Sola Scriptura ?

[Teflon93]

Dear fellow Catholics, Please try to avoid (The Gotch Ya!) even thou I know it is an easy trap to fall into. Edwin has especially dialogged in good faith and has come to the defense of the Catholic Church more than once. Now Edwin, wouldn’t be nice if you could yield to one earthly authority and have confidence that in doing so you pleased Christ? And also things have been definitively settled and you could move on to other things of importance.

Chet-

I presume I’m in the target group here. I certainly will strive to be charitable toward all, but I wasn’t attempting to play “gotcha!” but merely follow Edwin’s logic. Simple question, simple answer is arguing in good faith to my understanding (please correct me if I’m wrong). Word games, putting words in people’s mouths, etc isn’t arguing but rather insulting.

I grew up Episcopalian myself, so it’s not as though I don’t understand the Anglican faith nor that I’m unsympathetic toward its adherents.

I will certainly testify that Edwin is not a Catholic-basher, which is a statement of fact requiring no charity whatsoever.

 

[Contarini]

I believe the heresy that the Church was trying to protect against was that Host did not contain both species ie., Body and Blood of Christ. At least that is my understanding.

I don’t believe so. I believe that this “heresy” arose in response to the practice of communion in one kind, and not the other way round.

At any rate, this is an extremely bad way to guard against heresy. It’s an example of what liturgical historians call “sacramental minimalism”–you figure out what the basic requirements for validity are, and then you only do those. And if anyone tries to get you to do more, you accuse them of heresy for denying that the minimum is enough. It’s a very twisted way to approach the sacraments.

This is also how baptism came to be reduced to a few drops of water. It’s minimally valid, so why go to the trouble of immersing? When you think in this way, you have lost half the point of sacraments in the first place.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

What business do you have putting words in my mouth? Do you know of any of these people, or is THAT the last defense of the prejudiced?

Protestant patristics scholars? Lots. You could read J. N. D. Kelly and Henry Chadwick, for starters. Or I could take you down to Duke Divinity School and introduce you to my friend Warren Smith, or to Emmanuel School of Religion in Tennessee and introduce you to Fred Norris (if he hasn’t retired). Then there are others who may not be specialists in the period but have also immersed themselves in the Fathers–Jaroslav Pelikan among the dead (he did eventually abandon Lutheranism, but it was for Orthodoxy) and my mentor David Steinmetz among the living.

Those are just the first names that come to mind. I’m sure we could go through the rolls of the North American Patristics Society and find many people who have not become Catholic! Leaving out the ones who aren’t Christians at all, that is (such as my former professor Elizabeth Clark).

I am sorry for putting words in your mouth. I was trying to shorten the debate by one round, but that was inappropriate. I have heard this argument so often on this forum (there have been whole threads questioning whether there could possibly be any Protestants who studied the Fathers and stayed Protestant) that I automatically anticipated it. I thought it followed reasonably from what you had already said–but I should have let you go there on your own (or not, as the case may be).

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Well, I would answer—“It didn’t.”

Exactly.

I take it your answer, then, is that there has been a steady leakage in authority of the Roman Catholic Church since the Fourth Century?

Defined as “those churches in communion with Rome,” sure. I myself avoid the term “Roman Catholic Church” before the Reformation–certainly before the East/West schism. In fact I use it as little as possible because it upsets some Catholics.

Are you not merely conflating authority with influence here?

No, I’m equating authority with the consensus of the whole Church. The See of Rome will always have considerable authority, even if there are only a couple of people in communion with it (something I do not expect ever to happen, of course–I would like to see the Roman Communion grow, but I would like to see it grow through reunion rather than through religious imperialism).

By extension, will the sundering of the Episcopal Church result in a loss of the authority of the surviving pieces?

Diminution, of course. Not that the Episcopal Church has much authority now. . . .

Thus the Roman Catholic Church could consist of Pope Benedict XVI and would still be authoritative due to Christ’s mandate.

As I said, I agree that the See of Rome has authority simply because of what it is. But it does not constitute the Catholic Church all by itself. That in a nutshell is my objection to “Roman Catholicism.”

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[Teflon93]

No, I’m equating authority with the consensus of the whole Church. The See of Rome will always have considerable authority, even if there are only a couple of people in communion with it (something I do not expect ever to happen, of course–I would like to see the Roman Communion grow, but I would like to see it grow through reunion rather than through religious imperialism).

Diminution, of course. Not that the Episcopal Church has much authority now. . . .

As I said, I agree that the See of Rome has authority simply because of what it is. But it does not constitute the Catholic Church all by itself. That in a nutshell is my objection to “Roman Catholicism.”

