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DarkMark
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I think it is true that the Fathers share a lot with Protestants (The Trinity, Christ being Lord, the death and resurrection of Christ, etc). But the Fathers were still Catholic and they greatly disagree with Protestants on many issues. I am glad that Catholics and Protestants share alot of beliefs (I mean one totally came out of the Catholic Church so it seem logical that we share alot of beliefs/practices).
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Stratiotes
Guest
I’m reading another good book now from one of the authors I mentioned at the beginning of this thread:
Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism by DH Williams. I have to say, it is one of the best books I have read on Patristics. I imagine it will certainly rattle some cages.
Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism by DH Williams. I have to say, it is one of the best books I have read on Patristics. I imagine it will certainly rattle some cages.
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Namesake
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Protestants really don’t have much common ground with Catholics. Basically it’s we’re right and you’re wrong from both sides. It will ever be thus.I thought this was awesome and that it helps many Protestants discover some common ground with Catholics.
Here’s hoping.
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Contarini
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You clearly want to think this. Why? There’s lots of evidence to the contrary, if you bothered to see it.
Edwin
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Namesake
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Roman Catholicism and Protestantism can never be reconciled because we each believe mutually exclusive things. Simple really and just fine to continue that way. There is very little we have in common.
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protestantman
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Hi everyone
Im new to this forum and excited to be here. I have recently been trying to sharpen my faith through apologetics (iron sharpens iron right?)
I have been mainly concerned with this very issue catholic v. protestant. In reading this thread, it seems that many of you appear to be 100% sure that catholosism is the “RIGHT” way. Is it possible that the reason many protestants are “seeking the fathers” is a result that what is truly right is neither catholic or protestant, but somewhere in the middle?
Im new to this forum and excited to be here. I have recently been trying to sharpen my faith through apologetics (iron sharpens iron right?)
I have been mainly concerned with this very issue catholic v. protestant. In reading this thread, it seems that many of you appear to be 100% sure that catholosism is the “RIGHT” way. Is it possible that the reason many protestants are “seeking the fathers” is a result that what is truly right is neither catholic or protestant, but somewhere in the middle?
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Stratiotes
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Good to have you in the forum - I hope you find it a boost in your growth as a Christian.Hi everyone
Im new to this forum and excited to be here. I have recently been trying to sharpen my faith through apologetics (iron sharpens iron right?)
I think the reason a lot of us think Catholic is “RIGHT” or Protestant is “RIGHT” is because we have invested our lives in one choice or the other. It could be that there is something in the middle but, I’m afraid that’s rather like saying maybe Chocolate or Vanilla are not the best but something in the middle - nobody knows what that something is, or if they think they know nobody else will agree with them. But, aside from the idea being problematic, I think it is pretty clear it was not a possible position for the Fathers to take…they never have asked, “Maybe the question is not whether Donatus or Ireneus is right - maybe its somewhere in between?” If Jesus promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against us, then the church must have a continuous history somewhere and that continuous thread must go all the way back to the Fathers and before. I think “somewhere in between Catholic and Protestant” would just be yet another flavor of Protestant
. It is a core distinctive - personal interpretation or interpretation under the authority and tradition of the church. Something in between then would fall into the first distinctive - personal interpretation.DH Williams (a Baptist minister and Patristics professor) talks about the “fall” paradigm of the Church - the theory that the church fell into corruption at some time after the apostles died. This is a common assertion by many. Dr. Williams finds that theory dubious and points out that such theorists have to invent some other continuous thread of tradition outside the Catholic church. In so doing, they do not often appeal to the “Fathers” we are talking about - instead, their histories often include the mavericks we generally consider to be heretical - the Donatists, Montanists, and so on. I think their need to “prove” their continuity with the Apostles is an admission of the importance of Apostolic Succession. And, interestingly, the Fathers, when defending against heresies, would appeal to Apostolic Succession as a major testament of orthodoxy. The Protestant view is so precarious, in my opinion, that it must appeal to disreputable “fathers” to justify itself. Rebellion makes strange bedfellows as it were. And, therein is the real issue - Protestants sometimes appear to me to be questioning Catholics as if Catholics had the burden of proof - but Catholics are not the ones who are “protesting” the church. Protestants would seem to have the burden of proof to explain why they left. I imagine this is really going to derail this thread but that was the conclusion I came to as a Protestant myself- I realized that if I was going to remain in rebellion against the Catholic church, I had better come up with a good reason - I thought I would find it in the church fathers but, instead, I simply found that I was mistaken and had no good reason to remain detached from the authority of the apostles.
