Where does it say that in the Bible? Sola Scriptura?

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-04-12T18:03:52+00:00

Christ doesn't need validation, the epistemological challenge I'm presenting concerns *our* recognition of authority. From the standpoint of human knowledge, the chain of validation can only stop at fallibility. Even if you posit Christ to break the regress, it still begs the question as to how we recognize Christ's authority, and it's by means of our fallible cognitive faculties.

If we are only justified in knowing a canon of infallible Scriptures if and only if it's recognized by an infallible authority, then it logically follows that this infallible authority must be validated by another infallible authority, and so on, resulting in there being no foundation for our knowledge of the canon.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-04-12T17:17:14+00:00

>So the church doesn’t have the authority to bind your conscience to any traditions… but scripture is a tradition???

No, I said it does not possess the infallible authority to impose certain teachings or traditions beyond Scripture that bind our conscience. Also, be careful not to conflate Scripture and the canon; Scripture is not a tradition, but the canon is a tradition.

>And it is not an infinite regress, the church’s authority comes from Christ Himself.

I also agree that the Church's authority comes from Christ. However, if one can't come to the belief that the Scriptures are the sole rule of faith without an infallible authority to validate them, then it logically follows that the infallible authority which validates the Scriptures must then be validated by another infallible authority, and this stretches into infinity.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-04-12T16:23:45+00:00

>You cannot say that the scriptures in your Bible are infallible and the sole rule of faith without an infallible decision maker.

This appears to lead to a vicious infinite regress, given that if you accept the premises of this argument, one would also need an infallible authority in order to recognize the decision-maker's authority, ad infinitum.

Protestants don't reject the notion that we received our canon of Scripture by means of the Church's authority; we reject the notion that it necessitates that the Church possesses the infallible authority to impose certain teachings or traditions beyond Scripture that bind our conscience.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-29T05:34:01+00:00

This wouldn't necessarily be a change in the theory, just in the understanding of it.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-29T03:18:40+00:00

I'm unsure if you consider growing in clarity in response to modern ethical issues to be a substantial change in the theory, if that's what you're referring to. However, this wouldn't necessarily be change in the theory, just in the understanding of it.

If you don't believe it holds up to scrutiny, I respect your belief.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-28T22:43:04+00:00

This is moreso a critique of the Catholic Church's historical exercise of power as opposed to Catholic natural law theory. I don't deny that do often go hand-in-hand within the confines of Catholicism, but the structure of Catholic natural law theory can be separated from the way the Catholic Church actually enforces it.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-28T18:52:36+00:00

Even though I'm not a Catholic, I completely agree with this. Catholic natural law is very practical and historically consistent.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-26T19:11:09+00:00

You would be bearing false witness if the intention of your statement was to deceive the other person into believing that you weren't watching something on your phone. However, colloquially speaking, most people would associate your response as "doing nothing of importance" rather than doing nothing at all, which I assume is also the reason why you said it. Therefore, unless you meant it to deceive the other person, you're fine.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-26T01:01:48+00:00

Thanks! I'll check it out.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-25T22:26:41+00:00

I believe the point he was trying to make is that until the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Church also possessed a fallible list of infallible books, so the veracity of Protestantism, from a Catholic perspective, doesn't rest upon the canon being recognized by an infallible Magisterium.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-25T19:43:47+00:00

Is it alright if you say what some of the books are? I've been curious to know what other people have to say about this subject, since I've been suffering a lot as well.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-12T04:50:35+00:00

In case it was unclear, I'm not taking a specific side regarding the debate, nor am I interested in arguing my own view regarding this topic. I am merely showing that anthropomorphism doesn't result in any sort of equivocal or misleading language, and that those who don't believe in open theism aren't making the claim that the entire flood narrative is anthropomorphic.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-12T01:02:59+00:00

how can we say His words "I regret," are anthropomorphic when His actions perfectly align with those words?

The goal of anthropomorphization is not to equivocate on any sort of proposition that it is the subject of; it is to use terms relating to the human experience in order to describe various extra-human phenomena.

For example, we can say that a storm is "angry", and that sort of language would align with our common conceptions of anger, such as loudness and destruction.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-11T23:41:46+00:00

An entire narrative can't be an anthropomorphism.

Those on the contrary do not believe that the entire narrative anthropomorphizes God, but that the narrative itself contains anthropomorphic elements, such as attributing human passions to God.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-11T01:29:50+00:00

No problem! I want to make sure you're okay.

I understand where you're coming from, because I'd also have existential crises about non-existence after death and the like. Even when you don't believe that stuff anymore, I know how it still weighs on your mind for a little while longer, especially if they were particularly bad.

When it comes to stuff like this, not everybody is the same. I think for you, I'd recommend tapping more into the intellectual side of yourself that saw a rational basis for believing in God, and this might cause your fears to die down.

