Orthodoxy: Ecumenicity, Receptionism and the Councils

[GKC]

Were I Roman Catholic, I would have to reject the final syllogistic step (that is, the unlisted step 7) where one claims that this proves the inspired nature of scripture. The truths of revelation can only be known and accepted by faith. To assert otherwise falls into a kind of pelagianism, where man can initiate his salvation by coming to accept revelation by his natural faculty of reason (accepting and submitting to revelation is a salvific act) without first receiving the gift of faith. The object of faith is divine revelation (whereas reason does not properly have divine revelation as its object), and to know revelation is something that can only be accomplished through faith. So I would therefore reject this as a syllogistic proof for the inspiration of the scriptures, on the grounds that it seems to me that to create such a proof would contradict the First Vatican Council’s teachings on faith, revelation, and reason, and would lead to a form of pelagianism. I could also recognize, however, that such arguments could possibly help establish the reasonableness of divine revelation.

Now on a logical note, I would have to reject the syllogism in step two as valid but unsound. It is a version of the fallacy of the excluded middle, albeit with four alternatives instead of C.S. Lewis’ original trichotomy (which if I recall, in its original context was not meant to demonstrate the truth of revelation but only to demonstrate the Jesus could not simply have been a good man).

That was Lewis’ stated intent: MERE CHRISTIANITY, Chap. 3, pp. 40-41.

Chesterton made some similar comments (EVERLASTING MAN, 1st American ed., part II, chap. III, esp. around pp. 247-248).

Neither of them originated the general line of reasoning.

GKC

 

[Novocastrian]

1. 
   *]Based on textual criticism, archaeology and extra-biblical sources, we conclude that the Bible is a historically accurate text; IOW, we know what the original manuscripts said, and that what it says accurately reflects historical events of that period.

1. 
   This step is way too cavalier. I can’t see how anybody could accept this without qualifications.

 

[Randy_Carson]

I thought I made it clear that I was only here to keep Catholics honest when they post about Orthodoxy. This is Catholic Answers forum is it not? Are not the many Catholic members of this forum up to the task of dissecting thetazlord’s arguments?
Anyway, I’ve said my piece in that thread already. He’s not listening. Arguing with thetazlord is a waste of time.

Back to your homework Randy.

So, if a Catholic is in error about something that Orthodox believe, you want to correct that error.

But if a Protestant is in error about something that Orthodox believe, you’ll just let that go.

 

[Randy_Carson]

This step is way too cavalier. I can’t see how anybody could accept this without qualifications.

I see your point, but knowing that I was presenting this to an audience of Christians, I gave only a brief overview of that first point.

As you know, whole books, lots of them, have been written to document the historical accuracy of the NT. Having read a few of them, I think the case they make is strong, but of course, I want it to be.

More impressive, however, is the case when a skeptic or atheist starts out to examine the available evidence and comes to believe that Christianity is true based upon the facts that we do have available to us.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Were I Roman Catholic, I would have to reject the final syllogistic step (that is, the unlisted step 7) where one claims that this proves the inspired nature of scripture. The truths of revelation can only be known and accepted by faith. To assert otherwise falls into a kind of pelagianism, where man can initiate his salvation by coming to accept revelation by his natural faculty of reason (accepting and submitting to revelation is a salvific act) without first receiving the gift of faith. The object of faith is divine revelation (whereas reason does not properly have divine revelation as its object), and to know revelation is something that can only be accomplished through faith. So I would therefore reject this as a syllogistic proof for the inspiration of the scriptures, on the grounds that it seems to me that to create such a proof would contradict the First Vatican Council’s teachings on faith, revelation, and reason, and would lead to a form of pelagianism. I could also recognize, however, that such arguments could possibly help establish the reasonableness of divine revelation.

Now on a logical note, I would have to reject the syllogism in step two as valid but unsound. It is a version of the fallacy of the excluded middle, albeit with four alternatives instead of C.S. Lewis’ original trichotomy (which if I recall, in its original context was not meant to demonstrate the truth of revelation but only to demonstrate the Jesus could not simply have been a good man).