In Christ,

Edwin

When did this consensus of the whole church cease to exist?

When did the Roman Catholic Church incorporate?

Again, no “gotcha” here, I’m just trying to understand your line of reasoning. At the moment, this sounds like you’re conflating authority with influence to me. I’m also struggling with why the 4th century councils had authority but later ones did not.

 

[Contarini]

Actually there were more Christians outside of communion with Rome.

No, there weren’t. Not in some kind of permanent, organized schism.

Arianism was a far worse heresy than protestantism.

Well, that’s part of my point–Arians denied something pretty basic about the Christian Faith, so one can question whether they were members of the Church at all. We are working with very different assumptions here.

It has been estimated that circa 380a.d. somewhere between 1%-3% of Sees were held by Catholic bishops as opposes to Arian bishops.

I’d like to see your source for that. Unless it refers to one region, it seems extremely low, particularly since the First Council of Constantinople took place in 381. (And Rome played no role in 1 Constantinople as far as I know.)

How are you defining “Arian”?

My point was that there was a body of churches that considered itself the “Catholic Church,” and that this body embraced most (by no means all) of the Christians in the Empire. Conflicts within that body, once resolved, were resolved for the Church as a whole. The Arian controversy was a controversy within the imperial Church, and it went back and forth for decades, as you know. Only after 1 Constantinople can we really speak of a separate Arian Church, I would argue.

Still, the Arian controversy is the most telling argument against the position I’ve been defending. I admit that this problem bothers me a great deal–this was in fact the part of Newman’s Essay on Development that most impressed me (the argument that the Catholic Church in the early centuries, like the RCC of his day, was an embattled body among many rivals).

My answer would be that there are three possible kinds of schism:

1. Those concerning clear deviations from the Faith. Arianism was one of those. Protestantism, in my opinion, is not, for all its errors.
2. Those involving a deliberate choice to separate from orthodox Christians over a perception that those Christians are insufficiently “pure.” Donatism and Novatianism were like that in the early Church–the Anabaptist movements of the 16th century and fundamentalism in our own day are of the same sort.
3. Those involving genuine theological disagreements among people who hold to faith in Christ (the true Christ, defined by the Creeds). I would grant that many of the “Semi-Arians” of the fourth century fell into this category, but they were reconciled to the Church precisely for that reason. The first schism that is comparable to the later ones is, in my opinion, the Nestorian schism. That is not to say that the “Nestorians” were perfectly orthodox, but it does not seem to me that they departed from the essentials of the Faith. Same with the “Monophysites.” The fact that these bodies have persisted to this day and can be discerned to hold the same Faith the rest of us do is evidence in support of my contention.

So my earlier statement presupposed a lot of (admittedly controversial and tendentious) assumptions about who “counts” and doesn’t “count” in terms of the composition of the Church.

As to your other statement, the Catholic Church has ALWAYS been defined as the universal church in communion with the Bishop of Rome.

The Fathers do not always (in fact I would say that they do not usually) mention this as the most important factor (Irenaeus is the main example to the contrary, and I grant this has considerable weight, in spite of the ambiguity of whether he is talking about Rome as capital or Rome as the See of Peter and Paul, and whether “convenire” means “come together” or “agree”). Obviously communion with Rome is important, so one would expect it to be cited. But there were a number of instances in the fourth century of orthodox bishops not being in communion with Rome for a while (I believe this happened to St. Basil), and it didn’t seem to bother them excessively.

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Dear fellow Catholics, Please try to avoid (The Gotch Ya!) even thou I know it is an easy trap to fall into. Edwin has especially dialogged in good faith and has come to the defense of the Catholic Church more than once.----Sincerely Edwin, wouldn’t be nice if you could yield to one earthly authority and have confidence that in doing so you pleased Christ? And also things have been definitively settled and you could move on to other things of importance.

Of course it would be nice. It would be nice if God sent down an angel to fix the moist patches in the walls of my stucco house, too. It would be nice if God deposited a million dollars on my doorstep. Lots of things would be *nice. *Unfortunately I live in a world where what is “nice” is not always what is real.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

When did this consensus of the whole church cease to exist?

It never did. It just became more and more complicated and difficult to consult.

When did the Roman Catholic Church incorporate?

It didn’t. But given the significant amount of doctrinal definition that took place at Trent, and the fracturing of the Western Catholic Church, it is useful to have a term to describe the body that emerged from that fracturing in communion with Rome and adhering to the dogmas of Trent. I would not insist on the terminology–as I said, I avoid “Roman Catholic” whenever possible on this board because it offends some people and so gets in the way of discussion.

