group’s belief regarding the trinity.
