Early church fathers believed in sola scriptura?

[sodak]

As you probably can tell, I didn’t convert. I guess the main reason boils down to I don’t accept your church’s authority.

Thank you. This really is the crux of the matter. The more that I read threads like this, the more that I realize this is the main issue, all minor quibbles aside.

I guess what I am trying to say is that my issue with this particular doctrine is that:
a.) We don’t find it in scripture…at least not explicitly and I don’t know how one can find it there without first accepting it based on your church’s word. This may not be true with you or anyone else, I am just sharing my thoughts on this.

b.) In this particular case the historical evidence for this doctrine is rather weak for the first several centuries. I have forgotten when evidence for the Assumption first shows up on the historical record but I belive it is around the 4th or 5th century.

I understand that lack of evidence does not prove that there was no belief but the lack of evidence to me causes me to doubt that this was taught by the apostles.

As to part a, once again, Tradition is not a subset of Scripture. You can’t reduce it to looking for it in the Bible. It is one of the 3 legs of the stool of our faith. Jesus promised Peter to be the Rock upon which the Church would be built, and the gates of Hell wouldn’t prevail. He also promised to send the Holy Spirit to guide the Apostles.

Under this guidance of the Holy Spirit, they traveled, preached, selected their successors, and began building the Church that we have today. If, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they decided upon which teachings and Traditions (including the Canon of Scripture) were true, then, as a Catholic, I accept that. I have no reason to believe that the Apostles were in error when they were under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, including setting up Church Dogma, Traditions, and hierarchy.

I also don’t believe that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit only for the original 12, then cut us loose after that. We need more help than that!

So, in the end, we can play Scriptural “tag” all we want, but what it really boils down to is whether we, as Catholics, trust Jesus’s promises or not. It really is that simple.

 

[Pwrlftr]

So, in the end, we can play Scriptural “tag” all we want, but what it really boils down to is whether we, as Catholics, trust Jesus’s promises or not. It really is that simple.

No, not really.

One has to make several leaps on logic to go from any promise found in the NT, or OT for that matter, to having the theology of your church.

What exactly does it mean that the gates of hell won’t prevail against the church? Might it mean that the church will always exist? Does it mean that the church is infallible? What do the Peterine verses in Matthew mean? Even if Peter is the rock that the church will be built on, and there is no consensus from the fathers on this, that doesn’t necessarily imply a continuation of apostolic succession.

I guess my problem with your post is that it’s a little offensive to me because it certainly implies that I don’t trust the promises of Jesus.

 

[sodak]

No, not really.

One has to make several leaps on logic to go from any promise found in the NT, or OT for that matter, to having the theology of your church.

What exactly does it mean that the gates of hell won’t prevail against the church? Might it mean that the church will always exist? Does it mean that the church is infallible? What do the Peterine verses in Matthew mean? Even if Peter is the rock that the church will be built on, and there is no consensus from the fathers on this, that doesn’t necessarily imply a continuation of apostolic succession.

I guess my problem with your post is that it’s a little offensive to me because it certainly implies that I don’t trust the promises of Jesus.

I carefully worded it to point at Catholics, not at you. No offense was intended.

 

[Pwrlftr]

I carefully worded it to point at Catholics, not at you. No offense was intended.

I appreciate your response. Thanks.

 

[paul_c]

The very essence of this discussion comes down to:
Do I believe that the Catholic Church has translated the truths of Christianity accurately to the faithful through scripture and tradition.

If the answer is yes, there is no reason to doubt the Catholic Church or follow its teachings.

If the answer is no, then the next set of questions has to be why you feel that way. There are two basic possibilities :

1> The church lied about what it knew or didn’t know. If you go down this path, you need to provide a motivation to explain why the Church would do this. This would include showing what the Church would gain by lying and also the analysis of what they would stand to lose (their souls). You would also have to be able to explain how individuals could get away with these lies (it would need by necessity to be a conspiracy involving a significant portion of the magesterium) and why the Holy Spirit would allow it to happen.