Again, no “gotcha” here, I’m just trying to understand your line of reasoning. At the moment, this sounds like your conflating authority with influence to me.

But I explicitly said that Rome would have authority even if it had no influence. Furthermore, I am certainly not conflating authority with influence *outside *the Church. If there were only three Christians in the world, and the other two were both in communion with the Pope, then the Pope would have far more authority than he has now, not less. What I am saying is that one important source of authority is the consensus of the Church, so that the closer any particular locus of authority is to embodying that consensus, the more authority it has.

I’m also struggling with why the 4th century councils had authority but later ones did not.

I never said later ones did not. You keep trying to turn it into an either/or. I see it as a more and less. The fourth-century councils have authority in retrospect because one can look back and see that Arianism

1. was a radical denial of the essence of the Faith, and
2. no longer exists (in any continuous form)!
   At the time their authority was highly questioned–people adhered to them for the most part because they believed them to be right, rather than just because they were called according to a particular form or had a particular seal of approval (OK, in practice most people probably followed whichever one the emperor and/or their local bishop followed–I’m really talking about the reasons the theologians give for why their positions are right, and generally they don’t say “just because the Council said so”).

While I accept all seven Councils, I see them as progressively more tentative, insofar as their teachings become harder and harder to demonstrate from Scripture, and inasmuch as there are more and more people who clearly practice the Christian Faith and yet do not accept these Councils.

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[Teflon93]

It never did. It just became more and more complicated and difficult to consult.

It didn’t. But given the significant amount of doctrinal definition that took place at Trent, and the fracturing of the Western Catholic Church, it is useful to have a term to describe the body that emerged from that fracturing in communion with Rome and adhering to the dogmas of Trent. I would not insist on the terminology–as I said, I avoid “Roman Catholic” whenever possible on this board because it offends some people and so gets in the way of discussion.

But I explicitly said that Rome would have authority even if it had no influence. Furthermore, I am certainly not conflating authority with influence *outside *the Church. If there were only three Christians in the world, and the other two were both in communion with the Pope, then the Pope would have far more authority than he has now, not less. What I am saying is that one important source of authority is the consensus of the Church, so that the closer any particular locus of authority is to embodying that consensus, the more authority it has.

I never said later ones did not. You keep trying to turn it into an either/or. I see it as a more and less. The fourth-century councils have authority in retrospect because one can look back and see that Arianism

1. was a radical denial of the essence of the Faith, and
2. no longer exists (in any continuous form)!
   At the time their authority was highly questioned–people adhered to them for the most part because they believed them to be right, rather than just because they were called according to a particular form or had a particular seal of approval (OK, in practice most people probably followed whichever one the emperor and/or their local bishop followed–I’m really talking about the reasons the theologians give for why their positions are right, and generally they don’t say “just because the Council said so”).

While I accept all seven Councils, I see them as progressively more tentative, insofar as their teachings become harder and harder to demonstrate from Scripture, and inasmuch as there are more and more people who clearly practice the Christian Faith and yet do not accept these Councils.

In Christ,

Edwin

Thanks for your response—I see your line of reasoning.

Where I would disagree is that authority is not the product of church consensus, which seems to be an implication of your argument. The fact that apostles disagreed to an extent regarding Christ’s teaching did not make that teaching less true or authoritative, as these disagreements involved coming to grips with what that teaching meant, something every Christian certainly wrestles with.

Let’s take this hypothetical: The Catholic Church is 100 pct correct. Catholics within the Catholic Church challenge one of these truths. They remain obstinate despite debate and correction. They elect to form their own separate church. Is the Catholic Church now less than 100 pct correct?

Again, I’m not looking to argue the Catholic Church’s infallibility, which I don’t think you’d entertain. Just testing your reasoning regarding authority and consensus. I’m not saying you said ALL authority stems from consensus either; but you did say it was “one important source”.

 

[flyersfan1088]

I’d like to see your source for that. Unless it refers to one region, it seems extremely low, particularly since the First Council of Constantinople took place in 381. (And Rome played no role in 1 Constantinople as far as I know.)

That figure is taken from Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers vol.2 page 39 #25

 

[Contarini]

That figure is taken from Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers vol.2 page 39 #25

Interesting. I highly doubt that Jurgens is accurate, but I do not have specialist sources in front of me, so I’ll have to put that on hold. I suspect that Jurgens is relying on rhetorical exaggerations by fourth-century writers.

Edwin

 

[flyersfan1088]

Interesting. I highly doubt that Jurgens is accurate, but I do not have specialist sources in front of me, so I’ll have to put that on hold. I suspect that Jurgens is relying on rhetorical exaggerations by fourth-century writers.

