I don’t disagree but there’s an automatic tension between unity and truth. Very tricky.
Both have definition issues between acceptance and concordance. The definition will determine the stance and understanding.
Richard
It could be worse.
The Institute for Creation Research once posted a sample multiple-choice exam from one of their courses which included the question:
- Sola scriptura is Greek for:
…
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I’ve been reading Traumatized Church and one of the points was that Paul was not a very good speaker, though his writings were forceful and eloquent. The content may have been the same, but his communication skills were lacking orally, which is part of reason some followed Apollos, or Peter, or fell asleep in a window listening to him.
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This question leads to the need that Mary’s mother had to be sinless, and her grandmother, and so on all back down the line.
It’s also a category error: Jesus is sinless because of Who He is; who Mary was is an ordinary Jewish girl to whom the Word came. As a sinner, she is a model for every Christian because she shows that the Word can come to sinners. If she was sinless, she’s no model for us at all because she was in a different category.
Maybe not an agenda from above, but one driven by all the female-deity cults in Rome. Given those, an exaltation of the status of Mary seems inevitable once the hordes came into the church when it became licit.
Absolutely.
Why? Because Paul’s statement assumes that the content of his verbal teaching was the same as the content of his written teaching.
There’s a difference between political pressure aborting the process and it being used afterwards.
Exactly.
Keep in mind that time may not function the same ‘where’ they are. My older brother the mathematician once made an argument that if they function with a second time dimension that is “perpendicular” to the first then they could have days or weeks available between what to us are near-simultaneous petitions.
(Don’t ask me to explain a second time dimension or how it could be perpendicular to ours).
No, it doesn’t – but it establishes that an argument with no scriptural backing has any validity.
Which leaves no room for inventing doctrines with no foundation in the Bible, which Rome has done.
Homoousios has no foundation whatsoever in the Bible, I’m sorry. Which doesn’t mean that it’s not compatible with the Bible, it just means that it’s nowhere to be found in the Bible and the Bible can just as easily used to make arguments for the opposite side. Bibliolatry only takes you so far.
Arius’ arguments had as much scriptural backing as the others. Which is why debates went on for literal decades with no side managing to “prove” they were right, until the Church weighed in and decided which interpretation was compatible with the faith of the Church.
There is, especially because truth was definitely not unimportant to Jesus.
I think we have now reached the real point of disagreement.
You have conceded that:
- Jesus and the apostles taught more orally than was eventually written;
- authentic oral apostolic teaching would not contradict Scripture;
- therefore there originally existed an apostolic deposit larger than the surviving written corpus.
I agree, of course, but then you introduce a completely new premise, which sounds like “after the apostles and their immediate disciples died, the Church no longer possessed a reliable way of identifying that apostolic Tradition, so written Scripture became the only trustworthy “barometer.”
That is precisely the proposition that still needs to be proved, because It’s not stated in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and it’s not stated in 2 Timothy 2:2.
In fact, 2 Timothy 2:2 points in the opposite direction: “What you have heard from me … entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.”
As already mentioned, explicitly envisages oral transmission continuing: Paul → Timothy → faithful teachers → others.
So the New Testament itself does not predict that, once the apistles die, oral transmission becomes epistemically unreliable and Scripture alone remains, It in fact predicts continued transmission through identifiable teachers.
And historically, Irenaeus is devastating to the idea that the early post-apostolic Church thought it had been left only with written Scripture.
Writing around A.D. 180, he says that Christians can know “the tradition of the apostles” manifested in the churches and can actually enumerate the succession of those whom the apostles established and their successors down to his own day.
He then says that through this succession “the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us.”
That is almost exactly the mechanism you say had become unavailable. And when Irenaeus asks what should happen in a serious doctrinal dispute, his answer is striking: “should we not have recourse to the most ancient churches associated with the apostles and learn from them what is “certain and clear” concerning the disputed question?”
He then adds that even if the apostles had left no writings, Christians would have to follow the tradition they handed down to those to whom they entrusted the churches.
So Irenaeus’ model is not apostles → oral teaching → apostles die → only Scripture remains reliable, It’s quite clearly apostles → Scripture + public apostolic Tradition → churches entrusted to successors → continued preservation of the apostolic faith.
Now let’s consider your question: “how could we cross-check whether an alleged oral teaching really came from Jesus or the apostles?”
That is a perfectly legitimate question.
But your answer “check it against Scripture”already assumes that Scripture is the sole criterion.
Irenaeus gives a different set of criteria: antiquity, public transmission, agreement of the apostolic churches, succession from apostolic founders, and consistency (which, once again, doesn’t mean duplication nor does it mean that there can’t be consistent development of doctrine) with the received rule of faith.
And there is an important historical irony in your appeal to false written gospels such as Thomas.
Because, I mean…how did the early Church know that every document claiming apostolic authorship was not Scripture?
The answer was not that the canonical books contained an inspired table of contents identifying themselves and excluding Thomas.
Eusebius, as I mentioned during the last few days, writing about the canon, explicitly distinguishes accepted, disputed, and rejected books by examining their reception in the churches and the testimony of earlier ecclesiastical writers. He says that writings such as the Gospel of Thomas were rejected because no writer belonging to the succession of ecclesiastical teachers had treated them as apostolic Scripture.
So even your proposed “barometer” (the New Testament canon) was historically identified through the same kind of ecclesial historical transmission that it seems you are now treating as too unreliable to preserve apostolic Tradition.