2> The church made an honest error in what it handed down from the Apostles (and by extension, from Jesus Christ). If you go down this path, you need to be able to explain how such an error could creep into the Church, given that the Church uses councils to address all heresies and the majority, including the Holy Father would have to be in error simultaneoously for this to occur. You also have to explain how you know that such an error exists (by what authority and reasoning you can claim that the church is wrong). Finally, there is that nagging question about how the Holy spirit would allow this to happen…

When confronted with this reasoning in this thread, most of the Protestants have claimed that the issue is not that the Church is lying but that it is simply in error. However, none of them have been able to explain the mechanism for such an error to exist or explained how they know that any individual issue is an error. sure, they try to explain certain issues through scripture (like the argument that all truth is defined by scripture), but none of the answers has been particularly compelling and no one has attempted to show how the church stumbled into an perceived errors to begin with… A few have stated they don’t trust the church but none have explained why or what the motivation is for the church to lie…

 

[christcnection1]

No offense, but this is crazy. The scriptures were compiled from the Apostle’s teachings and is only a subset of what they knew and experienced. To believe that we know more than the apostles, who lived and traveled with the Lord for three years and then experienced the resurrection and Pentacost is both ignorant and arrogant…

I’m not offended; I agree with you. That’s why I’m no longer Protestant.

 

[mackbrislawn]

I have been reading some of thease posts. I think there is alot of misunderstang about the whole reformation movement and the condition of the church at that time.

I also think that if salvation or being born again like many have found could be experianced by many on this forum they would see and understand things quite differantly. I am not saying this to attack or put down anyone. When a person really gets saved they are changed from the inside. They are no longer the same.

When talking to someone who has not experianced the new birth it is impossible for them to really grasp what you are trying to tell them because one has to recieve this gift of God by faith before the miracle of being born again takes place. This is especially hard for those that are dedicated members of a church. Instantly they will put up a wall against it. They cant grasp this and it threatens them.

As far as traditions of the church and sola scripture. I would look at Jesus and follow His example. The church of His day was full with traditions. Some good and some bad. I would look at how He made it a point to keep the scriptures Jesus never did anything that was contrary to scripture but always obeyed it. I see Him comming against alot of traditions and the pharisees didnt like it at all.

I would take the new testament that we have and just read it and ask am I doing this. I would be willing to weigh the differant traditions that I have and have been taught. The things that are spoken by the priest or some preacher I would weigh by scripture to see if thease things were so.

I believe that the advice in the book of Acts 17:11 is what we should follow. They were using the scriptures to check out the things that Paul and Silus were teaching to see if what they said was true. They put the authority of scriptures over apostles and prophets and were accounted more noble because they not only recieved the word with readiness of mind. They searched the scriptures daily to see whether the things Paul and Silus taught were so.

Shouldnt we do this today?

I hope this isn’t departing too much from the topic…

As far as experiencing the new birth, as perhaps a kind of mystical experience, of course that cannot be argued with. You feel the Holy Spirit directly and that is that. End of story. It is not something subject to logical debate, because it is subjective.

In regards to traditions that nullify the Word of God, of course we all have those. One of those traditions we all share is the very format, the geometry, the configuration, by which we use scripture today.

Because the way the Word of God was originally given was in the scroll format. Scripture was contained in a number of different scrolls, and to read scripture you had to unroll the scroll and read sequentially through it. “Sequential access” to borrow a computer term. To find a particular part of scripture you had to already know scripture, in order to know which scroll and where in that scroll to look, and in which context to find it.

Scripture was furthermore not divided into chapters and verses, as we have today. The God-given scripture was seamless, not fragmented according to our man-made tradition.

The codex format with its pages, along with chapters and verses, allows random access to scripture. (To borrow another computer term.)

Random access makes it far too easy to combine and compare parts of scripture that perhaps were never meant to be compared and conflated together. Random access permits scripture to be taken out of context. But with the God-given format, the only way to compare one part of scripture with another, was to do it in your head, preventing scripture from being torn out of context.

