So maybe you mean belief as in conviction, or trust in something. But if you believe something, there must be a source to that belief, whether it be a church and its doctrines with the Bible, or the Bible alone. So I can say that James had a certain doctrine he wished to teach to his hearers. For example, when James says the following :James 1:27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in thier affliction and to keep onself unstained by the world." he is not just providing a statement of belief. He is providing a precept, or a doctrine by which Christians are to adhere to. When Peter stated that the Gentiles did not have to observer Mosaic laws, he was making a doctrinal statement.
Ok then. Following this description, I see nothing by doctrinal statements being produced throughout the new testament. No statements of belief. When Peter says this 2 Peter 20 “Know this first of all, that there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation…” he know saying that there must be some kind of corporate oversite, because anyone who interprets the scriptures alone is by definition doing so privately. I’m sure you will try to turn this around by saying you are not alone, that you have the Holy Spirit to guide you, so the question then becomes, to whom did God leave his spirit? To private individuals, or to a group of individuals?
Again, I would point to the letter of James for a clear contradiction to this. James specifically says that faith (or belief) is not sufficient without works.
If this were the case, they would never have called the council of Jerusalem because this was a doctrinal issue. To say that Gentiles need not follow Mosaic law is a doctrinal statement, therefore it is clear to me that doctrinal unity was necessary.
I still do not see the distinction. The apostles taught something, their hearer could chose to believe, or not believe. You cannot teach someone belief. You teach someone doctrines such as, Christ is Lord, then you elaborate…by Lord we mean he is God, etc… You have the first seeds of doctrinal development, wholly sufficient for the salvation of the apostles, but not fully elaborated in all its profundity.
The council was called, there was long debate. Peter stood up, and spoke, and the matter was settled. It was the apostles who settled the debate. When they spoke, all other descenting voices were silenced. This is obviously because they were eye witnesses to Jesus, and appointed Apostles by Jesus. This appointment not only gave them spiritual maturity, but unquestioned authority to make such pronouncements.
And this is exactly what the church does when confronted with issues such as this. Councils are called. The bishops debate amongst themselves, then votes are made, the bishop of Rome ratifies the doctrinal decision, or endorses the counciliar text. Through it all, they are guided by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is given to the Church as a whole, but always through the apostles first. The Holy Spirit decended on the Apostles at Pentacost. Note that in Acts 2, the Holy Spirit descendes on the Apostles first. They they teach the crowd who ask Peter what they must do to be saved. Peter gives them a doctrinal statemet as follows Acts 2:38
Repent and be baptised every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the first of the holy spirit. This is not a statement of belief, but a doctrinal teaching. Was there room for debate? No.Paul held out the possibility that he could be running in vain if the Apostles were to refute his teachings.
I would propose that you cannot have belief without doctrines.
That is putting the horse before the cart. Now, I can agree with you that doctrinal statements in themselves do not produce belief. I think it is Christ alone who produces faith, and who is the object of faith or belief. But understanding Christ and his revelation rightly is key to be in right relation with him and with each member of his body.
How would you define insufficient faith?
Is the term “insufficient” confusing somehow?
Doctrines are not the goal, but the aid to right belief. They are lights on the path of our spiritual journey. Signposts that point us in the right direction. The word Ortho doxy means right teaching. Right Teaching produces right belief. You cannot have right belief without right teaching.
I believe that the faith of the Apostels was sufficient. But was their faith insufficient before the council of Jerusalem? Or more specifically, was Steven, the first martyr’s faith insufficient before the revelations given to Peter and elaborated by Paul concerning the Gentiles? If it was sufficient, then why call a council?
Thank you, Thank you! For your answers and done so with compassion and at the level I am at in asking these questions and my misunderstanding and doubts.
I just wanted to back track here for a second – the text says that many spoke, then Peter…and then, before the “close” of the council, James spoke. It’s also James’ words that were used in the letter written to Antioch.
Agreed…but is all teaching right? (Obviously not.) And who is to say that the source of teaching needs to be earthly in nature? To learn, one must be taught, but this neither requires the RCC, nor demonstrates that it actually has right teaching.
Good, good.
It’s an interesting point – still, I would point out that these revelations came to the individual believer from the holy spirit. There’s no necessity to see church hierarchy there.
And what, in that book, isn’t found elsewhere in scripture? Admittedly it’s been a while since I’ve read those, but still.
I never suggested anything of the kind.
Just as with me, it comes down to personal belief for you.
I’ll have to look in to that.
So then, you would agree that me following the faith they had would be all that is required for my salvation?