That produces a serious problem, because you cannot consistently argue “the post-apostolic Church was reliable enough to identify which writings genuinely came from the apostolic deposit” while simultaneously asserting “the post-apostolic Church was too unreliable to preserve or identify any genuine apostolic oral teaching.”
Why should the Church’s historical testimony be reliable enough to distinguish Matthew from Thomas, or apostolic books from pseudepigrapha, but intrinsically unreliable when it testifies to apostolic teaching and practice and to beliefs that were transmitted orally (for example the practice of praying for the dead)?
That asymmetry requires an argument, you cannot simply assume it.
And “false traditions could have circulated orally” does not solve the problem either, of course they could. But the existence of counterfeit money does not prove that genuine money cannot be identified.
The relevant question is whether the early Church possessed criteria for distinguishing authentic apostolic transmission from later inventions.
Irenaeus says that it did:
- Publicity rather than secret teaching;
agreement with the rule of faith; - Continuity with the apostolic churches;
- Succession of their recognized teachers.
That is exactly why he attacks the Gnostics for claiming secret apostolic traditions: their doctrines could not be traced publicly through the churches founded by the apostles.
So your argument has now moved a long way from sola Scriptura being taught by Paul: you have conceded that authoritative apostolic oral teaching existed and contained more information than the written corpus.
What remains is your historical assertion that this oral transmission became unreliable after the apostles died and that Scripture alone thereafter became the trustworthy criterion, but neither Scripture nor the earliest post-apostolic evidence says that, actually, as it has already been said, Irenaeus explicitly describes the opposite.
I used to be an agnostic, leaning toward philosophical naturalism. During my deployment in Afghanistan, though, I became firmly entrenched in atheism (or, more precisely, philosophical naturalism, even if i didn’t know this term back then this is what, for all intents and purposes, i had become) and the years following my return only reinforced that outlook.
Then, one day (and I still remember it vividly, and always will) I suddenly felt an overwhelming attraction toward the things of God, along with a powerful urge to go to church, pray, and read the Bible.
It was July 20, 2014. A Sunday.
I was at home, chilling in bed that afternoon and watching something meaningless on television, when, all of a sudden, I was overcome by a profound melancholy and began weeping. At the same time, a single thought seemed to take hold of me: “Go to church. Go to church.”
It was as though I had been spiritually starving without even realizing it until that very moment.
I went to church. I began reading the Bible and the Church Fathers. It was as though I were a moth drawn irresistibly toward the light.
I cannot attribute any of this to human reasoning, upbringing, or conditioning, because:
- My family was even less interested in the things of God than I was. Today, they have all converted.
- I had not set foot in a church since I was twelve years old.
Be that as it may, on that day I woke up in the morning an atheist, and by the time I went to bed that night, I was a Christian, a Roman Catholic Christian. And other stuff happened in the following months that confirmed me in my ways and brought forth the conversion of my family.
So I guess I know a thing or two about changing my mind (even if my wife, and not only her to be honest, keeps telling me I’m stubborn AF
).
I’m replying to you now because i missed your comment earlier.
I think that in your comment you are introducing a modern representative-democratic model into Nicaea that the historical evidence does not support.
Nicaea was an ecumenical council composed of bishops from many local churches and there was discussion and broad episcopal agreement, but that does not contradict my statement that the Church authoritatively defined which interpretation expressed the apostolic faith.
That is precisely what the council itself says it did.
The synodal letter sent after Nicaea says that the bishops assembled to consider “matters which concern the faith of the Church” and then informed the churches of what had been “decreed and confirmed.”
Concerning Arius, it says that his teaching was examined and that it was decreed that his doctrine should be anathematized.
And the Nicene Creed itself does not conclude: “most local churches currently disagree with Arius”, It says that those who affirm the specified Arian propositions are anathematized by “the Catholic and Apostolic Church.”
That is not merely consultation, that is doctrinal adjudication.
You also say that the bishops were “representatives of the local churches that decided to send a representative”, but such wording is potentially misleading.
Ancient bishops were not parliamentary delegates carrying a mandate from congregational constituencies and taking a poll of what their local churches had already decided, they actually attended precisely as bishops, possessing ecclesiastical teaching and governing authority.
Even the canons of Nicaea show this structure. Canon 5 requires provincial synods of bishops to adjudicate disciplinary questions, and Canon 6 speaks explicitly of the jurisdiction of Alexandria, Rome, Antioch and the metropolitans.
The ecclesial unit exercising judgment is the episcopate, not a democratic referendum of local congregations, and your own reference to voting does not weaken this point.
I mean…of course councils can vote. Voting is a procedure for an authoritative body to reach a corporate judgment, but s Supreme Court decision does not cease to be authoritative because the judges deliberated and voted before issuing it.
Likewise, the fact that bishops discussed and subscribed to a conciliar definition does not mean they were merely measuring public opinion.
In fact, Nicaea provides a striking counterexample to that interpretation, because Arianism had substantial episcopal support.
The purpose of the council was precisely to determine whether that theology was compatible with the Church’s faith.
The bishops did not conclude “since different local churches disagree, both interpretations remain legitimate”, they instead defined a creed, introduced homoousios, a totally unbiblical term, to exclude the Arian interpretation, and anathematized contrary propositions.
Long story short, at Nicaea, the Church acted conciliarity through its bishops, and that is exactly why calling it an “ecumenical council” does not refute my statement, because it explains how the Church exercised the doctrinal authority I was talking about.