Perhaps it is, that the ease of use of our man-made format allows scripture to be used in ways that were never intended by God, and were impossible with the way He originally delivered scripture to us. Hence, this could be an example of traditions of men nullifying the Word of God.

The Boreans looked into the Hebrew scriptures to see if what Paul and Silus were saying about Jesus being the Messiah were true, if they agreed with Paul’s reasoning. Note that the news about Jesus was delivered by the apostles, via oral tradition. This then is actually an argument in favor of the value of oral tradition, for without it the Boreans would not have known about Jesus at all.

To return directly to the topic, involving the early church fathers, they of course properly placed great value on scripture, but because the extent and limits of Christian scripture were not determined in their day, it would have been impossible for them to believe in sola scriptura.

 

[rmcbride77]

No, not really.

One has to make several leaps on logic to go from any promise found in the NT, or OT for that matter, to having the theology of your church.

What exactly does it mean that the gates of hell won’t prevail against the church? Might it mean that the church will always exist? Does it mean that the church is infallible? What do the Peterine verses in Matthew mean? Even if Peter is the rock that the church will be built on, and there is no consensus from the fathers on this, that doesn’t necessarily imply a continuation of apostolic succession.

I guess my problem with your post is that it’s a little offensive to me because it certainly implies that I don’t trust the promises of Jesus.

It was just the opposite for me. When I was a Protestant studying scripture, I had a hard time matching what I read in scripture with the church format/government I attended each Sunday. It was not until I came into the RCC that I saw the logical ties with what was described in the Scriptures, and how the Church that Jesus founded, with its liturgy, sacraments, and the sacrifice of the Mass was the total fulfillment of OT Judaism.
That is why I put my trust in the authority of the church because in it I see the fulfillment of God’s plan when he made the oath of the covenant with Abraham.
That leads further into rightly seeing the Last Things, i.e. seeing the Church as the Kingdom of God and not some Plan B with Israel being Plan A… but I digress again…

What does this have to do with sola scriptura? Well, ISTM that scripture was not meant to be read or studied outside the context it was written in. That context was the church, and the part of sacred tradition that was written down and that what we now know as scripture, was read in congregations as part of the Liturgy of the Word. Taken out of that context of Liturgy, Sacred Tradition, and the teaching authority of the Church, is like taking a fish out of water. It lies floundering and gasping. That is why Peter warned about Paul’s writings that were hard to understand that that people outside of the context of the church would twist them. That is what I saw in my Protestant life and it was a major reason that I came into line with the RCC.

 

[rmcbride77]

Here is a great article on the 4 marks of the church by Scott Hahn:

rap.midco.net/rmcbride/4marks.htm

Also if you read in Acts 15 about the first council in Jerusalem regarding circumcision, the scriptures alone were not enough to settle the question. What settled the question was the Leadership of the church, with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, along with the sacred tradition they had from the Apostles given by the Lord. That is the pattern the Church has followed for the last over 2000 years.

 

[Philthy]

This is exactly the issue. There is no question that the Apostles had traditions that were passed down beyond what was written in the 27 books of the New Testament. We’ve listed many of them in the preceding posts and most of them have textual (but not scriptutal) references from the ECF… The question is whether you accept them as being divinely inspired if they aren’t from the 27 books. **I ask you though, what conceivable benefit would the church get from making up the Assumption of Mary if it wasn’t true. **What personal gain would anyone have from making this assertion? Unless you can define a reasonable motivation for the Church to lie about this, your assertion that the Church isn’t trustworthy doesn’t hold much weight. After all, why would men who have devoted their lives to God, make up false doctrines, deliberatly misleading the people? That would be an evil thing to do and I doubt they would imperil their souls in such a way…

 

[Philthy]

Pwrlftr:

I don’t mean to belabor the Assumption but I think that doctrine sums up my problem with tradition… I guess the main reason boils down to I don’t accept your church’s authority.

