Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Theopneustos, Trent Horn, James White - Both Are Arguably Wrong


Trent Horn is arguably wrong in weakening the sense of theopneustos. James White is provenly wrong in pretending bishops expressing themselves in genuine magisterium and tradition are not theopneustoi.

James White's (Non)Response to my Sola Scriptura Arguments
The Counsel of Trent, 24 July 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLX3yDgw5lk


1:36 Spontaneously, previous to the scholarship reveal, I would have agreed - for anything else to be infallible rule of faith it also has to be theopneustos. BUT this doesn't mean tradition isn't an infallible rule of faith or magisterium isn't one. BOTH hinge on the apostles who, John 20:22, were precisely theopneustoi, unless you would want to argue Arianism.

Neither Witham nor Challoner argued on your lines, but when it comes to Challoner, he came fairly close to argue on mine.

Every part of divine Scripture is certainly profitable for all these ends. But if we would have the whole rule of Christian faith and practice, we must not be content with those Scriptures which Timothy knew from his infancy, (that is, with the Old Testament alone) nor yet with the New Testament, without taking along with it the traditions of the apostles and the interpretation of the Church, to which the apostles delivered both the book and the true meaning of it. (Challoner)


So, Gospel of St. Matthew, ordinary magisterium of St. Matthew (whenever he was a missionary alone, or when he was in Jerusalem with the rest), tradition from St. Matthew are all three godbreathed because St. Matthew was so, John 20:22, and again, Acts 2:1-4.

Meaning, yes, even granting an infallible rule of faith has to be God-breathed, Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium are all infallible rule of faith, since all God-breathed.

5:30 The material cited from Lee Martin McDonald actually is equally compatible with Challoner's or my sense.

Magisterium and Tradition are also God breathed, since also (like NT Scriptures) Apostolic, and the Apostles were the originally theopneustoi.

The argument is widely made by the Orthodox, sometimes abusively, like when accusing "filioque" to be basically the equivalent of Bible forgery, because the bishops assembled at Constantinople in the late Fourth Century were theopneustoi and made a Creed without the filioque.*

But yes, the positive decisions of Constantinople I were theopneustoi. Argument from silence (usually) isn't.

* Whether that is the case is debatable, since we don't have the complete acts from Constantinople I in the original Greek manuscript.

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