@vienne
Thi is a gross misrepresentation rooted in a misunderstanding of both Scripture and Catholic teaching. The Catholic Church has never "feared" the Bible; in fact, it preserved, canonized, and transmitted it for centuries before the Protestant Reformation even existed. What the Church rightly cautions against is the privatized, individualistic interpretation of Scripture detached from the very authority and tradition that gave us the Bible in the first place. The issue isn’t "fear," but fidelity—fidelity to the full context of Scripture, not just isolated proof texts or “plain readings” that ignore historical, cultural, and linguistic nuance, and the interpretive authority Christ gave to His Church.
The term “plain words” itself is problematic. Plain to whom? The ancient Scriptures were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, not in modern English. Their meanings are shaped by literary genre, cultural idioms, and theological contexts that are often not “plain” at all to the modern reader. Even St. Peter warned that some things in Paul’s letters are “hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16). This means that misunderstanding Scripture isn’t a hypothetical danger—it’s a real one, and it’s confirmed by the fractured landscape of Protestantism, which contains thousands of competing sects, all claiming to follow the Bible’s “plain words.”
The Catholic Church teaches that Scripture is the Word of God, inspired and inerrant. But that doesn’t mean each individual believer is automatically equipped to interpret it correctly without guidance. This is not fear—it’s humility. The early Church didn’t treat Scripture as a private book for each believer to interpret however they pleased. The Bereans, often cited by Protestants (Acts 17:11), were not isolated individuals reading the Bible alone in their homes; they were part of the Jewish synagogue tradition, steeped in interpretive community. Even they were praised not simply for reading Scripture but for doing so in the context of receiving apostolic teaching.
Furthermore, the so-called “plain reading” has often led to heresy. Arius used “plain” texts to argue that Jesus was a creature. The Watchtower uses “plain” readings to deny the Trinity and the bodily resurrection of Christ. Modern liberal theologians use the “plain” words of Jesus on love and justice to justify homosexuality, abortion, and religious relativism. Clearly, the “plain reading” standard is entirely subjective and deeply flawed unless it is anchored in the apostolic faith preserved by the Church.
The Catholic position, far from being "fearful," is grounded in the wisdom Christ gave His Church. Christ did not write a book; He founded a Church. He appointed apostles and gave them authority to teach in His name (Luke 10:16). The Bible came later, written by the Church, for the Church, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. To separate the Bible from the Church is to sever it from the very lifeblood that preserved and illuminated it through the centuries. The Church is not opposed to Scripture but is its custodian. Scripture and Tradition are not rivals—they are two modes of transmission of the same divine revelation (cf. Dei Verbum 9).
To say Catholics are “afraid” of the Bible is not only false—it is deeply ironic. Protestantism, in many of its forms, is afraid to admit that sola scriptura is not taught in Scripture, that the Bible points to the Church as the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Timothy 3:15), that Jesus gave His authority not to a book, but to living men with successors (Matthew 28:19–20), and that the early Church operated on the basis of oral tradition and the Eucharist long before a New Testament was even compiled. It is Protestant fundamentalism, not Catholicism, that has built its theology on a tradition of man—sola scriptura—that was unknown to the apostles, the Fathers, and the early Church.
The Catholic Church does not run from the Bible—it lives by it, proclaims it, preaches it in every Mass, and interprets it in harmony with the living tradition and magisterial authority that Christ Himself instituted. That is not fear—it is faithfulness.
The Bible works the same way as the Constitution, it doesn't mean what Average Johnny sees in it, but what SCOTUS has determined it means.
@joey jojo
Creation refers specifically to the act by which God brings something into being from nothing (ex nihilo), that is, the first origination of a thing's very substance and essence without any prior subject or material cause. This is not the same as God rearranging, altering, or manifesting something within already-created nature, even if such actions defy the ordinary laws of nature and are, by definition, miraculous.
To say that manna was a "new creation" is to confuse miracle with creation. A miracle—like manna—is extraordinary, yes, but it presupposes the existence of creation and operates within it. It involves God's governance, His power over created causes, not a return to the act of bringing something from non-being into being. Even the multiplication of loaves and fishes by Christ in the Gospels, or His transformation of water into wine at Cana, are not considered new acts of creatio ex nihilo in the metaphysical sense. They are signs of God's dominion over creation, not evidence of a resumed foundational creation process.
The distinction between God’s initial act of creation and His ongoing providential governance is rooted in the biblical text itself. Genesis 2:2–3 clearly speaks of God "resting" from His works of creation, not from all activity. This rest refers to the conclusion of the original creative act, not to a divine withdrawal from the world. Scripture itself testifies to God’s ongoing work: “My Father is working still, and I am working” (John 5:17). Jesus said this precisely in response to a Sabbath controversy, and the text goes on to say that the Jews sought to kill Him because “He was making Himself equal with God.” The Jewish leaders understood that divine governance did not cease on the Sabbath—God sustains the universe even while the Sabbath rest is observed. What they found scandalous was that Jesus claimed that He too participated in this divine sustaining action.