Edwin

That number dropped my jaw too, but until I see evidence to the contrary, I have to believe it accurate.

 

[chet]

Of course it would be nice. It would be nice if God sent down an angel to fix the moist patches in the walls of my stucco house, too. It would be nice if God deposited a million dollars on my doorstep. Lots of things would be *nice. *Unfortunately I live in a world where what is “nice” is not always what is real.

Edwin

A nice touch of humor.And somethings that are nice are also real!

 

[chet]

Originally Posted by Contarini View Post
First of all, they don’t address the non-Chalcedonian Eastern Churches, which were not tied to the Byzantine Empire. And in the second place, the characterization of the schism as deriving from [Eastern] “anger and bad feeling” is obtuse and patronizing.

Anger and bad feeling played a very significant role, but the Western Catholic refusal to take Eastern objections seriously is the biggest obstacle to reunion. To this day Roman Catholics (I use that term deliberately, since Eastern Catholics are more sensitive to the issues) tend to think that everything could be resolved if only the Orthodox would get over their thousand-year snit. This is no way to resolve a schism.
non-Chalcedonian Eastern Churches

I wrote:

Edwin please elaborate on the non-Chalcedonian Eastern Churches;ie,explain their origins.

Your Quote:

This is no way to resolve a schism(from text above)

I wrote:

Do you feel that John Paul II,and Benedict XVI have not made strong efforts toward reconciliation?

Edwin I brought this all forward because I didn’t get your response at the time and i did want to hear what you had to say.Thank you,Chet

 

[chet]

Edwin if its not getting to personal I was wondering if you are a member of the clergy;and if so are you married? If for any reason you don’t want to answer just let the question go by and I won’t bring it up again.

 

[chet]

I agree with Robert Jenson–when the Church commits herself so fully to a certain dogmatic proposition that she would be apostate if the proposition were wrong, then God will prevent her from being wrong. But I think this has happened only a very few times in the history of the Church.

Edwin

Edwin I had really wanted to verify that I understood what you believe on dogmatic declarations the Church makes.It appears to me that, in your opinion God has prevented The Church from being wrong on any thing the Popes or the Counsels have declared dogmatically.Is this a correct understanding of what you stated you believe? Thanks,Chet

 

[Contarini]

Edwin I had really wanted to verify that I understood what you believe on dogmatic declarations the Church makes.It appears to me that, in your opinion God has prevented The Church from being wrong on any thing the Popes or the Counsels have declared dogmatically.Is this a correct understanding of what you stated you believe? Thanks,Chet

No. What I said was that on those occasions where error would amount to apostasy, the Church will not err. In other words, I believe in indefectibility rather than infallibility. However, unlike Hans Kung, I’m open to the possibility that infallibility might be needed to protect indefectibility.

In other words, there are only a very few places where I’m willing to say that I’m sure the Church did not err–1 Nicea and 1 Constantinople for starters, but I would also commit myself to the view that the other five Councils were not heretical, even if they were not perfect in how they tackled the issues (so, for instance, I don’t think it’s tenable to say that the veneration of icons/images is idolatrous, because if it were the Church as a whole would have been apostate for a very long time).

As a matter of ecumenism, I’m certainly willing to listen to the RC view that infallibility extents to any gathering of bishops speaking for the whole Church with papal approval and/or to papal ex cathedra statements (though the latter is far more difficult for me to swallow). I would not say dogmatically that this is not so–I honestly don’t know. In a sense I don’t care, because the things that really bother me about your Communion are not matters of dogma so much as matters of practice and emphasis and common non-dogmatic teaching. If they were resolved, I could swallow Rome’s claims of infallibility. But given what a bad job your Communion has often done of implementing the Christian Faith and teaching it on a less formal level, I don’t have the kind of trust in it that would enable me to accept without reservation the claim of infallibility. However, I do not believe that the See of Rome has ever apostasized, and I strongly lean toward the opinion that God will never allow it to do so.

Sorry if this is complicated. It’s hard to lay it all out in a brief online post!

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

A nice touch of humor.And somethings that are nice are also real!

Certainly. I’m glad you took my sarcasm good-naturedly. I appreciate your courtesy in this discussion very much.

As for the personal question: I am married but not ordained.

Sorry for not answering the question about the non-Chalcedonian churches. It’s a complex question, and I was responding to a lot of posts.

Briefly this is my understanding.

