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The Origin of Sola Scriptura
The doctrine that Scripture is the Christian’s only infallible rule of faith was popularized and promoted by Martin Luther, who, the story goes, affixed his Ninety-five Theses to the church door at Wittenberg’s Castle Church in 1517. His Theses put forth a series of propositions for debate, focusing prominently on the doctrine of indulgences—see the Catechism of the Catholic Church(CCC), paragraph 1471—which he sought to challenge. Since indulgences are granted on the pope’s authority, Luther’s
…
Sep 9th 2024
Did the Early Christians Get Things Wrong?
You can find countless variations of the claim that early Christians believed Protestant things:
Mormons who claim that the early Christians believed Mormon things Muslims who claim they believed Muslim thingsNon-religious people claiming that they didn’t originally consider Jesus divineAnd various other religious groups making similar claims about how their teachings were what the earliest Christians really believed.Almost all of these arguments follow a similar form: the first followers of J
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Jul 1st 2024
The Unbiblical Idea of Sola Scriptura
After I became a Christian
I struggled with whether I should keep attending a
Catholic Church.As I sat in church and watched incense rise
up
from the altar, I felt an urge to stay and be part of what
felt
like a sacred mystery.On the other
hand, there were a lot of Catholic beliefs
that
I could not find in the Bible, which made me think they
were just man-made traditions.I eventually decided that it didn’t
matter which church I joined so long as I only
believed in what the Bible
…
Oct 2nd 2023
The Bible’s Table of Contents
The clearest example of
a sacred Tradition that both Catholics
and Protestants accept is the canon of Scripture. The word canon comes from a Greek word that means “rule,” and refers to the Church’s
official
list of inspired writings. You can find this list
in the table of contents of every Catholic or Protestant Bible.The
canon of Scripture was first declared
in Rome in A.D. 382and was later defined at two Catholic councils in North Africa(Hippo
in A.D.
393 and Carthage in A.D. 397).How
…
Sep 18th 2023
“Where is that in the Bible?”
“Where is that in the Bible?”This is the most common question I receive when I discuss the Catholic faith with Protestants. They ask me questions like: “Where is purgatory in the Bible? Or the Mass? Or the pope? Or the rosary?”These questions assume that Christians should only believe a doctrine if it is explicitly taught in Scripture—what is called sola scriptura (“by Scripture alone”). The 1647 Protestant Westminster Confession of Faith expressed a key aspect of sola scriptura this way: “The w
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May 15th 2023