The position you dismissed as “Christian apologetics” is in fact historic Christian doctrine, developed through centuries of biblical exegesis and philosophical reflection. It is affirmed not just by theologians trying to “cover for biblical errors,” but by the internal coherence of biblical teaching itself. The Old Testament presents God as continuously involved in Israel’s history, guiding, intervening, sustaining. Were each of these interventions to be considered a new creation, Scripture would contradict its own testimony of God having rested from creation on the seventh day.
Furthermore, to argue that “manna falling from heaven does not happen naturally” and therefore must be new creation, is to presume that anything that breaks the usual course of nature is necessarily a creation from nothing. This logic would require us to categorize every miracle—every healing, every prophetic vision, every divine intervention—as a new ontological event equivalent to the creation of the heavens and the earth. This is not only an unbiblical conflation but a philosophical absurdity. It ignores the concept of secondary causality, the idea that God works through, with, or above natural causes without abolishing the distinction between creation and providence.
The Catholic theological tradition does not rely on “dreams” or speculative gymnastics to avoid “biblical errors,” because it does not accept that Scripture contains any contradiction in the first place. Instead, it reads the Bible within the Church, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the living Tradition, and sound reason. The depth and richness of this interpretive tradition are precisely what prevent hasty, surface-level readings from distorting the true nature of divine action.
Therefore, the miracle of the manna does not invalidate or contradict the biblical teaching that God “rested” on the seventh day. Rather, it confirms the Church’s distinction between creation (as a once-for-all act) and providence (as a continual governance). God's rest is not passivity but fulfillment, not inactivity but sovereignty. His miraculous acts, far from undermining that rest, are manifestations of His intimate involvement with the world He lovingly sustains. This view, far from being “crap,” is the only theologically coherent and biblically faithful way to understand God’s rest in light of His ongoing action in salvation history.
@KalebOutWest
The Catholic affirmation of Sacred Tradition, far from resembling the human traditions of the Pharisees that Christ condemned (Mark 7:6–13), is rooted in divine revelation handed down from the apostles under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. When Catholics speak of Tradition, they do not refer to ever-expanding layers of human interpretation added over centuries—as in the case of the Talmudic development of the so-called “Oral Torah”—but to the living transmission of the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3), safeguarded by the Church founded by Christ and governed by apostolic authority.
The false equivalence between Catholic Tradition and rabbinic oral law collapses under closer scrutiny. The Oral Torah in Judaism—compiled centuries after Moses in the Mishnah and later expanded in the Talmud—represents a massive and extraneous body of law and commentary, claiming Mosaic authority without textual basis. Jesus Himself rebuked these traditions when they obscured or contradicted God's commandments. Catholic Tradition, by contrast, is not separate from Scripture but deeply intertwined with it. It is not an innovation layered atop divine revelation but its faithful transmission through the apostolic Church, guided by the Spirit of truth whom Christ promised would lead the apostles into all truth (John 16:13). This Tradition predates the final canon of Scripture and includes the lived faith, liturgy, creeds, and moral teachings of the early Church—all of which attest to and preserve the deposit of faith.
Your accusation of “cognitive dissonance” fails to grasp this distinction. The Catholic Church does not “reject” the Jewish understanding of tradition because it dislikes tradition per se, but because Jesus Himself fulfilled the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 5:17), and established a New Covenant wherein the authority to teach and interpret His revelation was entrusted not to the successors of the Pharisees, but to His apostles (Luke 10:16; Matthew 28:18–20). The apostolic Tradition is thus not a parallel to rabbinic authority but its fulfillment and transcendence. That Tradition—which includes but is not limited to the writings of the Church Fathers—is not arbitrary or endlessly expanding but is the Spirit-protected handing-on (paradosis) of Christ’s teaching in its fullness (2 Thessalonians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 11:2).
Furthermore, to reduce the role of the Church Fathers to “human traditions” misses the point entirely. Catholics do not place the Fathers on par with Scripture, nor do we treat them as if their writings are infallible. Rather, we regard them as trustworthy witnesses to the apostolic faith. When you read men like Ignatius of Antioch, writing in the first century, or Irenaeus of Lyons in the second, you are reading men who either knew the apostles directly or were only one generation removed. These Fathers did not “invent” Catholic doctrines but received them from those who walked with Christ or their immediate disciples. Their writings illuminate how the earliest Christians interpreted Scripture, celebrated the sacraments, structured their communities, and defended the faith against heresies. To ignore them in favor of modern, individualistic interpretations of Scripture is to sever yourself from the very context in which the Bible was written, compiled, and faithfully transmitted.
Accusing a Catholic of being a "Jehovah’s Witness at heart" is both misleading and ironic. First of all, I was never a JW. Jehovah’s Witnesses deny the divinity of Christ, reject the Trinity, and possess no apostolic continuity or sacramental life. Their rejection of history and ecclesial authority puts them far closer to the logical end of sola scriptura than any Catholic who embraces the fullness of apostolic Tradition. It is not the Catholic Church that behaves like the Watchtower, but those who assert their own interpretive authority over that of the visible Church Christ established. Catholics do not rely on private revelations, governing bodies in Brooklyn, or novel “restorations.” We rely on the visible Church, the successors of the apostles, and the consensus of the early Church—always rooted in the Scripture they received, preserved, and preached.