Church Authority vs. Scriptures

[Bushmaster78FS]

Being a Greek Orthodox, I figured this section would be the best to start this discussion. Unlike protestants, RCC and EO share common values as far as Apostolic Succession, Holy Tradition and the position of the Church go. Here, I would like to start a discussion on the views of a former Orthodox, currently Calvinist blog author…

Here is the gist;* Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox will attempt to assert the equality of church authority with scripture by using the argument that in the early church not everyone had all of what we know today as the Bible. … the inferred rationale here is that scripture cannot be the final authority since not everyone within the early church had all of scripture yet, and therefore had to have another authority. … with both Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, whenever a scriptural topic comes up, one of the most common tactics is to commit scriptural acrobatics and jump to another verse, disregarding the original passage entirely (one example: jumping to James 2:24 in response to Romans 4:1-5 when talking about justification). … the most common answer is something along the lines of: “The Bible has to be understood in its entirety.”*

The author’s complaint is; which is it?

The full article can be found in the below link. It is my opinion that the author now no longer belonging to an Apostolic Church is attempting to criticize the beliefs of the Apostolic Church in favor of his new theology.

designofprovidence.blogspot.com/2011/06/when-you-borrow-bad-protestant.html

 

[ibo]

Being a Greek Orthodox, I figured this section would be the best to start this discussion. Unlike protestants, RCC and EO share common values as far as Apostolic Succession, Holy Tradition and the position of the Church go. Here, I would like to start a discussion on the views of a former Orthodox, currently Calvinist blog author…

Here is the gist;* Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox will attempt to assert the equality of church authority with scripture by using the argument that in the early church not everyone had all of what we know today as the Bible. … the inferred rationale here is that scripture cannot be the final authority since not everyone within the early church had all of scripture yet, and therefore had to have another authority. … with both Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, whenever a scriptural topic comes up, one of the most common tactics is to commit scriptural acrobatics and jump to another verse, disregarding the original passage entirely (one example: jumping to James 2:24 in response to Romans 4:1-5 when talking about justification). … the most common answer is something along the lines of: “The Bible has to be understood in its entirety.”*

The author’s complaint is; which is it?

The full article can be found in the below link. It is my opinion that the author now no longer belonging to an Apostolic Church is attempting to criticize the beliefs of the Apostolic Church in favor of his new theology.

designofprovidence.blogspot.com/2011/06/when-you-borrow-bad-protestant.html

The text deals with what the author calls “scriptural acrobatics”. He defends that “When a text of scripture is reviewed, it should be reviewed within its immediate context and with regards to its author, audience and purpose”. Moreover , asks the reader not to “simply accuse me of being wrong”. The author is right and if he reader does not agree “then you are not being honest with the text”.

I think that it is too much to take. The author wants an interpretation that he knows for every passage of the Bible and that no one could interpret one passage with another. I guess which interpretation would be of Salomon’s 300 wives and 1000 concubines !! Are we allowed to do that? That would be “heaven” (or “hell”?).

The author is in apologetics with someone and he forgets that for the Catholics the Scripture is interpreted but the Holy Spirit within the community united with the Pope and that The Holy Spirit may inspire the Church to interpreted the sentence “this is black” as meaning “this is white”. To search for human logic is not to understand God’s Logic, as said in the Bible, God speaking, as far is the sky from the earth, so are My thoughts from your thoughts.

Literal interpretation is a lost search. The original greek is so far from our language as English from the Latin.

I think the author tries to impose his views, and defends himself even against those who still not opened their mouths.

 

[cemiller]

I would be interested in knowing how he thinks it’s right to isolate passages and not consider the “Bible as a whole”… It’s that kind of thinking that leads people to think there are major contradictions in the Bible.

 

[Bushmaster78FS]

Thanks for the response ibo. Lord willing, I will bring more of his stuff from his blog in a discussion format later on, I think there is also another blog entry that deal with the interpretation of Scriptures.

In this general context of his blog post, he seems to accuse RCC and EO using the historical absence of Scriptural texts to assert Church authority for creation/explanation of dogmas and theology and such, and defends the idea that Scriptures are the only authority. Well what else to expect from a text-book Reformist/Calvinist? It also appears that this struggle to explain away the Apostolic position on the authority of Scriptures and the Holy Church with a Reformist point of view doesn’t make much sense. We don’t believe what they believe so why try to criticize the Apostolic Church? I think it has something to do with I am right, you are wrong attitude…

 

[Wesley7]

I see Church authority as interpeting the Scriptures the proper way. (Apart from private reading)

 

[Bushmaster78FS]

The author is in apologetics with someone…

To me this is only himself ibo. The author doesn’t talk about it on his blog much but he had been in Orthodox communion for about 2-3 years and attended my previous parish. Before that he had practiced Islam for about the 2 years. Again in my opinion, the author might be feeling to justify this break up by promoting his reformist theology and where Apostolic Church stands against it.

 

[Bushmaster78FS]

I would be interested in knowing how he thinks it’s right to isolate passages and not consider the “Bible as a whole”… It’s that kind of thinking that leads people to think there are major contradictions in the Bible.

The author starts with the argument that RCC and EO argue that some texts (physically) didn’t exist in interpreting certain “isolated” passages, but then when challenged by protestants, they argue “we have to look at it as a whole”… while admitting there was no whole. This is unfortunately a logical trap set improperly. The whole in question here is the Church.

 

[Bushmaster78FS]

Folks, I am bumping this thread see if there is more (name removed by moderator)ut, I will post more contradictions from the same blog author later on.