So if my statement was “the Pope personally defined the doctrine at Nicaealc you would be right to correct me, but that is not what I said. I actually said that the Nicene bishops read Scripture one way, Arius and his supporters read it another way, and the Church through the council authoritatively determined which reading expressed the apostolic faith.
The surviving Nicene documents themselves describe exactly that.
And the historian J. N. D. Kelly makes a very clear historical reconstruction on this.
He says that in the early Church “the Church alone … possesses the indispensable key to Scripture,” because it had preserved the authentic apostolic testimony in its rule of faith, liturgy and general witness.
He then says that throughout this period “Scripture and tradition ranked as complementary authorities,” and that tradition was regarded as “the surest clue” to the interpretation of Scripture.
Most importantly for Nicaea, Kelly says that synods and councils increasingly came to express the faith once delivered to the saints, alongside “a growing consciousness of the magisterial authority of the Catholic Church.”
That is exactly the historical point: the Arian controversy was not resolved simply because one side found a Bible verse the other side had missed, no, both sides had Scripture, and both sides were very knowledgeable and devout.
The Church claimed the authority to determine which interpretation expressed the apostolic faith, and Kelly’s description of the period is therefore not “Bible alone plus private interpretation”.
It is “Scripture interpreted within the apostolic rule of faith under the magisterial authority of the Church.”
And the historian J. N. D. Kelly (everything I will say can be found here 103911481-J-N-D-Kelly-Early-Christian-Doctrines.pdf (PDFy mirror) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
?view=theater ), in Early Christian Doctrines, 5th rev. ed., pp. 47–48, summarizes the patristic position this way:
“Throughout the whole period Scripture and tradition ranked as complementary authorities,” and tradition was regarded as “the surest clue to its interpretation.”
Immediately before this he explains the ancient conviction that “the Church alone … possesses the indispensable key to Scripture.”
And at p. 41, discussing Tertullian, Kelly says that he recognized “the futility of arguing with heretics merely on the basis of Scripture,” because in that field it was impossible “to reach any decisive conclusion.”
And few pages earlier, pp. 35-36, he wrote the following: “hints begin to appear of the theory that the Church’s ministers, in virtue of their endowment with the Spirit, were the divinely authorized custodians of the apostolic teaching. Clement, for example, though not explicit on the point, seems to imply’ that the hierarchy which succeeded the apostles inherited the gospel message which they had been commissioned to preach. The immense stress which Ignatius placed on loyalty to the episcopate finds its explanation in the fact that he regarded the bishop as the appointed guarantor of purity of doctrine. In 2 Clement 6 strict obedience to the presbyters is inculcated on the ground that their task is to preach the faith, and that their instructions are identical with those of Christ Himself.
3. Irenaeus and Tertullian
In the following half-century the Church’s estimate of her doctrinal norms underwent certain adjustments. In the first place, while the Old Testament lost none of its prestige as an organ of revelation, the apostolic testimony as such was promoted in the minds of Christians to a position of supreme authority. This shift of perspective was, of course, assisted and indeed made possible by the recognition of the New Testament as fully canonical and as entitled to rank alongside the Old as inspired Scripture. Secondly, the distinction between Scripture and the Church’s living tradition as co-ordinate channels of this apostolic testimony became more clearly appreciated, and enhanced importance began to be attached to the latter. This development was largely the by-product of the great struggle between Catholicism and the Gnostic sects which was now fully engaged. Not only did the Gnostics exploit Scripture to their own ends, but one of their techniques 1 was to appeal, in support of their speculations, to an alleged secret apostolic tradition to which they claimed to have access.
This new and more mature position is mirrored, with minor differences of emphasis, in the writings of Irenaeus (fl. 180) and Tertullian (c. i6o~c. 220). For both 2 of them Christ Himself was the ultimate source of Christian doctrine, being the truth, the Word by Whom the Father had been revealed; but He had entrusted this revelation to His apostles, and it was through them alone that knowledge of it could be obtained.”
So Kelly’s historical reconstruction is quite clear: Scripture was foundational and materially sufficient, but disputes over its meaning were not regarded as self-resolving. The Church’s received apostolic rule of faith supplied the normative interpretive criterion.
Kelly’s description of Nicaea is quite explicit as well, because in Early Christian Doctrines, pp. 232–236, he says that the council drafted a creed which it “required all the bishops present to sign,” that Arianism “was placed under a decisive ban,” and that anyone affirming the relevant Arian propositions was “formally declared a heretic.”
Kelly later summarizes the council’s achievement by saying that it “unequivocally outlawed Arianism” and positively affirmed “the Son’s full divinity and equality with the Father.”
That is not merely a survey of what autonomous local churches happened to believe, it’s an ecumenical episcopal body issuing a normative doctrinal judgment: one interpretation was formally excluded as heresy and another was incorporated into the Church’s creed (after having introduce an unbiblical term).
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Yo brother, I think you are taking 2 Thess 2:15 too far and putting meaning that was not there. I don’t think we should take Paul statement in 2 The 2:15 or similar passage as doctrinal statement or theological statement. These were just statement telling brothers in Thessonica that the Gospel had been preached thru oral teaching and letters. The two modes of information transmission that were available in biblical times. Of course facts concerning these two modes were correct, not just in the Church, but everywhere in the known world. Nothing spiritual or religious about these two modes. It was used everywhere whether they were believers or not.
Now, of these two modes (oral and written), which one was more reliable? Were they both stand as equal in term of as tool for information transmission. I appeal to common sense and everyday experience that written scripture was overwhelmingly much more reliable. in fact, I don’t need to know any saying of a church father, nor a theologian , nor a scholar to prove that because we all have the same experience whether we are believers or not. it is a universal truth.
