20100426 Question: Seven Deadly Sins

6: Why do many Catholics refer to the 7 deadly sins when they aren't mentioned in the Bible directly and were compiled by a man who had nothing to do with the Bible?

6. Yeah, one thing to get used to with Christianity: there are lots of things we do, talk about, etc. that are not expressly in the Bible. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us how to build a synagogue or a Christian church. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us how Christian ministers should dress. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us what books belong in the Bible! The comfort we have in Catholic Christianity is found in the fact that we grew organically from our Hebrew roots in the revelation of Jesus the Christ, through the ministry of the Apostles, and shepherded through history by their successors, the popes and bishops. Protestant communities are generally defined by what they deny of the Catholic Faith (though they would never admit it). Many of them are not even aware of this historically obvious distinction.
The "Seven Deadly Sins" are just one articulation of a common practice among Christian spiritual leaders of the early Middle Ages to identify the common causes of spiritual failing. Many other spiritual doctors refer to the "Eight Vices" including vainglory, pride that arises after having conquered other temptations (see Evagrius Ponticus and John Cassian). The effort was partially based on passages from Proverbs and Galatians that list offenses to God. Pope St. Gregory the Great really just made a very publicly published list to be of use to the people of God.

20100426 Question: Biblical Angels

4: If the Bible names four angels and there are millions, how do we know the names of more?

4. The Bible names a fair bit more than just four. Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael are all in there. And we can read Death as possibly being an angel. Lucifer (the devil, Satan, the adversary) is also named, as are many other demons, but we needn't go into all that. Names are given to angels in other non-Scriptural writings from both the Old Testament and New Testament periods (and later times as well). Again, these are not articles of faith but traditional tools in religious writings.

20100426 Question: Four Horsemen

3:There are four horsemen but only one was named in the bible. How do we know the other's names?
3. The fourth horseman is named as Death, and Revelation says he is given authority to destroy with "sword and famine and pestilence." Given that the imagery of the second horse is clearly linked with war, or death by the sword, he is generally given the name of War. The same with the image of the third horseman and Famine. Whereas the imagery of the first horseman might not scream out "pestilence," he was given that name to correlate with the expressed powers of Death. The names of the first three horsemen are not articles of faith, but rather just a traditional presentation of the passage. Rev. 6:1-8