shadmans Musings  

As we begin argument 7 in Cameron’s ‘powerful’ arguments against Sola Scriptura we come to the subject of final authority, and what he means by this is that Sola Scriptura makes the individual the ultimate and final authority on interpreting Scripture. Cameron seems to want to identify ‘who’ is supposed to have the final authority when interpreting Scripture but maybe a better way to put this is, who is responsible to read and understand Scripture - every believer or just the Church and her hierarchy? This argument on Cameron’s part is an attempt to demonstrate that the believer does not have the right or responsibility to interpret Scripture; that final authority rests with the Church whose responsibility also extends to telling the believer what Scripture means. It reminds me of a radio personality who famously boasted that he would tell you what was important in the news and then tell you what to believe. It was intended as sarcasm because of how little people were actually thinki...

After looking at argument #9, which was, ‘Sola Scriptura was not in the early Church,’ and seeing how Church history actually does support Sola Scriptura , we move onto argument #8 and the idea that Sola Scriptura caused the fragmentation of the church. At first glance, this might sound plausible. There are a lot of Protestant denominations, and some of them are turning downright heretical. But the general reason for this argument seems to be all of the perceived doctrinal disagreements that created the perceived disunity, although I think far too many of these splits are caused by personalities and petty selfishness. But fragmentation can sometimes be more difficult to pin down than one might think. Far too many Protestants, and Catholics for that matter, know nothing about their history or how their doctrines came about. When someone says something, you just believe it because checking them out is not always an easy task and we live in a day and age when we just can’t be bothered wi...

[18] Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, [19] and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. (Col 2:18-19) As we continue in Colossians we see how Gnostic mysticism was influencing the Colossians as it attempted to trick and manipulate them into believing things that were never part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There was no need for humiliating oneself, or inflating the importance of prophetic visions, or spiritual experiences that were drawing the Colossian believers away from Christ. As Max Anders put it, Fullness and freedom mean that believers need not be drawn into the quest for exciting experiences. Apparently, the false teachers were telling the believers at Colosse that mystical visions and deeper experie...