Okay, now I have two questions:

1. Would you have any other objections as Orthodox Cavaradossi that you did not express as *Catholic *Cavaradossi? For example, Catholic Cav accepted the Church as infallible…EO Cav?
2. How do Orthodox explain to atheists, agnostics and other non-Christian inquirers (maybe even to yourselves?) that the Bible is the inspired Word of God?

 

[Randy_Carson]

This is off-topic; I’m just parking it here for now. The entire transcript was a pretty interesting read, and I especially enjoyed Dr. Constantinou’s explanation of the Jewish canon question.

This portion below is interesting to me because I knew that the Catholic priesthood had suffered a period of poor education which only began to recover when many Eastern clergy came west to escape persecution from the Turks (I think), but I didn’t realize that the Eastern Church had suffered a similar period of decline.

The Eastern Orthodox Approach to the Bible
February 24, 2013 Length: 1:35:50
ancientfaith.com/podcasts/aftoday/the_eastern_orthodox_approach_to_the_bible
Dr Jeannie Constantinou, Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, Theology, and Religious Studies, University of San Diego and AFR podcaster (Search The Scriptures), speaks with Kevin about all things biblical, and how the Orthodox Tradition relates to and interprets the Holy Scriptures.

Transcript Excerpt:

Dr. Constantinou: When the Reformation was happening, Western Europe was really booming in terms of education and universities and the printing press. At that time, in the East, we had a tremendous decline. The East had gone into the Dark Ages. Greece was under Ottoman Turkish rule for four hundred years. During that period of time in many places it was forbidden to teach children Greek, and children went to school secretly at night. Many people could not read. Of course, Greece was not liberated until, really, the majority of Greece, until after World War I.

We’re playing catch-up right now. We’re far behind the West in terms of Bible knowledge because our people were literally uneducated, including many of the priests. Priests knew the services by heart. They weren’t even able to read the Bible in some cases. We are really behind the curve, but I am hopeful that people like you [who] have come into the Church will bring with you your love—and I see that happening—your love for the Scriptures and an enthusiasm that will infuse that in the Orthodox Church, because it is our tradition to read the Bible and hold it in high esteem, and that’s been our tradition since day one, because that was what the early Church did.

Mr. Allen: Thanks. Her last question, and I think it’s really an important one to come to an end on is, she says:

As a former Evangelical Protestant, I not only studied the Scriptures but read them devotionally, often applied specific verses to specific needs in my life. This brought me great comfort and hope. This doesn’t seem to be an approach to Scripture that Orthodox embrace. Is that true, and how would you define Orthodoxy’s recommended approach to personal Bible reading and study?

Good question.

Dr. Constantinou: I think you’re right about that. We don’t have enough Bible study in the Orthodox Church, but I think that what you do in terms of your devotions is exactly, actually, part of the tradition of the Church. People would go and read the Scriptures, monks like Chrysostom for example. They would be out in the desert in the cave with nothing but copies of the Scriptures, and they memorized them and they meditated upon them, and then when they spoke and when they wrote, those Scriptures just flowed out of them so naturally. It had become a part of who they are. So what you’re doing is perfectly in keeping with Orthodoxy, even though, because of our recent history—I’m always talking about Greece, but the Middle East, all of the Slavic countries, Russia was Communist, and even before it was Communist you had people who were living in such poverty they weren’t reading the Bible but they knew their faith. They went to church. Their lives revolved around the Church, the cycle of the Church year. They knew the saints. Every village had a saint. They had the icons which were another form of the Word of God in picture. Even though if they didn’t sit down and read the Bible…They may not have owned a Bible. They may not have been able to read.

Yet we should not think that these people were less devout as Christians or less knowledgeable about Christ, because they went to Church, they heard the readings, and they paid attention in church. They weren’t hearing them in Greek in Russia; they were hearing them in Slavonic. While the West had the Scriptures in Latin, and people came to church and didn’t understand it, that was never the case in the East. When people went to church, they heard the Bible and they understood it, and this is how they got their Bible education.

 

[prodromos]

So, if a Catholic is in error about something that Orthodox believe, you want to correct that error.

But if a Protestant is in error about something that Orthodox believe, you’ll just let that go.