I’d like some actual support for the claims if you could provide it. After all, if the earliest Christians held to a belief, it’d be kind of silly for me not to do so.
Okay, so if none of the written material contains these things, how can you be certain you’re correct in assuming them to have been believed/practiced…especially when the infallibility of the RCC is among these? What outside source do you have to verify the truthfulness of the claims, or does it indeed come down to your personal interpretation of history, along with (perhaps) what you believe the holy spirit has revealed to you?
No doubt the church (as a collection of its members) is under the guidance of the holy spirit – but how do you ascertain that this points to the RCC instead of something else? Apostolic succession, the papacy, etc are not directly found in scripture or other early written record. Thus you must assume them to be true, despite the lack of evidence in history. I just can’t figure out how this works without being circular logic.
the question.
thanks for the question.see above. Those who divide from the visible unity of the church against the direction of those in leadership, are not approved. Both you and I believe the Holy Spirit guided the Jerusalem council to the right decision. I have faith in the process, that the Holy Spirit is working through the living magisterium, just as it was doing so during the Council of Jerusalem two thousand years ago. Do you think the Holy Spirit would suddenly stop working this way?
Apostlolic succession is found in scripture, and it is found in history. How you can deny the historicity of apostolic succession is beyond me. I can see how you can doubt the papacy, because its historical appearance is marred in doctrinal controversies, as a result the nature of the office, but apostolic succession… I can’t understand how you can not see this in scripture and in history.
This only admits disunity of practice and thus doctrine.
This is generally true in that groups and organizations do their best to combat what they see as heresy. What is untrue, however, is the implied assumption that there must be a true church to serve this purpose – in other words, while this “development of doctrine” does happen, it’s not necessary for it to happen.
This is technically true, though I might rather call it a development of understanding that was intended by God – not necessarily a development of formalized teaching.
Did he? What makes you certain that he “had to”, or even that this is what he did?
And had these later developments never taken place, would the “deposit of faith received by the apostles” be sufficient for my salvation?
As I previously mentioned, the papacy, apostolic succession (succession of special office as opposed to succession of ministry), confession to a priest, and other things are great examples of discontinuity.
As I’ve asked over and over, and as you’ve yet to answer – what good is that if there’s mass disagreement in belief? What’s the practical benefit of doctrine, if not to cause belief?
And yet I somehow doubt that you do.
You don’t seem to understand. In instances of differing interpretations between myself and another, it’s not “my holy spirit” versus “his holy spirit”. There is only one holy spirit. There is only one God, and one truth. The only difference is in our interpretations – it’s my interpretation of the holy spirit versus his interpretation of the holy spirit.We have a text, let’s say, issued by the Church. we read it. let’s suppose we disagree on something. It is my brother and me. Not my Holy Spirit speaking to me, and his Holy Spirit speaking to him. We can decide to listen to a priest, or a bishop. Who can settle a dispute which is Holy Spirit versus Holy Spirit. ?
What point were you trying to make here?
Actually, in most of the cases, what I’d call unbiblical is your interpretation of those writings.All very unbiblical indeed as you see.You can always show your list of witnesses from the first generations.
While this sounds reasonable on the surface, I would actually draw the other extreme – if the RCC were from God, the teachings would not have nearly as many contradictions as they do, and moreover, there wouldn’t be nearly as much disagreement in belief as there currently is.In whole sincerity, i can tell you that i mind that if the Church were not from God, then contradictions in teachings during twenty centuries ( two whole millennia) would be so many, and so blatant, that no amount of apologetics could even try to cover them ( or even there would be no apologists at all). You clearly see the situation is not like that.
Sure could – and those things also surely would have been written down if God meant for such to be codified.
Actually, I check it against other scripture and against the revelation of the holy spirit, after doing my best to make myself open to God’s will. I’m not the master of revelation – God is. I just hope to have a reasonably competent understanding of what is revealed.i hope you are aware of the step you’re speaking about.
Joy was explaining that we should check every belief of ours against scripture…Now you are checking Scripture against your own beliefs !
Certainly not as the RCC teaches it – priests and bishops appointed by a hierarchy.
And where in all of those quotes you posted did it speak of literal sacrifices? Did it specify what the sacrifices were, or how exactly the sacrifice was to be done?
How can that be? You seemingly disagree with the concept that the holy spirit can reveal truth to individual believers. If not for that purpose, what does the holy spirit do?