The “Church of the East” derives primarily from the Christian churches existing outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire (particularly within the Persian Empire). It does not uphold what orthodox polemicists called “Nestorianism,” but it maintains that Nestorius was in fact orthodox, including the refusal to call the Blessed Virgin Theotokos. It maintains a two-hypostasis Christology (the Syriac term actually used in their theology is “qnoma”), although apparently this was not decisively adopted until the 7th century, in the course of controversies with monophysites within the Persian Church. Some confessional statements of the Church of the East are here, and an account (no doubt with a strong axe to grind) of the Church’s doctrinal development here. I think one of the points of difficulty between the Church of the East and “Chalcedonian” Christianity is the condemnation of the “Three Chapters” (writings of Antiochene theologians who were condemned as “Nestorian” but were actually more moderate than Nestorius himself) by 2 Constantinople. (This is also the hardest Council to explain for your Communion, in my opinion, since the Pope actually resisted the Council and had to be coerced by the Emperor into agreeing with it!) Chalcedon itself poses fewer problems, I believe.

There are very few members of the Church of the East left, although in their day they spread all over Asia, and flourished in China for several centuries.

Naturally the reverse is the case with the so-called “monophysites.” These Christians adhere to the teachings of St. Cyril of Alexandria, the opponent of Nestorius, and confess “one incarnate nature of Christ the Logos.” However, they insist that by so doing they are not denying Christ’s real humanity. They reject the Council of Chalcedon as “Nestorian.” The attempts at 2 Constantinople to reconcile them were insufficient (especially since they were combined with a brutal campaign of repression against the recalcitrant), and 3 Constantinople finally sealed the schism by condemning the compromise position that Christ had “one will.”

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[chet]

he things that really bother me about your Communion are not matters of dogma so much as matters of practice and emphasis and common non-dogmatic teaching. If they were resolved, I could swallow Rome’s claims of infallibility. But given what a bad job your Communion has often done of implementing the Christian Faith and teaching it on a less formal level, I don’t have the kind of trust in it that would enable me to accept without reservation the claim of infallibility.

Edwin, I don’t blame you on that point.There has been a lot of confusion and miss communication after Vatican II.Largely by people in the Church who have had their own agendas! But I do feel gradually things are getting corrected.Do you ever listen to Relevant Radio, its part of the New evangelization John Paul II called for.You might enjoy some of the programing.If you don’t have it in your area you can listen online. relevantradio.com

 

[chet]

Certainly. I’m glad you took my sarcasm good-naturedly. I appreciate your courtesy in this discussion very much.

As for the personal question: I am married but not ordained.

Sorry for not answering the question about the non-Chalcedonian churches. It’s a complex question, and I was responding to a lot of posts.

Briefly this is my understanding.

The “Church of the East” derives primarily from the Christian churches existing outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire (particularly within the Persian Empire). It does not uphold what orthodox polemicists called “Nestorianism,” but it maintains that Nestorius was in fact orthodox, including the refusal to call the Blessed Virgin Theotokos. It maintains a two-hypostasis Christology (the Syriac term actually used in their theology is “qnoma”), although apparently this was not decisively adopted until the 7th century, in the course of controversies with monophysites within the Persian Church. Some confessional statements of the Church of the East are here, and an account (no doubt with a strong axe to grind) of the Church’s doctrinal development here. I think one of the points of difficulty between the Church of the East and “Chalcedonian” Christianity is the condemnation of the “Three Chapters” (writings of Antiochene theologians who were condemned as “Nestorian” but were actually more moderate than Nestorius himself) by 2 Constantinople. (This is also the hardest Council to explain for your Communion, in my opinion, since the Pope actually resisted the Council and had to be coerced by the Emperor into agreeing with it!) Chalcedon itself poses fewer problems, I believe.

There are very few members of the Church of the East left, although in their day they spread all over Asia, and flourished in China for several centuries.

Naturally the reverse is the case with the so-called “monophysites.” These Christians adhere to the teachings of St. Cyril of Alexandria, the opponent of Nestorius, and confess “one incarnate nature of Christ the Logos.” However, they insist that by so doing they are not denying Christ’s real humanity. They reject the Council of Chalcedon as “Nestorian.” The attempts at 2 Constantinople to reconcile them were insufficient (especially since they were combined with a brutal campaign of repression against the recalcitrant), and 3 Constantinople finally sealed the schism by condemning the compromise position that Christ had “one will.”

In Christ,

Edwin

Edwin thanks again for taking the time to respond to my questions.I likewise appreciate your courtesy in this discussion. Obviously such discussions can and do get a little heated at times. I believe I pretty well comprehend what you have stated though I am not a theologian. Maybe at some point, for the sake of others who may read this blog you could take the time to unpack a little of this in more layman friendly language.Things like a two-hypostasis Christology might go a few heads.Thanks,Chet