B
Benjai1882
Guest
Hi all,
I wrote this little piece to try to encourage some Christian friends of mine to delve a little into the Church Fathers. Sorry about the clickbait title.=P Please let me know how I can improve it:
Understanding the beliefs and practices of the early Christian Church is of fundamental importance to any Christian disciple looking for true doctrine. The reason for this is fairly obvious:
The Early Church was closest in time to the teachings of the Apostles and to Christ himself.
Assuming for a moment the common principle of deviation over time, it can be argued that the closer one gets to the teachings of the apostles in the First Century the closer one gets to the authentic teachings of Christ.
A common objection at this point is that as the NT contains books written by the Apostles themselves we need not look at other early Christian writings for hermeneutical purposes.
This can be shown to be faulty by a simple illustration:
Suppose for a moment we are living in the future, 2000 years from now, looking back at the early 21st Century. We have obtained an ancient copy of a letter from “Rodger” to “Sally” outlining his vehement dislike for something called “Star Wars”. He rails against the plot, the acting, and the character development of one “Anakin”. Without any other information available to us we would assume that Rodger hates Star Wars. If, however, we were able to resurrect Sally, with future technology, and ask her how Rodger felt about Star Wars we may come to a very different conclusion. Sally may say that Rodger had meant the letter to be about the Prequals and not the Classics, and that in fact Rodger loved Star Wars, and would often dress up as Darth Vader at Comicon. Without looking at the testimony of Sally we would have erred in our assumptions of Rodger. This illustration can be used to show how useful the Early Church beliefs and practices are in the search for the authentic Apostolic Doctrine.
Of course, the difficulty of this argument arises when we actually have to deal with nuances of early Christianity. To continue the above illustration, we may get slightly different explanations of Rodger’s view on Star Wars when we resurrect a few of his other friends. One may say that he liked the 4th and 5th best, but was not a fan of the 6th. Another may say Rodger liked the narrative of redemption. Another may say Rodger’s real devotion was to Football, and that Star Wars was only a part-time interest.
All of this does add confusion to the work of deciphering Rodger’s exact views on Star Wars, but it is the type of confusion that actually sheds light. It would be simpler to say that Rodger hated Star Wars and be done with it- but it would be more expedient to try and decipher exactly what Rodger felt by listening to the others who were closest to him. This is exactly the case with the Early Christian Church.
I wrote this little piece to try to encourage some Christian friends of mine to delve a little into the Church Fathers. Sorry about the clickbait title.=P Please let me know how I can improve it:
Understanding the beliefs and practices of the early Christian Church is of fundamental importance to any Christian disciple looking for true doctrine. The reason for this is fairly obvious:
The Early Church was closest in time to the teachings of the Apostles and to Christ himself.
Assuming for a moment the common principle of deviation over time, it can be argued that the closer one gets to the teachings of the apostles in the First Century the closer one gets to the authentic teachings of Christ.
A common objection at this point is that as the NT contains books written by the Apostles themselves we need not look at other early Christian writings for hermeneutical purposes.
This can be shown to be faulty by a simple illustration:
Suppose for a moment we are living in the future, 2000 years from now, looking back at the early 21st Century. We have obtained an ancient copy of a letter from “Rodger” to “Sally” outlining his vehement dislike for something called “Star Wars”. He rails against the plot, the acting, and the character development of one “Anakin”. Without any other information available to us we would assume that Rodger hates Star Wars. If, however, we were able to resurrect Sally, with future technology, and ask her how Rodger felt about Star Wars we may come to a very different conclusion. Sally may say that Rodger had meant the letter to be about the Prequals and not the Classics, and that in fact Rodger loved Star Wars, and would often dress up as Darth Vader at Comicon. Without looking at the testimony of Sally we would have erred in our assumptions of Rodger. This illustration can be used to show how useful the Early Church beliefs and practices are in the search for the authentic Apostolic Doctrine.
Of course, the difficulty of this argument arises when we actually have to deal with nuances of early Christianity. To continue the above illustration, we may get slightly different explanations of Rodger’s view on Star Wars when we resurrect a few of his other friends. One may say that he liked the 4th and 5th best, but was not a fan of the 6th. Another may say Rodger liked the narrative of redemption. Another may say Rodger’s real devotion was to Football, and that Star Wars was only a part-time interest.
All of this does add confusion to the work of deciphering Rodger’s exact views on Star Wars, but it is the type of confusion that actually sheds light. It would be simpler to say that Rodger hated Star Wars and be done with it- but it would be more expedient to try and decipher exactly what Rodger felt by listening to the others who were closest to him. This is exactly the case with the Early Christian Church.