One Fold blog accuses Catholics of quote mining Early Church

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I think, in order to do apologetics responsibly, it’s important, from the outset, to highlight the reality of doctrinal development, which is part of Catholic theology anyway - praise God for that.

When you say, for example, “Peter was the first pope,” and cite Matthew 16, and leave it at that, that gives the impression Catholics believe and teach the “papacy” looked and functioned in the first century, exactly as it does today. This is of course, neither reflective of the historical reality, nor is it what Catholicism teaches. Rather, the church’s self awareness - and her understanding of the deposit of faith - unfolds over time by the help of the Holy Spirit and Gods providence, across time and culture and circumstance.

Catholicism accounts for the reality and data, without resorting to maximalism and triumphalism, and doesn’t likewise fall into the error of pessimism and Christian relativism. History isn’t so messy (it IS messy, yes) that it nullifies and obscures Christs promise to build, protect, and preserve one visible church. If that were the case, Jesus lied, and/or he truly desired this, but human history was too much for him and overpowered him. If either scenario is true, Jesus is not who he claimed to be and we can all go home.

Thank God for His Church, which, although there are triumphalistic maximalists and pessimist-relativists within her ranks, she herself rightly teaches Her Head is the master of human history, and His body - in every age - can be seen and sought refuge in, as the city on the hill and the light not hidden under the basket.
 
Contarini said:
Because that would show the context. Obviously I’m not saying they should include the whole document. But the intellectually serious way of making a patristic argument is to say “in X treatise by Y, Y says the following, arguing this against this particular opponent in the context of this particular controversy. Linked up with these other similar statements in these other contexts, this proves the following. These other passages which some argue prove the contrary really don’t for these reasons, or else they constitute a minority tradition and don’t overturn the fact that the consensus of the Fathers as a whole is on our side.” Or something along those lines.

Obviously they were freaked out by the “cannibalistic” language. No dispute about that. But it’s absurd to suggest that they understood anything like the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence and rejected it. The primary meaning of this whole passage seems to be that they wanted regular food, doles like the kind the emperor gave out (they had just tried to make him king) and didn’t have any time for nonsense about Jesus being the real food. None of this, per se, helps us determine what “eating Jesus” meant. The argument that Jesus wouldn’t have let them walk away based on a misunderstanding is an incredible one–incredible as in it’s hard for me to see how anyone who had read the Gospels could make it or take it seriously. In the Synoptics, Jesus explicitly announces his intention of speaking cryptically so that people will misunderstand, and the Johannine Jesus , while more explicit in many ways, is if anything even more fond of mysterious, symbolic ways of speaking.

I believe in the Real Presence. I even believe that John 6 is talking about the Real Presence, though I don’t think John by itself would support a strong doctrine of the Presence.

But I don’t believe
  1. That the Catholic doctrine could be reasonably called “literal” in the first place, and
  2. That Jesus let the people walk away because they had rightly understood him to be speaking “literally,” so that their rejection of Jesus was based in a knowing rejection of the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence. That’s just a nonsensical argument.
Edwin
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So as not to take us off topic, I suggest that you check out my blog article The Eucharist IS Scriptural and especially in context of Mark 4:34. Perhaps you can PM me if you want to talk about it or we can open a new thread.🙂
 
MrSnaith said:
I Also, the quote "the flesh profits nothing" is often “quote mined” by protestants, … John talks a lot about the flesh in his Gospel…
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The major mistake I see in the protestant interpretation is that they equate “the flesh” in verse 63 to mean Jesus’ flesh — that Jesus’ flesh is “the flesh profits nothing”/“is of no avail” – when in fact it refers to the flesh of every other human EXCEPT Jesus’.

A couple of points:
  1. In this chapter, whenever Jesus refers to His “flesh”, He specifically identifies it as such – He says “my flesh” or “the flesh of the Son of Man”.
  2. The context (day after feeding of 5,000) and mindset of the crowd (vs 25 "Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.) They’re after physical food to feed their flesh - to maintain physical life.
3)Jesus whole bread of life discourse is about how they can receive “eternal life”. Having our physical flesh nourished is beneficial for physical life, but it is “of no avail” in attaining eternal life. For that, eternal life, we need a well-fed soul, not a well-fed body/flesh. Jesus words tell us how to get this eternal life-giving food.