As has been said already, I have never heard of anyone reading the fathers and coming to the conclusion that they were some form of Protestant and leaving the Catholic church for that other Protestant early church. I was a Protestant for more than 25 years and never heard of it. Needless to say, I have never heard of anyone reading the fathers and coming to the conclusion they were neither more Protestant nor Catholic either. I know of quite a few Protestants, however, who found the Catholic church in the Fathers. The Fathers make, I think, the strongest case for the church. As a Protestant, you will find a great deal of what they say has to be explained away somehow. As a Catholic, I have found little (and all minor) that does not mesh with Catholic doctrine. The first time I read them as a Protestant, I saw where they were leading and I set them aside for many years not wanting to face it. But you have to ask, where is this church that Jesus promised to protect from hell (or, as some have said, the one Jesus promised would storm the gates of hell)?
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Janet_S
Guest
That’s what John Henry Newman thought–the Via Media. He eventually abandoned that hypothesis and converted to Catholicism, though.Hi everyone
Im new to this forum and excited to be here. I have recently been trying to sharpen my faith through apologetics (iron sharpens iron right?)
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BennyBoy89
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Ask John Henry Newman.Hi everyone
Im new to this forum and excited to be here. I have recently been trying to sharpen my faith through apologetics (iron sharpens iron right?)
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Contarini
Guest
Well, of course, or there would not be an ecumenical problem.
Very little? You are saying that the Trinity, the Incarnation, the sacrament of baptism, and the Bible all matter very little to you? That’s a pretty horrifying thing to say.
As for it being fine to continue this way–perhaps since the New Testament is one of those things we have in common with Catholics you don’t care much about our Lord’s prayer that we should all be one. But I do.
In Christ,
Edwin
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Truthstalker
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So the Catholics are saying they know few if anyone who has read the Fathers and has become Protestant? That’s like trying to prove Catholicism is correct by pointing out how few Protestants get in line for the Eucharist at Mass. Catholics are your database: I challenge the validity of your sample. There are many, many Protestants who formerly were Catholics, and converted because they matched up Church teachings with what the Bible - and, gasp, the Fathers - said about certain issues, and decided the Catholic Church is wrong.
This smacks of the following:
“Let’s kick out those who disagree with us.”
“Everyone here is now in agreement.”
“Therefore we must be right.”
“Ah, unity!”
An appalling ignorance of theology is apparent on both sides of the Tiber. Some ex-Catholics have testified that they converted because they had to worship Mary; on this thread someone testified as part of their conversion story that in their Protestant days Christ was never described as being in the Communion elements. One can believe that the elements are symbolic but that Christ is nevertheless present in a real way.
This smacks of the following:
“Let’s kick out those who disagree with us.”
“Everyone here is now in agreement.”
“Therefore we must be right.”
“Ah, unity!”
An appalling ignorance of theology is apparent on both sides of the Tiber. Some ex-Catholics have testified that they converted because they had to worship Mary; on this thread someone testified as part of their conversion story that in their Protestant days Christ was never described as being in the Communion elements. One can believe that the elements are symbolic but that Christ is nevertheless present in a real way.
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Stratiotes
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I think a great number of people here are sampling not just from Catholic database - they are themselves former protestants. Quite a few have taken private interpretation of scripture and left the Catholic church - they buy into that basic disctinctive that they know better than the church. Problem is, such a thought was abhorant to the Fathers - so I know of none who have read the Fathers and come up with that conclusion. It is only when you accept the presupposition of sola scriptura that you can become Protestant. Because, there really is no such thing as “sola scriptura” - there is only solo interpretation or church interpretation.
