Our Lord Jesus Christ taught the one Christian faith to the Apostles, including St.Paul...they in turn handed down the one faith to others by way of both oral traditions and by letter. According to St.Matt. 18:19, Jesus sent them to teach the one Christian faith to the whole world until the end of time. Sacred Tradition began with Christ teaching His faith to the Apostles and they in turn handing down the full deposit of Faith, both written and unwritten (oral) to others they ordained or appointed as fit to teach. Sacred Tradition is a living, ongoing Divine authoritative teaching of the one Christian faith down through the ages that on Christ's promise will continue to the end of the world.
Your and KFC's denial of the Divine authority of Sacred Tradition as a source of the one Christian Faith in defense of Luther's doctrine of Sola Scriptura would be amusing if it were not so misleading and dangerous.
TPP posts:
You keep saying that it came around with Luther (even though I have shown through several 1st century church fathers thats not true).
I can play that dumb game as well and say 'your incorrect doctrine came about during the council of Trent in the 16th century' its only been around since then.
Anyone can find writings from the Church Fathers that affirm Sacred Scripture is inspired of God and an authoritative deposit of faith. The Church grants that! To prove Sola Scriptura, your task would be to show the Chruch Fathers were committed to Sacred Scripture wholly and alone as the sole deposit of faith apart from the larger Sacred Tradition and ongoing community of memory (As St.Paul commanded "steadfastly holding on") of which it is part. That has not been done by you or anybody for that matter.
To assert that the Chruch Fathers entertained views of Sola Scriptura (that the Bible and the Bible alone is the sole rule of the one Christian faith) is ridiculous.
In fact, the larger context of the Father's corpus of writings reveal a pattern that is anything but Protestant and cannot possibly have been derived from Sola Scriptura. The whole of the Chruch Father's wriitings breathes explicit Catholicism whether its the primacy, the Holy Eucharist, Mariology, to canons (rules) received from the Apostles, through oral Tradition.
St.Luke speaks of Sacred Tradition as "preaching in CHrist's name to all nations." This Apostolate was not for the Apostles alone, but for their successors, who were always to be received as Christ Himself ...10:16.
The teaching of Christ's one Christian faith is to be learned not from the Bible alone, but from a divine, infallible teaching body until the end of the world. And this is clearly set forth by St.Paul....
"Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe Him on whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent? ........FAITH THEN COMETH BY HEARING....But I say, Have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound hath gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the whole world."
That men were to learn the one Christian faith not from the Bible alone or by the private interpretation of it, but from this permanent teaching Apostolate (called the Magisterium of His Chruch), is clear from the fact that the Apostles appointed successors to themselves and ordered them in turn to appoint others to carry on their work. All this is found in the Book of Acts.
This is where the commands to steadfaastly hold to the traditions of St.Paul to the Thessalonians and to Timothy comes in.
TPP posts:
I'm still curious what traditions were Paul referring to in Timothy. Obviously you being so enlighten.....could enlighten us with what taditions he was referring to exactly?
If you really want to learn the answer to your question, read the Book of Acts.
Apostolicity of ministry implies authority to teach, to rule and to sanctify, which has been handed down by the Apostles.
No individual has the right to associate himself with the Apostles...he must be 'sent" or "commissioned" with Divine Authority.
"How shall they preach" asks St.Paul, "unless they be sent"?
As early as the second century we find the Chruch Fathers, Syrian Hegisippus and Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, maintaining that the source and standard of the one Christian Faith, is the Apostolic Sacred Tradition handed down in an unbroken succession of Bishops.
"But it would be too long to enumerate here the series of all the Churches; it suffices to point out the Apostolic Tradition, the teaching that has come down to us by episcopal succession, ...the greatest and most ancient of all, known, everywhere, and founded in Rome by the two glorious Apostles, Paul and Peter." Adv. Her. iii., 3; cf. Eusebuis, Hist. Eccles. iv., 8.