(Apologies for “quote mining” your post. 🙂 )
 
Nita said:
The major mistake I see in the protestant interpretation is that they equate “the flesh” in verse 63 to mean Jesus’ flesh — that Jesus’ flesh is “the flesh profits nothing”/“is of no avail” – when in fact it refers to the flesh of every other human EXCEPT Jesus’.

A couple of points:
  1. In this chapter, whenever Jesus refers to His “flesh”, He specifically identifies it as such – He says “my flesh” or “the flesh of the Son of Man”.
  2. The context (day after feeding of 5,000) and mindset of the crowd (vs 25 "Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.) They’re after physical food to feed their flesh - to maintain physical life.
3)Jesus whole bread of life discourse is about how they can receive “eternal life”. Having our physical flesh nourished is beneficial for physical life, but it is “of no avail” in attaining eternal life. For that, eternal life, we need a well-fed soul, not a well-fed body/flesh. Jesus words tell us how to get this eternal life-giving food.

(Apologies for “quote mining” your post. 🙂 )
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You’re absolutely right.

Also, note that the author of the article linked in the OP doesn’t make any reference to Jesus change in words later in the discourse to reinforce his point about actual consumption of his flesh, by using a the stronger Greek term (can’t recall it at the moment) that means “to gnaw, to chew”.
 
MrSnaith said:
You’re absolutely right.

Also, note that the author of the article linked in the OP doesn’t make any reference to Jesus change in words later in the discourse to reinforce his point about actual consumption of his flesh, by using a the stronger Greek term (can’t recall it at the moment) that means “to gnaw, to chew”.
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It might be “trogo.” I tried not to google it lol 😉

Guys, mass was amazing today. I just got out of church, and … what can I say? To receive … Christ … is … wow. To be caught up in the spirit and to visualize the heavenly liturgy, the elders casting down their crowns falling prostrate; to remember the ancient church choosing to die rather than give up the Eucharist … And as you receive Christ, to know you’re truly receiving HIM, in the church of the apostles, prophets, martyrs, saints, widows, virgins, and doctors…

This is heaven this side of heaven.

For people who won’t come, or mock, I want to weep and pray for them and unite that suffering with Christs, and offer that up continually.

Lord, I beg and cry out for your faithful to be one.

God bless, everyone!
 
Another deep in history conference talk, showing the importance of context and continuity when contemplating the link between the ancient and modern Catholic Church, “Breaking through the Myths of history,” by Dr. Ken Howell:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=RwUA-104MZQ
 
Those talks show a larger trend: men and women, apt scholars, who had no previous bias in favour of the Church - and even went deep into history to prove the case against the Church, out of disdain for it - came into full communion with the Church, through comprehensive survey and in-dept study.

People like Dr. Scott Hahn, William Marshner, Ken Howell, Tom Howard, and Robert Louis Wilken, would not - could not - settle for proof-texting and quote-mining, in order to be convinced the Church was true. They weren’t duped into the Catholic Church in this way, then realized upon further study, “Oh snap! I’ve been hoodwinked!” It was precisely the Holy Spirit using the means of rigorous, comprehensive, responsible historical study, that they came to be convicted.

So friends, I think the bottom line is this: we needen’t be scared of mined quotes, either as an accusation or charge against us, of how we think Catholicism is true, or as a tool to try to convince others it is true.

These great minds didn’t do this, and we don’t need to either. I understand that people may reach different conclusions, and that’s okay. But bottom line is, the quote mine charge against the Catholic Church as a whole, is baseless and a strawman.
 
DustinQuick said:
Hi guys,

Just wondering if anyone’s seen or heard of this blog before. It makes some pretty bold claims about the early church, and seriously questions Catholic views and those of Catholic apologists. Does anyone know if responses have been written to this blog specifically?

