Can a faithful Catholic affirm this?

[Thumper]

To take a bit of a different tack, I was struck by tail end of the quote from Wheaton:

"[T]he Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are verbally inspired by God and inerrant in the original writing, so that they are fully trustworthy and of supreme and final authority in all they say."

"In all they say" seems troublesome to me. As a Catholic I'm happy to affirm scripture's authority and trustworthiness with regard to faith and morals. However, I don't look to scripture as an accurate historical record or science textbook.

[journeyman]

[quote name='Thumper' date='Jan 11 2006, 08:19 PM']To take a bit of a different tack, I was struck by tail end of the quote from Wheaton:

"[T]he Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are verbally inspired by God and inerrant in the original writing, so that they are fully trustworthy and of supreme and final authority in all they say." 

"In all they say" seems troublesome to me.  As a Catholic I'm happy to affirm scripture's authority and trustworthiness with regard to faith and morals.  However, I don't look to scripture as an accurate historical record or science textbook.
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I also noticed the phrase "in all they say." Since the bible is silent about (for example) computers and jet planes, it seems plausible under the Wheaton language that the Bible has no authority in matters involving them . . . this is probably not the meaning intended by the drafters

[Guest JeffCR07]

[quote name='Era Might' date='Jan 10 2006, 09:45 PM']I disagree. Paul knew very well that God was a Trinity. His language is still used to this day. For example:
We see here that God (ie, God the Father) is distinguished from his "Spirit", and "his Word" (ie, Christ). This is just a biblical manner of speaking.
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You are sidestepping the point. I am not denying that evidence for Trinitarian belief is backed by Scripture and Tradition - of course it is. But my point is that it was not explicitly defined at that time, so until the point that it [i]was[/i] defined, you could still be an orthodox christian and believe it, just like Thomas Aquinas wasn't a heretic for rejecting the Immaculate Conception.

The terms had not been defined, hence the claim that you are making about the word "God" applying only to the Father and not to the Son doesn't make sense, because theologians were still working out exactly what those terms meant.

[Era Might]

[quote name='JeffCR07' date='Jan 11 2006, 10:53 PM']You are sidestepping the point. I am not denying that evidence for Trinitarian belief is backed by Scripture and Tradition - of course it is. But my point is that it was not explicitly defined at that time, so until the point that it [i]was[/i] defined, you could still be an orthodox christian and believe it, just like Thomas Aquinas wasn't a heretic for rejecting the Immaculate Conception.

The terms had not been defined, hence the claim that you are making about the word "God" applying only to the Father and not to the Son doesn't make sense, because theologians were still working out exactly what those terms meant.
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Well, we will have to disagree about what the Apostles did and did not know about the nature of God. The word "God" does not apply ONLY to the Father. Rather, it is frequently used to distinguish the Father from the Son and the Holy Spirit, particularly by St. Paul.

Edited January 12, 2006 by Era Might

[Guest JeffCR07]

[quote name='Era Might' date='Jan 11 2006, 09:04 PM']Well, we will have to disagree about what the Apostles did and did not know about the nature of God. The word "God" does not apply ONLY to the Father. Rather, it is frequently used to distinguish the Father from the Son and the Holy Spirit, particularly by St. Paul.
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It seems to me that you are equivocating between explicit and implicit knowledge. The Dogma of the Trinity is most certainly something that Paul and the rest of the Apostles would have agreed upon, if they had the opportunity to sit down with the Nicean Fathers and come to an understanding of all the philosophical meanings of the terms involved. That does not mean that, if we zapped Paul here from the past, he would have been familiar with our way of speaking about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What was [i]implicit[/i] in his writings, teachings, and thought is now made [i]explicit[/i] in our formal language. Your argument hinges on trying to force me, who knows the formal language, into a situation in which it was unknown. That kind of argument doesn't work.

Your Brother In Christ,

Jeff