From today’s experience.
I am sure you agree that today, oral teaching (unless recorded as a sound file or video) are not the reliable mean of information transmission. Oral saying or teaching can easily changed and can’t be defended. There are no such things as oral contract. Every contract need to be written including marriage certificate. job contract, Will, Home certificate etc. Why? because we can’t rely on oral tradition.
In NT times
Oral teaching was done in the Church. The apostles were teaching the Church in Jerusalem and non jews churches concerning the life and teaching of Jesus. It was done orally. Then why did some of the apostles and disciples put down Jesus’ story and teaching into writing? Because they wanted to preserve the teaching of Jesus to many future generation of believers. They also knew that oral tradition also was not reliable and could be easily lost. If they really believed oral tradition of the Church was enough, what was the need for writing NT. And please don’t tell me that The Holy Spirit was able to preserve the oral tradition of the Church. Of course the Holy Spirit could, but He didn’t. Even the written scripture that was copied meticulously by a faithful scribes contained many copying error.
in the OT times.
Even God wrote His commandment on two tablets of stone so that many generations of Israel could read what the Law actually said.
In 2 Kings 22, during the reign of King Josiah, Hilkiah found the book of the law while the workers repaired the temple. When the book of the Law was read, the young king Josiah tore his royal robes in grief and repentance because his people had strayed from God’s command.
How did it happen? Because the oral tradition concerning the Law in Israel has been lost, but thru the mercy of God, the written scripture had been preserved.
So, all we have from OT today is in the form of written scripture.
So, I just show you the universal truth that the written scripture is much more reliable and thus become a barometer of truth today.
Even those teaching from church father needed to be written down to preserve their teaching. How did you know what Irenaeus say? should be from some written record in the library of RCC. If you tell me that you knew the teaching of Irenaeus because of the oral teaching of the RCC, it must be laughable. (not trying to be sarcastic here, but just telling the truth). In fact, all oral teaching from Policarp and justine martyr and augustine and in fact all oral teaching the church father were written down so that we can have access to them. Whatever oral teaching from the church fathers that were not written down is lost. We don’t have access to that anymore.
It does not contradict but there is a difference between viewing it as
an ecumenical council of local churches that belonged to a network of catholic and Apostolic churches, vs.
a council of the Catholic Church.
Your use of the word Catholic Church in the context gives the impression that Nicaea happened as part of what happened within RCC, although there was no RCC during that time. There was only an ecumenical council initiated by Emperor Constantine (not even a Christian during that time) to get some kind of peace and unity between the quarreling Christian groups. After Christianity became an accepted religion, the doctrinal differences within Christianity became public in such a way that it worried the Emperor. Internal peace and stability was a priority for the Emperor and the doctrinal strife among Christians seemed to threaten the internal stability of the empire. Constantine probably did not care what the church leaders decide, he only cared that there would be some kind of doctrinal unity that would stop the fighting.
At that point of history, the leadership structures of local churches had already assumed a hierarchical leadership, with one nominated person (episcopos) as the leader. The process of clumping the local churches towards larger units had also started, as there were mistrust between the Latin and Greek churches. The leadership structures were not democratic in the modern sense and the dominance of the episcopos relative to the other clergy was strengthening.
In that sense, you are correct when you write that it was a meeting at episcopal level, although the representative of a local church may have been a deacon etc. that was sent instead of the episcopos who could not come. However, it was not an episcopal meeting of a united Catholic Church, it was a meeting of leaders within a network of local churches that were considered to be part of the catholic and Apostolic sphere. The call to the council was sent to all or most local churches, those attending were from the churches that decided to attend and send a representative (episcopos or someone representing him).
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This shows that you haven’t read what I written since I posted the links multiple times referring to the books of the Church Fathers.
And historians have established that the rule of the faith in the first millennium was that the final interpretation belonged to the Church, see what i reported in the answer to Knor.
That would be laughable, but that’s not what happened. Again reread what i wrote in answer to Knor: do you really think that when the historian Kelly wrote the following 103911481-J-N-D-Kelly-Early-Christian-Doctrines.pdf (PDFy mirror) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive “This new and more mature position is mirrored, with minor differences of emphasis, in the writings of Irenaeus (fl. 180) and Tertullian (c. i6o~c. 220). For both 2 of them Christ Himself was the ultimate source of Christian doctrine, being the truth, the Word by Whom the Father had been revealed; but He had entrusted this revelation to His apostles, and it was through them alone that knowledge of it could be obtained” and the following “hints begin to appear of the theory that the Church’s ministers, in virtue of their endowment with the Spirit, were the divinely authorized custodians of the apostolic teaching. Clement, for example, though not explicit on the point, seems to imply’ that the hierarchy which succeeded the apostles inherited the gospel message which they had been commissioned to preach”, as i said do you really think that he was quoting the oral teaching of the Church instead of their works? I’ll reply to the rest of what you wrote later, I can’t now.
But it’s quite disheartening to read stuff like “If you tell me that you knew the teaching of Irenaeus because of the oral teaching of the RCC, it must be laughable” after the documentation i brought.
I did not read your comment to Know cause you and him might be talking about different topic.
I am not sure what you said to Know negate what I said about oral and written apostolic teaching.
Which is why you write stuff like the one you said before. But I’ll reply better in another moment.
