I have been having an ongoing debate with a gentleman I met over Twitter about Scripture. He is Roman Catholic and believes that "The Bible cannot declare itself to be the inspired Word of God. An outside authority must do it. That authority is the Catholic Church." (That is a direct quote from one of our online dialogues.)I shared with him that even though he may say that the Bible cannot declare itself to be the inspired Word of God, that is exactly what the Bible does do. In 2 Timothy 3:16 Paul affirms that all Scripture is inspired (literally "God-breathed"). And Peter insisted in 2 Peter 1:21 the prophets did not originate their own private predictions, but wrote as "they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."
You see, the fundamental difference between my Roman Catholic friend and myself is this. I believe that the Word of God is inspired, infallible and authoritative by itself. He believes the Word of God is also inspired, infallible and authoritative only because the Roman Catholic Church has said so.
My question would be this: Where does parental authority come from? Is there authority inherent with simply being a parent or does an outside source (like the state) say you have the authority to be a parent? (Unfortunately such an idea isn't that far from reality.)
A parent has authority as a parent because he or she is a parent. Now there are some cases where the state has stepped in and declared a person to be unfit to be a parent. But by and large, parental authority is derived from the state of parenthood, and not the state.
Similarly, the Word of God, validated by signs and wonders and miracles, can claim with no help from an outside source, that it is divinely inspired. There have been occasions in the past where the church stepped in and helped to determine if a book should be in the canon or not based on historical merit. But Scripture is inspired with out the help of the Catholic Church.
The Bible's authority, reliability, authenticity and validity is in no need of support from a religious tradition that subverts the nature of the message of the Gospel by telling men that they can be saved by good works. The epitome of heresy, in my humble opinion, is to think that we can do anything at all to add to the work of Jesus Christ on the cross to atone for the sin of mankind.
I trust in the infallible Word of God, not because the Catholic Church has deemed it to be okay (by the way, the Catholic Tradition has upheld the validity of works that have no historical merit as the Word of God with their acceptance of the apocrypha) but because the Word of God has told me it is inspired from God.