Nope – but scripture does mention that Christ was God incarnate (“the word was God…and the word became flesh”, “if you have seen me [Christ], you’ve seen the father in heaven”). Scripture is also very clear that the holy spirit has no words of its own to speak, but instead speaks what is given it by the father. These, it would seem, are the necessary beliefs. Whether we call any of it “trinity” is inconsequential. Aside from the formality of agreeing with the doctrine, what difference does the official concept of the trinity actually make? If I hold to scripture, but was never given any doctrines about the trinity, what would I be lacking in my faith?
This is true, and yet the church is clearly, according to scripture, comprised of all who hold belief in Christ. Never, anywhere, does it refer to an official organization, such as “the Church”.
Today’s a good day.
Not at all. It was merely an example, demonstrating that the farther you get from the source, the more likely you are to introduce error. For instance, if I were a WW2 veteran who had extensive knowledge about a part of the war, I could write about that fairly accurately. But let’s say that someone a generation later consults written material and verbal stories on the subject, and then writes their own work about the topic – probably less accurate. Now, here we are, generations later in 2008…what if I went to write a book about it today? What resources would I have – written materials which are not completely exhaustive, and which thus must be interpreted – and verbal traditions and stories, which as I’ve stated change with each telling.
Okay, so, you’re saying that the apostles and their direct descendants had the understanding that confession to a priest is necessary, for example? Or perhaps they said that the text of the mass must be said at each gathering. Or, perhaps these individuals expressly disclaimed a symbolic or spiritual, but not physical, “Eucharist”? Were these teachings really the same back in those days? If you say they are, here’s the important part – how do you know they’re the same? Do you have written records that address these issues (probably not)? How else do you make such an assertion?
The writing of an opinion (such as was the case in Acts 15), based on the belief of unity with the holy spirit, is a different case than an authoritative body making a decision.
As if he was not before? After all, it was unity with God’s truth that Paul was after, not the authorization of a church.
Nor did they need to be. This is the primary function of the holy spirit – to lead each of us into truth.
Which comes back to the question of authority – how can you verify that the RCC agrees with the right councils – that all of them were of God, and that the RCC hasn’t gotten it wrong somewhere? It would seem you have to rely on a Roman Catholic interpretation of Matthew 16, an interpretation rejected by most other denominations of Christianity, and by several ECF’s I’ve read.
Yes, this is true – however, you’re making an assumption that the context was the RCC, led by a pope, possessing infallibility and some form of all other things which have been taught by the RCC. You assume that it was the case, rather than letting the facts of history establish that it was so. While this may be sufficient to convince you, it is not so for me, so I’d appreciate it if you can offer something more…logically and historically supportable.
So you claim, and yet you really haven’t addressed the main contradictions in teaching that I’ve mentioned.
No, I didn’t.
Obviously – but this isn’t a sign of the unity of the church in any event, nor of the authority of the council of Jerusalem (not that I’m saying it didn’t have authority – I’m just saying that individuals disagreeing, and eventually splitting apart, over an important belief isn’t that unrealistic whether there was a hierarchy or not).
Aside from the supposed successors of Peter, who were these individuals, and where do we see the apostles giving them the authority to develop doctrine? Paul commended Timothy to hold fast to the things he’d taught, and advocated finding future replacement personnel for the ministry, but I don’t recall him passing on any sort of apostolic authority, nor have I seen any other documentation which claims witness to this.
I don’t think he was working through a living magisterium at all. I think God was working through a group of people who were open to hear his will. This had nothing to do with hierarchy. The holy spirit revealed to, and continues to reveal to those willing and able to receive it.
Well that’s helpful…no attempt at an explanation or a real response? Just a “oh well, I just wanted to let you know that you’re wrong”? No “here’s why you’re wrong” or anything of the kind. Gee, that’s helpful to the discussion.
Where?
Early church history? Where?
I don’t see it, and you don’t seem inclined to show it to me.
No – your arguments are based on your interpretations of the sources you mentioned. Most of your claims aren’t explicitly contained therein. It’s a good thing Jesus wasn’t so vague on the important things, eh?
This is, quite simply, slanderous.
If you’d like to provide quotes that demonstrate your claim, please do so.
Some in their own day certainly did.
You have no problems with calling his later beliefs heretical once they no longer agreed with those of the RCC. It would seem that the divine inspiration of even ECFs doesn’t cause infallibility.
I’ve stated time and time again that those living in the earliest centuries of the church are some of the more reliable sources we should be able to find.
More like just the holy spirit…so long as I don’t get in the way.
And who verifies the RCC’s interpretation of scripture? They say “the holy spirit”…but how is that different from me claiming the benefit of the holy spirit?