I figured because it’s rare to find Christians who think otherwise. But this is clearly at odds with your earlier statement about going directly to God. At least how you presented it as an argument against using Mary as intercessor. Sometimes it’s also helpful to lay our troubles on a tangible person as opposed to “a nebulous force” that doesn’t audibly respond like another human. God doesn’t give physical hugs either in my experience. We are hylomorphic composites of body and soul, so that means seeking out tangible relationships in natural. I suspect that is part of God taking on a second nature as a human as well. God certainly operates through his creation and will use those created in His image to accomplish His will. In the Old Testament people were afraid to see God, they were mortified to be in the presence of God. If they touched the ark, even trying to prevent it from falling as an oxen stumbled, they were struck dead it was so holy. I think we need a little more balance and for Catholics, Mary gives us a heavenly intercessor. But I feel we Christians tend to treat God like He is our best buddy and He is here to give us a high five. For me this is just part of the trouble of theistic personalism. But the bottom line is, if it’s okay to ask a friend to pray for you, it’s okay to ask Mary. This does not detract from the glory of God and it’s not wrong to not cut out the middle man here. It is a healthy and Biblical part of Christian communal life.
And that is much more reasonable than critiquing prayer to Mary on the grounds of saying “we should go directly to God.” We Catholics understand Mary and the Saints are not omniscient but believe God gives them the grace needed to hear our prayers. All throughout the OT and NT, it’s God using earthly and heavenly beings to accomplish His will.
This is the wrong question. I have already stated to you the Immaculate Conception was not necessary, it was fitting. That is the belief of the Church. New humans who are generated are born in a state of privation compared to Adam and Eve. We believe God altered this for Mary and His Son was born of a virgin in this new ark.
If Jesus is sinless, he’s no model for us at all because he was in a different category. I disagree. Jesus is our model to emulate just as Adam (also born/made sinless in a state of original justice) is one which we should avoid. That is also one of the major themes of an ancient bios as well so to claim Jesus – being sinless-- is not a model to emulate --goes against one of the primary purposes of the gospels. Mary could have sinned. Like Eve she was born in a state of original justice. We all know Eve sinned. Jesus = New Adam. Mary = New Eve.
Whether you or I thinks it is more effective nor not is a complicated issue. Will God only heal a child of bone cancer if enough people pray? So it’s a popularity contest? Only two people prayed for this child’s suffering to end so that’s not enough to motivate God? But if 500 prayed it would be? Or is it more likely to get a healing if we annoy or pester God enough with our petitions like the parable of the persistent widow seems to imply? Neither of these options seems attractive to me. How God chooses to answer prayer or not and the answers He gives are really a divine mystery. Billions of people have suffered tremendously with prayers and have received no healing. Others claim miracles in matters that seem rather trivial from the outside. If you know of a way to make sense of all this, I am all ears (or eyes). I pray for others and ask for prayer because that is what scripture and Jesus says to do and it feels quite natural. When doing it there is a strong conviction this is how I should be acting.
It says scripture is profitable for teaching and training in righteousness. It says Scripture can make us wise for salvation in Christ Jesus. Nowhere does it speak of scripture alone. If I said “that house is a great place to live” I am not teaching this is the only place to live or even the only good place. Your view of sola scripture is not in the Bible, nor is a list of the canon, nor was the Bible even canonized when that was written.
Veneration of Mary starts with the angel in Luke 1. It continues from there and is found in the universal Church all over the place. You could argue against the immaculate conception, but to saythe RCC “need a woman saint that every woman in the church can look up to” is silly because Mary served this role for over 1800 years already. Blessed are thou amongst women. Mary was venerated throughout the entire Church. This was not new.
Well, that is not the issue. You asked how can we know what miracles occurred. And I pointed out your problem runs deeper. How do you know which interpretation of Christianity is correct? How do you know which interpretation of such and such bible verse is correct? When you explain how you answer this problem, then you’ll have the answer to the problem you raised.
I missed the rant but all good either way. Honestly, these are some outstanding and difficult questions you ask. I’m not sure I can adequately explain them all without reservations, but I will give it the old college try.
Privation puts everything back on God’s doorstep and suggests that He withdrew from humanity.
I will explain how this works in the Catholic view. Adam and Eve squandered the inheritance that would have gone on to the rest of the human race. They were, to use the language of the story kicked out of the garden. I believe that Adam and Eve were born in a special state of grace with original justice. They would not have died living in their sacred space had they not disobeyed and neither would their offspring. The original state of grace Adam and Eve lived in was supernatural state that went beyond anything they deserved or the normal human baseline. Privation is not a positive punishment but the removal of a gratuitous gift. It was a gift not deserved or earned but contingent upon obeying God. We don’t see it as God withdrawing but as Adam (and Eve) choosing to step out of the light (the light still shines). God is not punishing us for a crime we didn’t commit. Adam’s ancestors simply inherit the only human nature he had through generation. Humans beget humans. God begets God. The analogy we can use is one of God giving Adam and Eve a vineyard. He gives them rules for tending it and if they tend to it properly, it will pass on to their children. If they do not, God takes it back. Sin has real world consequences.
I cannot see how this could be true. If God withdraws, how can we reach Him or He foster a relationship with us?
God sustains and upholds at creation at all times. He is nearer to us than our own thoughts. God did not fully withdraw from us. Adam and Eve simply lost the gratuitous gift God gave them. Think of this analogy where forming a relationship with God is equal to teaching students.