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Janet_S
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People leave the Catholic Church for many reasons. A lot of the members of my family have left the Church; some are now Protestant, one is Jewish, and most are no religion at all. Still, I’m not aware of any Catholic who left the Church for Protestantism because they read the Church Fathers and determined that a particular Protestant Church was the true, historic Church. Your experience may be different, so if you know of a Catholic who did, please tell us about it.
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Stratiotes
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The early Fathers typically responded to heresy with the question, “What has the church taught from the beginning about that?” Scripture was just one indication of what the church has always taught but not the “sola” indicator. To say that someone left the Catholic church because they read the Fathers is like saying someone renounced Marxism by reading Das Kapital. The Fathers debate the same way Catholics do - not by scripture as their sole test of orthodoxy but by the church as the sole source of orthodoxy.
This is just one more example of the Matt 18:17 dilemma - if a Protestant and a Catholic brother disagree, to which church would they appeal (equally with a Presbyterian and a Baptist)? It is a dilemma that Jesus clearly never intended and which the Fathers found unthinkable in their writing. The test, to them, was, "is Donetus with us or is he against us? Does he teach what the church has always taught or does he not? " The fact that Donetus would appeal to scripture made no difference - all heretics appealed to scripture - the test was, is he one of us? And he could prove he was “one of us” if he could show his teaching and authority came from the apostles. But, alas, appeal as he might to his interpretation of scripture, it was to no avail. That was the early church - and it is clearly a Catholic mindset - Donetus was clearly the Protestant and not “of them” by his own choice. There was the difference between orthodoxy and heresy. The church, and not scripture alone or some lone ranger’s interpretation of what it means, is the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Tim 3:15).
This is just one more example of the Matt 18:17 dilemma - if a Protestant and a Catholic brother disagree, to which church would they appeal (equally with a Presbyterian and a Baptist)? It is a dilemma that Jesus clearly never intended and which the Fathers found unthinkable in their writing. The test, to them, was, "is Donetus with us or is he against us? Does he teach what the church has always taught or does he not? " The fact that Donetus would appeal to scripture made no difference - all heretics appealed to scripture - the test was, is he one of us? And he could prove he was “one of us” if he could show his teaching and authority came from the apostles. But, alas, appeal as he might to his interpretation of scripture, it was to no avail. That was the early church - and it is clearly a Catholic mindset - Donetus was clearly the Protestant and not “of them” by his own choice. There was the difference between orthodoxy and heresy. The church, and not scripture alone or some lone ranger’s interpretation of what it means, is the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Tim 3:15).
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Penitus
Guest
I read this book last year. It has the clearest definition of the Communion of Saints I have ever read by any Christian, Catholic or Protestant. If your faith is strong, I suggest checking it out.
Also, there’s many Protestants out there who have Catholic ideals. A lot of Protestants I come across believe that our actions somehow effect our salvation. Heck, my father is Presbyterian and he believes in Purgatory.
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Janet_S
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Stratiotes
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Amen - the doctrinal confusion that makes “Protestant” difficult to define is the problem. Private interpretation is why St. Robert Bellarmine, less than a century after the reformation, could write about finding over 200 interpretations of what Jesus meant by the words, “This is my body…this is my blood.”
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pgeorgejr
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When the fathers wrote about sticking to the Catholic doctrine, did they have in mind purgatory, the Assumption, or Immaculate Conception? We seem to forget in debating Protestant v. Catholic that the Orthodox have managed to avoid accepting these and other doctrines yet base all of their doctrine on Holy Tradition and the writings of the fathers. I wonder if there are any Orthodox on the forum who would like to chime in…
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Stratiotes
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It is easy enough to discover the roots of even the Marian doctrines in the early church, see Dr. Gambero’s excellent work, Mary and the Fathers of the Church for starters. So, the answer to your question is, yes. And indeed, later, Jerome and others defended the ever-virgin against heretics by the same method - appealing to what “the church has always taught.” Augustine, in writing against Pelagious who said Mary was an example of how one could be “perfect” without the help of the holy spirit - Augustine pointed out that Mary had a special blessing unique to her - thus the roots of the Immaculate Conception are in the doctrines of Christ. We believe what we do about Mary because of what we believe about Jesus - to challenge on is to challenge the other.
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