And here I was thinking you had repented of these type of posts. How foolish of me.

My free time is limited, so I have to “pick my fights” so to speak. It should also be unecessary for me to jump into the fray seeing as Catholic Answers employs a number of full time apologists as well as many others giving their time for this service such as yourself. Apparently you feel so outclassed by the non-Catholics posting on this forum that you need to request the help of the Orthodox members? I’m flattered, but I have every confidence in your abilities with the resources at your disposal.

Back to your homework Randy

 

[Expatreprocedit]

It has been asserted here that Receptionism must be rejected because (when phrased a certain way) it results in a circularity. I wonder what logicians, had they been around, would have said about these two sayings of Christ: “Whoever is not against me is for me” and “Whoever is not with me is against me”. The point being, as Christians, we deal with seemingly unresolvable paradoxes all the time. The fact that Orthodox ecclesiology is messy and seemingly circular, to me, increases its appeal.

 

[Randy_Carson]

And here I was thinking you had repented of these type of posts. How foolish of me.

What’s so negative about my post? I’m simply questioning the logic behind letting one group of Christians slide while you hold another accountable.

My free time is limited, so I have to “pick my fights” so to speak. It should also be unecessary for me to jump into the fray seeing as Catholic Answers employs a number of full time apologists as well as many others giving their time for this service such as yourself.

From an apologetics standpoint, who do you think you actually have a better chance of bringing back to your one, true Orthodox Church?

Catholics who see their Church as built upon the Rock? Or those Protestants you are ignoring who are growing weary of the shallowness of their theology?

Seems to me your time would be well-spent among the low-hanging fruit, but that’s your call.

Apparently you feel so outclassed by the non-Catholics posting on this forum that you need to request the help of the Orthodox members? I’m flattered, but I have every confidence in your abilities with the resources at your disposal.

And you questioned the spirit of MY post?

Maybe I was actually holding out an olive branch and trying to join forces WITH you rather than AGAINST you for a change.

 

[Randy_Carson]

It has been asserted here that Receptionism must be rejected because (when phrased a certain way) it results in a circularity. I wonder what logicians, had they been around, would have said about these two sayings of Christ: “Whoever is not against me is for me” and “Whoever is not with me is against me”. The point being, as Christians, we deal with seemingly unresolvable paradoxes all the time. The fact that Orthodox ecclesiology is messy and seemingly circular, to me, increases its appeal.

If that were true, then it would not have been necessary to hold any councils at all.

The messier the better and more appealing, right?

And may we assume that you won’t have any more objections to the filioque because that bit of messiness is simply part of the appeal of Catholicism?

 

[Novocastrian]

I see your point, but knowing that I was presenting this to an audience of Christians, I gave only a brief overview of that first point.

As you know, whole books, lots of them, have been written to document the historical accuracy of the NT. Having read a few of them, I think the case they make is strong, but of course, I want it to be.

More impressive, however, is the case when a skeptic or atheist starts out to examine the available evidence and comes to believe that Christianity is true based upon the facts that we do have available to us.

Sure, I agree. But it’s useful to be clear what we’re claiming, particularly because we don’t know who’s reading these arguments, or what other questions people are pondering. Christians should make it clear that our claims about the Bible’s historicity are strong but limited, otherwise people may reject Christianity because they falsely assume it is identical with certain scriptural fundamentalisms.

Regarding historicity, I think historical claims about the Bible have great apologetic value. That’s why we shouldn’t overplay our cards. I definitely think that a serious historical investigation of the New Testament documents makes it clear that Jesus founded a Church, and that the Apostles believed that there had been a physical resurrection of Christ. This is a huge deal!

It’s a slightly harder sell to claim - on the basis of history, not faith - that in Matthew 16, etc., we have the *ipsissima verba *of Christ.

 

[Cavaradossi]

Okay, now I have two questions:

1. Would you have any other objections as Orthodox Cavaradossi that you did not express as *Catholic *Cavaradossi? For example, Catholic Cav accepted the Church as infallible…EO Cav?