So I as a teacher am expected, by virtue of the nature of my job, to come in, prepare lessons, teach all students, assist them all, grade their papers and so on. Now imagine the school board (God) gives me a TA to grade my labs and two paras to assist students in class and to modify tests etc. It will make my job easier. Now if I abuse these privileges–this extra and gratuitous help I do not deserve by nature of my profession-- they will be taken away and I have to do all this myself. But it is not a punishment to take away something extra I was never entitled to in the first place (a free and gratuitous gift). Since you might claim the students suffer which misses the point, look at it this way. As a teacher, I can give students an extra-review day for finals. Not giving them one is not punishing them. Extra means extra, as in beyond what is necessary. Humanity retains its fundamental nature after the fall—intellect, free will, and the natural capacity to know God as the uncaused cause. Just as I am still a teacher after the paras and TA are removed. My baseline role requires doing all these things and I still can fundamentally teach. This is what privation means. I believe we reach God through Grace and Faith. I think to go further gets into some heavy doctrines and would require talking about models of atonement. I think it is quite difficult given our normal human baseline, to each God on our own. I think that is where God reaching out, the Incarnation and the Holy Spirit come to play. We also have the issue of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit coming.
If humans cannot act righteously without God what is the point of giving Laws and guidelines that we are , supposedly incapable of following or obeying.
To make us aware of sin? To give us something to model and strive towards? As a teacher I know all students are not going to have a full understanding of a complex topic. But some growth is better than no growth. We can’t stop world hunger, but that doesn’t mean we should not be helping the poor. These shared laws also can also help groups form a cultural identify.
I think it is true humans cannot act perfectly righteous without God. As Jesus said, “with man this is impossible.” But we can still act righteously at times and go good and bad. It is not an either or as if we have to be 100% good at all times. We are a mix of both.
In Romans 3 Paul says:
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
He also says :” 20 The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase.”
In the Old Testament God Is recording specifically as saying he gave ordinances that they could not be lived by:
Ezekiel 20:25 -2625 Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live. 26 I defiled them through their very gifts, in their offering up all their firstborn, in order that I might horrify them, so that they might know that I am the Lord.
I think we also may understand acting righteously differently. I don’t think our sin hurts God in any way. God is perfect, in a state of perfect love in the triune God-head. Acting righteously is about what leads to human flourishing. To commit immoral actions is ultimately to do things that go against human nature and our flourishing. God wills our flourishing because God is goodness itself but as beings with will and intellect, God gives us the ability to make choices and choose to engage in activities that assist or thwart our flourishing. I think the law was never meant to be a cure for anything but to help us see our own difficulty in achieving our fullest flourishing without God. The law is also about not jumping through arbitrary hoops to appease an emotional deity. Its all about human flourishing and I think its all on a sliding scale so to speak. We are not 100% righteous or 100% evil (which is not a positive substance). Humans are good in our nature because God made up and being and goodness are controvertible. We do things that lead to our flourishing, and we do things that do not. The highest level of human flourishing is to know God, the source of all goodness and love itself. That is the primary purpose of the intellect and will. To know the good and to seek the good. This is not arbitrary or something we make up in my view. It is an objective part of human nature.
This is without the more obvious question about the validity of the Garden Narrative as true history and God reacting in such a way against the fist transgression. How can humanity learn if they do not transgess or understand the meaning of it.
I have shared my view numerous times. I don’t think highly of viewing Adam and Eve as pure myth. I think it is a premature cave into modernism that is contrary to scripture, the teaching of the Church and fundamental doctrines it has in regards to sin and salvation. I understand Genesis 1-11 is not a historical narrative but that doesn’t mean some key aspects did not occur. In fact, both the OT and NT have genealogies tracing to Adam and Paul very much sees Jeus in the flesh as a new Adam. I have defended and outlined my views on this numerous times. The nature of Adam and Eve’s transgression does not need to be understood as a naïve couple who knew nothing disobeying God by merely taking a piece of magical fruit because a talking dragon-snake convinced Eve God was lying. Despite the mythological elements, I think scripture and Church tradition is clear on Adam and Eve being actual human beings. In fact, I think Paul’s entire theological framework in Romans and 1 Corinthians collapses without a flesh and blood Adam.
And we are all learning right now. We live in a world where we learn what life is like with a squandered inheritance. We learn what life is like in a world outside God’s extra preternatural gifts. This should drive us to the Son and to seek God. Not because God is some primitive deity famished by a lack of sacrifices or is desperately pining for our approval. God gains nothing in his greatness or perfection from us. We don’t complete Him or make Him better. Rather, it this is how humans achieve our highest level of flourishing.
Furthermore, how could God explain or change things if He has cut Himself off. How can He even have prophets if no human is allowed to communicate with Him. As that is clearly not the case what sets these men of God apart? Jeremiah’s tongue is cleansed with fire but he is still part of the privation of humanity?
So I hope the above explanations help you understand how these are not problems with my view as it is formulated. God is still very much here. Humanity’s loss of a specific, gratuitous grace (original justice and immortality) is not the total withdrawal of God, which is metaphysically impossible. There is still actual grace in many forms including localized pushed from God to accomplish specific tasks such as cleansing Jeremiah’s tongue. I never said humans are not allowed to communicate with Him. We simply were kicked out of Eden and do not have access to the preternatural gifts and original justice of Adam and Eve.
And Finally, if this privation continues that gives the Catholic Church a privelaged and unique relationship with God that can only be achieved by taking the Mass that is denied us sinners.