But this isnt exactly true, is it? Don’t you actually trust that the Catholic Church “got it right” in determining the canon of the NT?
Of course you do, but you would never word it that way, you’d say that you trusted God to accomplish his will in whatever way he chose, or some such vague manner. And this is on perhaps the single most important issue to a SS adherent. But somehow, when it comes to the issue of the Assumption - which is totally innocuous - you suddenly cant muster up the same faith in the same Church. Why not? Necessity would seem to be the most logical reason. You know full well(historically, logically) that apart from the CC that none of us would have a clue regarding the canon of Scripture: you NEED to believe that God preserved them from error. You simply selectively disagree when their interpretation of the very Scripture they provided you is different than yours. Only my opinion of course!

My problem with tradition is that in some cases where a doctrine such as the Assumption has been declared there is little historical evidence linking the belief to the time of the apostles. I see how one can go from a belief in the Assumption to seeing it in scripture but I don’t see how you can go from scripture to a belief in the Assumption

.
Perhaps thats because you were never intended to go from Scripture alone to the belief. Perhaps God is sovereignly revealing it through the Church like he did with the canon of the NT - which you would never, ever get to from Scripture.

I understand that lack of evidence does not prove that there was no belief but the lack of evidence to me causes me to doubt that this was taught by the apostles.

And yet they never taught that a “New Testament” was forthcoming, yet you not only accept it, but rely exclusively on it for the entire content of the faith. Think how ridiculous that is!

This thread has rambled all over the place hasn’t it?

They always do - there’s really only one question: By what authority do you claim to know the word of God?

 

[rmcbride77]

…there’s really only one question: By what authority do you claim to know the word of God?

to Philthy.

ISTM the Reformers in their anger at the Church, threw the baby out with the bathwater. Like I have posted before, Luther lamented near the end of his life that there were already 500 divisions of the schism that he started.

The Reformers were far more “catholic” in their devotions than are their followers today, they held to the Immaculate Conception, the perpetual virginity of Mary and other Sacred traditions of the Church

ISTM that Protestantism gets further and further from the source of the stream; further from the Living water flowing from the Temple (cf Ezekiel’s vision of the Temple).

 

[Pwrlftr]

But this isnt exactly true, is it? Don’t you actually trust that the Catholic Church “got it right” in determining the canon of the NT?
Of course you do, but you would never word it that way, you’d say that you trusted God to accomplish his will in whatever way he chose, or some such vague manner. And this is on perhaps the single most important issue to a SS adherent.

I don’t believe your church is infallible nor do I believe it gets everything wrong either. Because I accept the same canon of the NT that your church accepts that means I should believe everything your church has ever taught?

But somehow, when it comes to the issue of the Assumption - which is totally innocuous - you suddenly cant muster up the same faith in the same Church. Why not? Necessity would seem to be the most logical reason. You know full well(historically, logically) that apart from the CC that none of us would have a clue regarding the canon of Scripture: you NEED to believe that God preserved them from error. You simply selectively disagree when their interpretation of the very Scripture they provided you is different than yours. Only my opinion of course!

You way overstate your case. It seems as if you are saying that before some council formally codified the canon of the NT there was no clue whatsoever as to what books made up the NT and that, if that’s your belief, is completely unfounded.

Need I remind you that the Jews had no infallible body to codify what was and wan’t scripture and yet they were entrusted with the oracles of God…ie. the sciptures and that we see numerous times in the NT that Jesus held them (the Jews) accoutnable for knowing the sciptures. What we don’t find in the NT is Jesus letting the Jews off the hook because they had no infallble body to guide them.

In the case of the Assumption there is little or no evidence tying this belief back to the apostolic age and therefore illustrates my point pretty clearly.

Perhaps thats because you were never intended to go from Scripture alone to the belief. Perhaps God is sovereignly revealing it through the Church like he did with the canon of the NT - which you would never, ever get to from Scripture.