Peace and thanks,

onefold.wordpress.com/
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I’m all for quote-mining. :yup:

None of us has the time to read a million or so pages of the writings of the Early Church Fathers, so if others have identified those nuggets, those gems, that need to brought to the surface, then I say the more the better.

What I would object to is taking quotes out of context…like trying to make an ECF sound like a proto-Protestant. Therefore if you do post quotes from the ECF’s make sure you include the source for the material so that others can read the quote in context and evaluate it for themselves.
 
hello thanks for the one fold post-- it was interesting to read – of the different – interperations of scripture–

but i generally-- go with –

Joel 2:28 - Bible Gateway

The Day of the LORD - “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream.

if some one does not have a ministry that includes this-- then i figure they-- have just memorized – some one elses commentary–

or some denomation’s dogma–

it’s like the church militant-- continuly – posting that the communion is scriptural–

duh ?? yes of course the communion service is scriptural-- but not all communion services’s are spiritual ly – anointed–

just as not all catholic priests are prophets =-teachers - evangelists-- or pray in tongues – and prophecy
 
Contarini said:
Obviously they were freaked out by the “cannibalistic” language. No dispute about that. But it’s absurd to suggest that they understood anything like the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence and rejected it.
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The real point is, Jesus knew in advance who would and would not believe in Him.

Jn 6:61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?e] 63 It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you that do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that should betray him. 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” 66 After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.
C:
The primary meaning of this whole passage seems to be that -]they wanted regular food, doles like the kind the emperor gave out (they had just tried to make him king) and didn’t have any time for nonsense about Jesus being the real food. None of this, per se, helps us determine what “eating Jesus” meant. The argument that Jesus wouldn’t have let them walk away based on a misunderstanding is an incredible one–incredible as in it’s hard for me to see how anyone who had read the Gospels could make it or take it seriously. In the Synoptics, Jesus explicitly announces his intention of speaking cryptically so that people will misunderstand, and the Johannine Jesus , while more explicit in many ways, is if anything even more fond of mysterious, symbolic ways of speaking./-]
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The primary reason they left? THEY HAD NO FAITH
C:
I believe in the Real Presence. I even believe that John 6 is talking about the Real Presence, though I don’t think John by itself would support a strong doctrine of the Presence.
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Jn 6 beautifully explains Jesus words at the last supper when Jesus said

Take and eat, for this IS my body Matthew 26:26
Take and drink, for this IS my blood Matthew 26:28
DO THIS in memory of me Luke 22:19
C:
But** I don’t believe**
  1. That the Catholic doctrine could be reasonably called “literal” in the first place, and
  2. That Jesus let the people walk away because they had rightly understood him to be speaking “literally,” so that their rejection of Jesus was based in a knowing rejection of the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence. That’s just a nonsensical argument.
Edwin
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If it wasn’t for the Catholic Church we wouldn’t have the scriptures in the first place. So I’m thinking how could I possibly think I have a better interpretation of doctrine and its source or what scripture says than the Church who gave me the doctrines and the books to begin with

Re: the topic of the thread and mining quotes, 😉 I can’t say it better than Augustine here
  • “to believe what you please, and not to believe what you please, is to believe yourselves, and not the gospel” ." Against Faustus, Book 17, 3,
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  • “For in the Catholic Church, not to speak of the purest wisdom, to the knowledge of which a few spiritual men attain in this life, so as to know it, in the scantiest measure, indeed, because they are but men, still without any uncertainty…The consent of peoples and nations keep me in Church, so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after his resurrection, gave it in charge to feed his sheep, down to the present episcopate… For my part, I should not believe the gospel except moved by the authority of the Catholic Church. So when those on whose authority I have consented to believe in the gospel tell me not to believe in Manicheus, how can I but consent?” Augustine, Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental ch 4 para 5, & ch 5 para 6 (A.D. 397).
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THAT’s authority. :cool:
 
Randy_Carson said:
I’m all for quote-mining. :yup:

None of us has the time to read a million or so pages of the writings of the Early Church Fathers, so if others have identified those nuggets, those gems, that need to brought to the surface, then I say the more the better.