The Catholic Church serves God. We believe God entrusted apostolic teaching, the faith and scripture to us. We safeguard it. We are but sinful servants of Jesus Christ following the Holy Spirit, apostolic succession, scripture, and the words of Jesus as best as we can. As you said, God chose to cleanse the mouth of Jeremiah. Jesus chose specific disciples. You can disagree that you think God guides the Magisterium, but their belief is no more smug, egotistical or boastful than Paul saying he was an apostle chosen by Jesus. It’s a burden, honor, sacred duty and one that requires the utmost care. I don’t think God simply left behind a book after Jesus ascended and said good luck, everyone just figures it out. Jesus left behind a Church and the Holy Spirit came.
I am sorry but this does not fit with my understanding of God, whether it fits with the Scriptural one is something that would need to be debated and/or explained.
I hope that gap was closed a bit by the foregoing discussion.
Vinnie
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Athanasius disagrees. His entire argument concerning homoousios fits with sola scriptura.
So?
BTW, you just conceded my point.
Nope – it assumes that Scripture is the ultimate criterion.
Yep – equivocation fallacy.
That’s what history shows. Constantine was a pragmatist Roman interested in order.
It’s worth noting that the episcopos was generally chosen from the local churches, not sent from somewhere else.
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Yeah Vinnie, but when I wrote whether praying to Mary’s intercession was effective, the issue is whether it will have any result. Why? Because the Bible never said nor commanded us to ask Mary or past saints to pray for us. We can request many living people pray for us because that what intercessory prayer is. Do you have any biblical support to have non living human being to pray for us? the only biblical support that I can think of is from Romans 8:34
Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
If you read my other post, the fact that we relied on scripture alone is not a dogma but a necessary belief and a common sense one if we relied on apostolic teaching (NT). Whatever apostolic teaching that we have is written down in the NT. Whatever oral apostolic teaching that was not written down in the bible is lost to us. We don’t have access to that anymore. In fact, the only access we have toward any early church father all the way to the 19th century came as a written form. Whatever oral teaching that was passed down by early church father to the 19th century that was not written down is lost.
Therefore, if we want to discuss anything related to Apostolic teaching, we can only refer to the written scripture and thus sola scriptura
Sure. Mary was also an example of a person of faith for me. Her faithfulness, her role as the mother of Jesus. Who can deny this? But IC elevated the person of Mary to a higher pedestal without any written biblical support.
The problem with your argument is far deeper than terminology.
You are not merely saying that the modern institutional form of the Roman Catholic Church should not be projected anachronistically into A.D. 325, which I obviously agree with, you are proposing a historical model which basically says that originally there were essentially local churches, forming a network; episcopal authority gradually strengthened; these churches increasingly clustered into larger units; and Constantine eventually summoned representatives of this network to obtain a common settlement.
On that model, if that was true, Nicaea was not really the universal Church exercising doctrinal authority. It was a federation of local churches reaching agreement. See, the problem is that that reconstruction runs directly against the historical evidence.
J. N. D. Kelly makes almost exactly the distinction at issue here.
When he begins his treatment of pre-Nicene ecclesiology, he acknowledges that, viewed externally, primitive Christianity looks like a multitude of separate local congregations with their own officers.
Then he immediately adds “all these communities are conscious of being parts of one universal Church.”
J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 4th ed., p. 188 (and I have provided the link multiple times over).
That is absolutely crucial and cannot be overstated nor ignored: Kelly is explicitly distinguishing the local organizational appearance from the deeper ecclesial self-understanding.
So “there were many local churches” doesn’t establish at all the conclusion that “there was merely a network of autonomous churches.”
Kelly says the opposite.
On p. 189 he explains that “Catholic,” when applied to the Church, emphasized precisely its universality in contrast to the local character of individual congregations; and he says that by the latter half of the second century at the latest it was already acquiring the further sense of the true Church over against heretical congregations.
This is more than two centuries before any medieval form of Roman Catholic administration.
And the evidence becomes even harder for your model with Irenaeus. Kelly explains on p. 192 that for Irenaeus the Church scattered throughout the world nevertheless claims to be one because it possesses one apostolic faith. He describes Irenaeus’ appeal to the apostolic writings, apostolic oral tradition, apostolic faith, and the succession of bishops going back to the apostles as guarantees of continuity with the original apostolic message.
So by approximately A.D. 180 the model is already one worldwide Church → one apostolic faith → identifiable apostolic churches → episcopal succession → distinction between Catholic faith and heresy.
That did not originate with Constantine, much less does Cyprian fit your “network gradually clumping together” model.
Writing in the middle of the third century (roughly seventy years before Nicaea ) Cyprian’s “unquestioned premiss,” as Kelly puts it on pp. 204–205, is that the Catholic Church actually is one, and that the episcopate constitutes its God-given principle of visible unity. Kelly explains that the bishops collectively form a college because the episcopate itself is one and indivisible.
Notice what this means.
For Cyprian: many local churches ≠ many independent Churches. And many bishops ≠ many independent episcopates.
There is one Catholic Church and one episcopate manifested throughout the local churches.
And this is still pre-Constantinian. The same problem appears with councils: Kelly says that synods and councils were assuming increasing importance from the middle of the third century and connects this development with a growing consciousness of the “magisterial authority of the Catholic Church.”
That is Kelly’s terminology, not mine, you can find it in Early Christian Doctrines, p. 44.
So there certainly was historical development in the mechanisms by which universal ecclesial authority was expressed.
But development of the mechanism is not creation of the Church.
The fact that larger synods developed does not mean Christians previously understood themselves as autonomous congregations which Constantine later transformed into a universal Church.