In addition to Novocastrian’s excellent cautionary remarks, as well as my previous post, I would add that faith, being higher than reason is that which reorders and informs the rational faculty. Trying to use reason to prove what can only be known by faith is an absurdity for this reason. One cannot be convinced into having faith by a well reasoned argument, because the relationship between faith and reason runs the opposite way. That being said, a well reasoned argument can show that faith is not contrary to reason, but this is not precisely the same thing as offering a proof of something.

As an Orthodox Christian, though I do not accept that the First Vatican Council possessed any authority, I still can recognize the value of the First Vatican Council’s shot across the bow, so to speak, in its attempt to engage with several epistemological questions which were being posed in the 19th century.

1. How do Orthodox explain to atheists, agnostics and other non-Christian inquirers (maybe even to yourselves?) that the Bible is the inspired Word of God?

We can explain how it is reasonable to have faith that the Scriptures are inspired, that Jesus died, was buried, and rose on the third day, and that all of the mysteries of the Christian religion are true. But I do not believe that it is possible to prove with reason that which we know by faith. Faith, being a gift from God, is something beyond reason, though it is not contrary to reason.

 

[Randy_Carson]

In addition to Novocastrian’s excellent cautionary remarks, as well as my previous post, I would add that faith, being higher than reason is that which reorders and informs the rational faculty.

But they do work together, agreed?

Have you read John Paul’s encyclical Fides et Ratio?

Trying to use reason to prove what can only be known by faith is an absurdity for this reason.

If something can be known ONLY by faith, then it would be absurd to attempt to know it by reason alone. But just to make sure we’re in sync, give me a couple of examples of things that can be known only by faith.

One cannot be convinced into having faith by a well reasoned argument, because the relationship between faith and reason runs the opposite way. That being said, a well reasoned argument can show that faith is not contrary to reason, but this is not precisely the same thing as offering a proof of something.

I think we agree on this. It seems to me that some people have huge intellectual walls built up in their minds which prevent them from being open to God. And if those walls were contructed by reasoning, then they can be dismantled by reasoning, also.

I don’t know if you read a lot of conversion stories or if that is a popular genre in the Orthodox community, but its somewhat common in the Catholic world to hear someone on the radio or in a magazine article talking about WHY they became a Catholic. Now, when this person was in another Christian community before converting, we can agree that much of the WHAT of the faith was already in place; it was the WHY of Catholicism (or Orthodoxy ) that often sparked the change in Church membership.

As for your point about “proof of something”, yes, there is only so far that this sort of thing can go…but I think it can go pretty far nonetheless. I can’t PROVE that Jesus rose from the dead (without video evidence, I guess), but I can make the case that the resurrection is the most logical reason for any number of things that followed that event and which are historically undeniable. Perhaps this is what lawyers would call the preponderance of the evidence that leads a jury to find someone guilty of a crime. Christians have a preponderance of evidence that Jesus really is God…and that leads to the threshold of faith, I think.

As an Orthodox Christian, though I do not accept that the First Vatican Council possessed any authority, I still can recognize the value of the First Vatican Council’s shot across the bow, so to speak, in its attempt to engage with several epistemological questions which were being posed in the 19th century.

Fair enough. Would you say that Vatican I has legitimacy as a local synod of the Western Church then? Or does it have no status at all? (And here I’m thinking that Rome probably recognizes that the EO hold synods of their own which are legitimate meetings of your bishops to address matters that are not universal in nature.)

We can explain how it is reasonable to have faith that the Scriptures are inspired, that Jesus died, was buried, and rose on the third day, and that all of the mysteries of the Christian religion are true. But I do not believe that it is possible to prove with reason that which we know by faith. Faith, being a gift from God, is something beyond reason, though it is not contrary to reason.

Good.

So, how would you, EO Cav, explain to the cute girl with big brown eyes that it is reasonable for her to think that the Bible is the inspired Word of God?

And how would you explain to the Catholic with blue eyes (that’s me) how the Orthodox have determined which set of books are inspired and therefore canonical? I think I have read that your canon is not closed, correct? So, I’m not thinking of WHICH books are in yoru canon, but how you have determined canon AT ALL.

I happen to think that the canon was established well before Trent, so are you going with those same Councils on the canon, also?

Thanks, Cav.