Description
Answers to Catholic Claims (published by Crowne Publications) deals with the vital issue of biblical authority. The Reformer’s doctrine of Sola Scriptura is examined and shown to flow naturally and necessarily from the teaching of the Bible itself. The Roman Catholic concept of “Tradition” is examined and found to be in conflict with the Word of God, and examples of the errors that arise when Sola Scriptura is rejected are presented.
This work is important for those who wish to present the gospel to Roman Catholics but who struggle with Catholic claims of authority.
Anas –
above, just because the books of the New Testament were wrtietn for specific purposes and don’t purport to contain a compendium of doctrine. As a prime example: St. Clement of Rome, writing ca. A.D. 95-96, mere decades from the events of the New Testament, and possibly still within the apostolic age (St. John is believed to have lived until the 90s), clearly teaches a church structure based on bishops, priests, deacons, and apostolic succession. Clement probably knew St. Peter and St. Paul in Rome, or at the very least knew people who had known them. These doctrines weren’t just made up; they were clearly taught by the Apostles, and they’re documented in a reliable historical source.Through countryside and city [the Apostles] preached, and they appointed their earliest converts, testing them by the Spirit, to be the bishops and deacons of future believers. Nor was this a novelty, for bishops and deacons had been wrtietn about a long time earlier. . . . Our Apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the office of bishop. For this reason, therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those who have already been mentioned and afterwards added the further provision that, if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry (Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, 42, 44).