Kelly’s evidence points in the opposite direction: consciousness of the one universal Church comes first; increasingly developed conciliar mechanisms become ways of expressing that already-existing catholic consciousness.
That also changes how Constantine’s role should be understood because yes, Constantine summoned Nicaea, and yes, imperial unity and peace mattered enormously to him; also yes, imperial politics affected the council and its aftermath.
None of that proves that Constantine created the ecclesial unity which the council claimed to represent. Actually, the opposite can be proven historically, as I have shown.
The sources show Christians speaking of the universal Catholic Church, distinguishing it from local churches and heretical bodies, appealing to apostolic succession, and describing one episcopate, all of this decades or centuries before Constantine.
Constantine did not invent those categories, he summoned bishops who already inhabited them.
And Nicaea did not behave like a voluntary federation whose resolution bound only those local churches which happened to send delegates.
It promulgated a creed and declared contrary propositions anathematized by “the Catholic and Apostolic Church.”
Even more damaging to the federation model, Henry Chadwick notes that Athanasius and Eusebius themselves subsequently described Nicaea as “ecumenical, i.e. of universal authority.”
Henry Chadwick, The Church in Ancient Society, pp. 201–211.
That creates the question your model still has not answered: If Nicaea derived its authority merely from the voluntary agreement of autonomous local churches which chose to send representatives, on what basis could its judgment claim universal ecclesial authority over churches and bishops that were not physically represented or that subsequently dissented?
A federation can report consensus, Nicaea did something categorically stronger: it determined the boundary between Catholic faith and heresy for the Church as a whole.
So I am perfectly willing to concede the historical qualification that Nicaea was not a meeting of the modern Roman Catholic Church with all of its later institutional developments already in place, but that concession most definitely does not get you to your “network of local churches” model.
The pre-Nicene evidence instead gives us the following model, I.e: local churches conscious of belonging to one universal Church;
one apostolic faith distinguishing Catholic (which, and it cannot be overstated, means universal) Christianity from heresy;
episcopal succession functioning as a safeguard of apostolic continuity;
a conception of the episcopate as a corporate principle of ecclesial unity;
and increasingly, synods and councils exercising the magisterial authority of that wider Church.
Then comes Nicaea. And we should also remember that the council was overwhelmingly Eastern. Only a handful of Western bishops are recorded as attending, and yet its decrees are universal.
If one wants to argue the opposite they should be able to produce historical material on their behalf.
Athanasius established that a non-scriptural doctrinal formula can be authoritatively adopted by the Church because it expresses the true sense of Scripture and excludes a heretical interpretation.
That is precisely what happened with homoousios.
Athanasius explicitly acknowledges that the Arians objected “why did the Fathers at Nicaea use terms not in Scripture, ‘Of the essence’ and ‘One in essence’?”
So there is no dispute that homoousios itself is non-scriptural terminology.
More importantly, Athanasius explains why the Council had to use it, saying that the Council initially wished to use “the acknowledged words of the Scriptures” to confess the Son’s relation to the Father but the Eusebian/Arian party was able to take those biblical expressions and interpret them in an Arian-compatible sense.
That forced the bishops to formulate the doctrine more precisely, and Athanasius later states the principle explicitly “even if the expressions are not in so many words in the Scriptures … they contain the sense of the Scriptures.”
This is basically the exact opposite of Sola Scriptura, because he was arguing that the Church may use non-scriptural terminology to define authoritatively what Scripture means when heretics can exploit the biblical wording itself.
And Athanasius makes the point even more sharply in De Synodis, section 41, writing he following: “though a man use terms not in Scripture, it makes no difference so that his meaning be religious. But the heretic, though he use scriptural terms…”can still be condemned.
For Athanasius biblical vocabulary + heretical meaning = heresy and non-biblical vocabulary + orthodox meaning = legitimate.
And guess who made that distinction in the Arian controversy?
The Council.
In fact, Athanasius says explicitly that the “crafty irreligion” of Eusebius and his supporters “compelled the Bishops” to formulate more precise terminology.
So yes, Athanasius believes homoousios is thoroughly grounded in the meaning of Scripture. So do I.
But that does not make his method sola Scriptura or fitting sola Scriptura.
The historical sequence is Scripture → rival interpretations of Scripture → biblical formulations prove insufficiently precise because Arians can reinterpret them → bishops formulate a non-scriptural term → the Council defines that term as expressing the correct scriptural faith and condemns the contrary reading.
That is exactly the distinction I have been making all along, the issue was never whether homoousios contradicts Scripture, because it obviously doesn’t, the issue is whether the word and doctrinal formula itself is given by Scripture, and it’s not (which is proven by the fact that debates continued unabated for decades until the Church settled the matter).
And Athanasius openly admits that. In Ad Afros §2, written by Athanasius together with ninety Egyptian and Libyan bishops, he says that Nicaea was convened “in order that local synods should no more be held on the subject of the Faith” and concludes: “the word of the Lord which came through the ecumenical Synod at Nicæa, abides for ever.”
So if your claim is merely “Athanasius believed homoousios expressed the correct meaning of what Scripture teaches”, I completely agree, but if your claim is: “therefore Athanasius’ method was fitting with sola Scriptura”, then I’m afraid that’s gotta be a big fat negative, Chief.
In fact, his own explanation of Nicaea shows why an authoritative ecclesial definition became necessary, and that’s precisely because agreement on the biblical words themselves was not sufficient to exclude the Arian reading.