What I would object to is taking quotes out of context…like trying to make an ECF sound like a proto-Protestant. Therefore if you do post quotes from the ECF’s make sure you include the source for the material so that others can read the quote in context and evaluate it for themselves.
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Exactly
 
if Jesus did not create a way for His authority over us to remain visible and engaged with us after He ascended, then how does anyone know what He taught us? believing Jesus left no source of His authority behind to guide and instruct us would essentially make Jesus a non-factor in our lives since we would have no way of knowing what He came to teach us.

if Jesus wanted a book to be the way for His authority over us to remain, He would have written it Himself.

if the Holy Spirit’s inspiration is the sole means Jesus gave us for knowing His teachings authoritatively, there would still be only one indisputable source of authority and it could not be represented by thousands of men claiming to be the authoritative source for teaching the Gospel faithfully while simultaneously teaching contradictory doctrines.

basically, non-Catholic Christians do not want to submit to the authority Jesus created for our benefit.
 
DustinQuick said:
Does anyone know if responses have been written to this blog specifically?
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Never heard of it. All we do is **just look at the Early Church and report the facts.

**You know these things all happened over a thousand years before any of the protestant churches existed, right?
 
Ignatius said:
Never heard of it. All we do is just look at the Early Church and report the facts.

Right–next you will try to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge:eek:

Nobody just “looks at [whatever] and reports the facts.” Anyone who claims to is either naive or dishonest. I don’t think you are dishonest, so you must be mind-bogglingly naive.
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You know these things all happened over a thousand years before any of the protestant churches existed, right?

Also before the Council of Trent, let alone Vatican I and Vatican II:shrug:

Edwin
 
DustinQuick said:
Hi guys,

Just wondering if anyone’s seen or heard of this blog before. It makes some pretty bold claims about the early church, and seriously questions Catholic views and those of Catholic apologists. Does anyone know if responses have been written to this blog specifically?

Peace and thanks,

onefold.wordpress.com/
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I think it safe to say, you will find Catholic responses to the issues brought up in that blog, even if zero Catholics wrote to that blog specifically.
 
It is true the Early Fathers were not unanimous in their beliefs. It’s often hard to find dissenting opinions.

That’s why the outstanding three-volume work, The Faith of the Early Fathers by William A. Jurgens will never be replaced by Google - it has a “doctrinal index” which includes dissenting opinions, which are indicated by parenthesis.

The books contain thousands of excerpts of ECF writings, and each exerpt is numbered (like how the Catechism sections are numbered).

Here’s a shot of the Doctrinal Index for Baptism. The numbers refer to citations within the main text, so the index is pretty useless without the rest of the book. But you can see how EASY it makes it to find relevant ECF passages (including contrary opinions).

The section on “Baptism by Heretics” is especially interesting. The idea of validity was almost unanimously opposed by nearly every ECF, but then a strange thing happens - the dissent goes away. What happened? Pope St. Damasus, that’s what happened. Without even looking up the texts, the index shows how authority works in the Catholic Church.

https://imgur.com/b7doOMh
"
https://imgur.com/vmzwcWS
 
You know who else “quote-mined?” - Jesus…and St Paul…and St Peter…and the other NT writers…
 
I was on Onefold and was in a debate with Brian Culliton and the other 2 accordion monkeys, Mike and Kevin. It was fascinating when one of them was confronted with the Original Documents of the Council of Ephesus proving to them they indeed were following the Nestorian Heresy. I even thought I heard them bumping heads trying to figure out how they could get out of being Nestorians.

Of course anyone, myself included, who beats Brian Culliton on any point is usually banned and that is just what he did. When he made a gross mistake in scripture, I pounced on it and he couldn’t take the heat that he made a complete fool out of himself scripturally, that he pulled the executioners lever and banned me.

You always know when you win by Brian banning you. He has two anti-Catholics who will bombard you with senseless questions and insults to shield Brian from ridicule. No fair debate can occur over there. Brian’s Christianity has no place in the New Testament. He may even believe he is another Calvin. And their is no scholarship in this articles whatsoever. It always comes down to insult and banning before he is made to declare himself a loser.

See ya,

Ron Sr.
 
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