Floating A Trial Balloon

[Randy_Carson]

Here is a new apologetics argument I have been working on…let me know what you think.

I’m wondering how the existence of the Eastern Orthodox Church fits into your overall thinking. After all, they have the same seven sacraments as the Catholic Church, baptize infants, believe in the presence of Christ – body, blood, soul and divinity – in the Eucharist, and have confession to their ministerial priests - the whole nine yards straight from scripture just as we do.

However, they allow their priests to marry, they did not participate in the Inquisition or the Crusades and there has never been any issue surrounding the sale of indulgences within the Orthodox Church. Consequently, you can’t tag them with any of the usual anti-Catholic accusations.

Therefore, how do you explain their existence and their adherence to the same basic doctrines taught by Rome?

Did they go “off the rails” at some point, also? Remember, they split with Rome 500 years before Luther.

It seems to me that you can’t “explain away” the Eastern Orthodox with the same arguments you use to excuse yourself from being Catholic, and this leaves you with a problem: instead of simplistically declaring that the Catholic Church lost its way – and its moral authority – in the Middle Ages, now you have to either:a)concede that the Christian Church had gone astray MUCH earlier (a position which is harder to justify given the fact that some of the Early Church Fathers were alive just a couple of centuries before the schism) or

b)consider the possibility that maybe the Catholic Church didn’t lose its way doctrinally after all (because the “morally superior” Orthodox believe the same things that Catholics believe).
Which is it?

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

 

[SPH1]

I like your line of thought…I’ve used it before, using the Eastern Orthodox as a kind of litmus test to shore-up and verify Catholic Faith to Protestants.

I suspect that since many Protestants look at Constantine as the de-railing of the Church (as if the Church were built upon sand and with Christ only a symbolic figure-head) they would probably include the Eastern Orthodox as part of the Constantinian falling away.

Speaking of the Eastern Orthodox, I’ve been thinking that since Constantinople is now called Istanbul and is in a sea of Islam, that perhaps this is God’s judgment upon the Eastern Orthodox for their schism.

The way I see it, the Church of Rome is the only New Testament Church still around in any glory. I think a very powerful divine statement.

BTW, I believe that the EO were involved in the Crusades, at least inviting the West to come to their rescue. And they definitely should have participated more…perhaps more divine judgment.

PS: Don’t forget that there are Eastern Rite Catholics.

 

[DJPJ]

Well, most Protestants don’t have much of a problem saying the entire church went off the rails in the 600’s with a steady decline starting with Constantine. So while I find your argument convincing I’m not sure your target audience will, plus historically Orthodox Churches are more wed to the state and have a lot of political influence (esp Russian) which is what I’m beginning to think most Protestant have the biggest problem with.

But I do think it is important to show Protestants how close theologically Catholicism and Orthodoxy are. It does keep them from blaming everything on Thomas Aquinas. I’m currently a protestant on a little ecumenical quest (thus writing on a Catholic forum message board) and as I’ve expressed interested in the Catholic church I’ve had people say in response to me commenting on the division within the Protestant church, “Well what if the Catholic church is wrong and the orthodox church is right?” Which is kind of silly because that still means the Catholic church is correct on 95% of the things they believe and that protestantism is still 100% wrong on the things it disagrees with Catholicism about (sola fide, sola scripture, thinking sacraments are lame, etc.). So all that to say, nice job.