Can we equate Sacred Scripture to Early Church Father writings

[JD27076]

In essence, the Apostles were Bishops. And Bishops are infallible in teaching of Faith and Morals in union with the Pope, or in that time, St. Peter.

The Scripture, written by the apostles, is profitable for doctrine, correcting, and rebuking… The Early Church Father’s writings (assuming their Bishops) can be profitable for doctrine, correcting, and rebuking…

So with this given, can the Scripture be equated to the writings of the Early Church Fathers?

 

[JMJ_coder]

In essence, the Apostles were Bishops. And Bishops are infallible in teaching of Faith and Morals in union with the Pope, or in that time, St. Peter.

The Scripture, written by the apostles, is profitable for doctrine, correcting, and rebuking… The Early Church Father’s writings (assuming their Bishops) can be profitable for doctrine, correcting, and rebuking…

So with this given, can the Scripture be equated to the writings of the Early Church Fathers?

Not quite.

Any individual bishop is not infallible (except for the case of the Bishop of Rome in certain specific instances). Only the bishops as a whole, in union with the Pope, can be seen as infallible in their teaching as the living Magisterium of the Church.

In the same way, the Early Church Fathers, taken as a whole can be seen as infallible and in many cases were more influential in forming our understanding of Tradition than bishops today, since the Church was still at that time trying to answer many big open questions - particularly about the nature of Christ. There are individual Church Fathers that didn’t always square with what we now know to be the divinely revealed truth. Many times this was innocent enough because they were trying to answer those questions that we now have the answers to. As such, not everything that every Church Father wrote and taught is orthodox and true. Sometimes, while some parts of a Church Father’s works may be very orthodox and beautiful many others may be dangerously heretical. Thus, the works of the Early Church Fathers must be viewed in light of Tradition as a whole.

The Scriptures, on the other hand, are all true. There is not a verse in Scripture that we can say, ‘don’t believe that because it is heretical’. All of Scripture can be trusted to be true and divinely inspired.

For more information, refer to Chapter Two of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

 

[po18guy]

The scriptures are revelation. That ceased with the death of the Apostle John. What came after is not revelation, but rather, the application of revelation to the development of doctrine.