Prima Ecclesia: Revisited
Prima Ecclesia By Laurence Gonzaga For many years now I've been sharing a concept which I don't think has been coined or written on. I'm thinking of finally writing something about it in a brief booklet. It's probably not worth the effort to get it printed. It's a simple enough concept. The Protestant Reformation had it's doctrine of sola scriptura, that the Bible is the sole/only rule of faith for the Christian. Protestant Calvinist Dr. James White claimed that Catholics practiced what he coined to be sola ecclesia, that the Church alone has the authority. In a Catholic debate in the 90s, Catholic apologist Patrick Madrid explained the concept he called prima scriptura, that the primary authority is the Sacred Scriptures. His Catholic teammates didn't agree to endorse such a concept. In a recent debate between Trent Horn and Gavin Ortlund, Trent Horn used the phrase "prior, not higher" of Scripture. I disagree. If anything is prior, Sa...