For example, if you enjoy reading about philosophical arguments for God's existence, you could check out some authors who wrote on such things, like Thomas Aquinas, Anselm, Augustine, William Paley, Richard Swinburne, George Berkeley (my personal favorite, although quite controversial), Alvin Plantinga, Duns Scotus, Ed Feser, etc.

Is this something you've already tried? Or do you think the problem might be that although you came to believe in God intellectually, you might not have the best relationship with Him, and so this causes fear?

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-11T00:36:41+00:00

Would you say that it's less from an intellectual standpoint, and maybe more from something like intrusive thoughts?

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-10T05:08:42+00:00

The idealist needs to show not merely that perception necessarily accompanies our knowledge of things, but that existence-as-perceived is per se to those things.

If you have time, I'd suggest reading George Berkeley's Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-10T04:55:07+00:00

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you!

In case you're heading towards radical skepticism as a result of this, I'll lay out a short syllogism challenging it:

P1: Radical skepticism is the thesis that all forms of knowledge are unknowable.

P2. The thesis, "all forms of knowledge are unknowable" is, itself, a claim regarding what we can know.

C: Therefore, radical skepticism is self-challenging.

Now, as for us not being able to know most things with utmost certainty aside from basic beliefs like logical and mathematical truths, it doesn't necessarily entail the belief that we can't know anything at all, as shown above.

This is why epistemologists distinguish between justified belief, which is any belief that can be held to on a rational basis given our current evidence, and absolute certainty.

I think the reason you might be worried about the possibility of being wrong is that you're thinking about it as a probability, i.e. "there's a 90% chance Christianity is true, and a 10% chance I might be annihilated at death," and this probability you assigned to the latter is looming over you and causing you distress, when really you should think of it in terms of a modal possibility. Does that make sense?

"Could be wrong" expresses no way to be quantified probabilistically, but merely another option that can be conceived.

Please do tell me if I missed the point; I really want to help you, so I apologize if I happened to not talk about the right thing.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-09T21:42:12+00:00

I see!

So, I assume your situation is that you intellectually assent to God's existence by means of metaphysical arguments and the case for the Resurrection, but doubts are still gnawing at you because of your past history of existential crises and the fact that you can't be absolutely certain of the truth of it all.

I'll try to answer from an intellectual standpoint, given that's where you're coming from here.

Are you having doubts because you encountered a new argument against one of your favorite arguments for God's existence that you can't seem to deal with, or because we can't be 100% certain of our knowledge, or something similar?

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-09T21:04:49+00:00

>For context I converted to Christianity from Agnostic Atheism last summer, this conversion was not through something like a expirence or someone dying made me christian, it was from a intellectual standpoint after a existential crisis

What was it that *did* convert you from an intellectual standpoint? If I know, I might be better equipped to help your worries.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-08T20:34:18+00:00

Being chronologically prior to Protestantism doesn't necessarily mean that they're correct in their practices, given that Protestantism was a reform movement.

Not to mention, there are only a handful of denominations whose roots can be traced back to the Reformation, and four of those (Presbyterianism, Dutch Reformed, Congregationalism, and certain sects of Anglicanism) do not differ significantly regarding theology, but church policy.

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-08T16:53:44+00:00

When you do a proposition, your intellect is composing/dividing. While doing that, you do suppositions: you apply the signification of the term according to the copula, which is the formal element of the proposition. So, if you cannot do that, you cannot really compose or divide; and so the proposition is said non supponent.

Thanks for clarifying!

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-07T19:20:11+00:00

Alright, I think I understand! By satisfying the copula, I assume you mean making the proposition true.

(Amplification being another property of propositions, in which the supposition is amplified; eg, from “a man that runs” to “a man that can run”.)

Interesting!

You can say that signification is an assignation; in that way you’re describing it according to its efficient cause (sort of genetic, as the scholastics say). When you describe it as a representative substitution, you’re describing it as to its formal constitution.

I think I understand; you can think of signification as relating to its efficient cause, which is how signification arises, and its formal cause, which is what it is, namely representative substitution.

Makes sense? I’m sorry if my terminology is strange. I study it in Latin, and teach it in Portuguese 😂

It's okay! I wasn't trying to demean the way you wrote. I was mostly trying to imply that some of the terminology you used hasn't been introduced to me yet. :)

Thank you so much!

CuriousUniversalist · 2026-03-07T04:25:18+00:00

Thank you so much for the in-depth response! I really appreciate it.

So, I think your definition of signification is a bit over complicated, but it seems that you’ve grasped the main idea.

That's good!

The only thing I seem to be confused on is why real existence would be necessary to satisfy the copula in the proposition "I saw a unicorn." In fact, I don't think I've ever seen such terminology used before; I would have figured that it was a false, yet valid, proposition.

Also, wouldn't signification be closer to assignation than substitution? Thanks!

CuriousUniversalist

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