Originally posted by Apologiaphoenix
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I think you're exagerrating just a little bit there.
There's no way to test these traditions either to see if they go back to the apostles or not. Scripture on the other hand, I do think goes back and can be shown to go back to them.
I see no good reasons to throw out the tradition of the Church Fathers. I'm not committed to Sola Scriptura, and I don't think you've made a convincing argument here.
Leon. You know that passage is in the long ending of Mark 16 and that's often considered spurious. I don't think that passage goes back to the historical Jesus.
Without good reason I'd rather trust the Church over Zwingli's opinion.
Both Luther and Calvin considered baptism necessary for salvation, though Calvin argues that the baptism itself wasn't efficacious, but he was clear that someone who neglected baptism was excluded from salvation. The Church has a softer view, especially as regards catechumens, and the martyrs. And its popular opinion among theologians that it might even be possible for non-baptised people to be saved.
But that opinion can never become doctrine since it falls outside of tradition.
If you wanna be saved, become baptised.
I don't see either baptism or Communion as conferring holiness onto someone. We are to do them because that is what Jesus commanded. I recall being at a Protestant church recently with my wife and she was debating whether to take Communion or not. I told her that many people in the church in all branches don't have a doctrine of Communion. They just take it because that is what Jesus said to do and they do it to honor Him. I think He is pleased with that.
But that's not what makes them secondary.
A power that is conferred to them the same way Isaac conferred his blessing on Jakob. By breathing on them.
Sure. Some could be saved in ignorance. The question is, when you explain it to them, if they are resistant still, are they really part of the body of Christ? That's where I'd get more skeptical.
After all if we collapse Christianity down to the mere statement "Jesus is God; Make Jesus your Lord; Jesus was Resurrected" Then even Mormons are to be considered Christian. Yet I'd say that by denying the Trinity they're in a sense denying God as He is.
Yet I'd have a feeling that someone who categorically denied the Trinity. Lets say the pastor of your local parish. You wouldn't call that a secondary issue. Yet why? I can understand it from the perspective of the Church. Just about any alternative to the Trinity was declared a heresy, and Christians were bound to reject them. And so we must. Its bound on earth, and therefore bound in Heaven.
But I don't follow your reasoning about primary vs secondary. Its not clear to me at all why you should draw a line here and not there.
What do you think Sola Scriptura means?
Sola Scripture doesn't mean, that a Christian can't study Jewish or Greek culture and life to understand the social environment the Bible was writen in, to explore its idioms, typologies, etc....
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