Perhaps. But perhaps sciptue is intended to be the sole infallible rule of faith and the magesterium and tradition are meant to be scriptures servants not it’s equal.

And yet they never taught that a “New Testament” was forthcoming, yet you not only accept it, but rely exclusively on it for the entire content of the faith. Think how ridiculous that is!

Yet we see in the NT that there was a recognition that at least some of Paul’s writings were in fact scripture along with at least one of the gospels.

I guess I could respond in kind with how “ridiculous” I think many of your beliefs are but I won’t.

Philthy:

They always do - there’s really only one question: By what authority do you claim to know the word of God?

Why do I need authority to know the word of God? Your question makes no sense. By what authority did a Christian before (insert the name of your favorite council here) know what was and wasn’t scripture? By what authortiy did the Jews know Issiah was scripture along with the Psalms?

 

[rmcbride77]

Why do I need authority to know the word of God? Your question makes no sense. By what authority did a Christian before (insert the name of your favorite council here) know what was and wasn’t scripture? By what authortiy did the Jews know Issiah was scripture along with the Psalms?

Without the Authority behind Scripture, you might as well be a Jehovah Witness, or a Mormon and just do or write whatever is right in your own eyes. You are guilty here of saying too much and by this argument you are doing damage to your whole system of belief, if you call yourself Christian.

Its a point of logic that if B (Scripture) is infallible and originated from A (The Church), then A has to be infallible. This isn’t a Cafeteria where you can just pick and choose what you agree with.

 

[rmcbride77]

and remember what Paul said to Timothy, The Church of God is the Pillar and Foundation of the Truth. He didn’t say that Scripture was, he said the Church was.

 

[rmcbride77]

and remember that Jesus said that if your neighbor offends you and still refuses to recant, take him before the Church and if he refuses still, to treat him as an outsider. Jesus doesn’t place Scripture as the final arbiter, he places the Church as the final word.

 

[Peter_J]

I guess my problem with your post is that it’s a little offensive to me because it certainly implies that I don’t trust the promises of Jesus.

Pwrlftr,

This will probably shock you, but I tend to agree with you (generally speaking, I mean, I don’t know anything about the post you’re responding to). I find it very annoying when Catholic say to Protestants, or vice versa, things like “The difference between us and you is that we trust Jesus and the apostles, while you guys think they were a bunch of liars.”

 

[Pwrlftr]

Pwrlftr,

This will probably shock you, but I tend to agree with you (generally speaking, I mean, I don’t know anything about the post you’re responding to). I find it very annoying when Catholic say to Protestants, or vice versa, things like “The difference between us and you is that we trust Jesus and the apostles, while you guys think they were a bunch of liars.”

Thanks for your post and I fall into it too sometimes but I really try to avoid inflamatory rhetoric. The other poster and I straightened this out…he didn’t mean what I read into to it so everything is good now.

 

[Peter_J]

Need I remind you that the Jews had no infallible body to codify what was and wan’t scripture and yet they were entrusted with the oracles of God…ie. the sciptures and that we see numerous times in the NT that Jesus held them (the Jews) accoutnable for knowing the sciptures. What we don’t find in the NT is Jesus letting the Jews off the hook because they had no infallble body to guide them.

It seems to me that you’re working from a false assumption, namely that infallibility implies some kind of legalistic structure – with, curiously enough, is also the assumption that ultra-montanists generally make.

Why do I need authority to know the word of God?

Would you agree at least that you need some kind of basis for saying which books are part of the Word of God, are which aren’t?

By what authortiy did the Jews know Issiah was scripture along with the Psalms?

Bingo.

 

[Peter_J]

Thanks for your post and I fall into it too sometimes but I really try to avoid inflamatory rhetoric. The other poster and I straightened this out…he didn’t mean what I read into to it so everything is good now.

P.S. I wasn’t commenting on Sodak’s post specifically, but rather on something that I’ve seen many, many times, and CAF and on the internet in general.