I agree, but they would argue that what they believ is explicitly in the Bible.
Well…in a nutshell, I think a church that proclaims “no creed but the Bible” will always have a tremendous amount of material in its doctrinal statement that isn’t directly quoted from Scripture. It will usually start with some of the things that Athanasius is responsible for, and these Bible-only Christians will defend the deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity in roughly the same terms that Athanasius did. But they also won’t give him any credit for it, and chances are very good that they won’t know anything about Nicea.
my point was simply in relation to sola scriptura and those who claim that nothing they believe goes beyond the NT. Even the Trinity doctrine and its 4th century history shows that concepts were required beyond the NT which you acknowledge.
The point I’ve been trying to make is that advocates of SS go well beyond quoting Scripture verbatim, but that our idea of “not going beyond the Scriptures” involves limiting yourself to interpretation and formation of doctrine that can be governed by the Scriptures. Such that you can use Scripture to determine whether or not your piece of work is legit. I also think Athanasius avoided going beyond the Scriptures in that sense.
I am referring to the context of his defense of using unscriptural terms and concepts that others argued against.
This is a link to De Decretis.
newadvent.org/fathers/2809.htm Look especially at Chapter 5: “Defence of the Council’s Phrases, “from the essence,” And “one in essence.” Objection that the phrases are not scriptural; we ought to look at the sense more than the wording;” etc.
This is what I’ve gotten out of it. Athanasius was criticized in this way, particularly with regard to the term homoousius: People like Marcellus and Basil “objected that the term was unscriptural, suspicious and had Sabellian tendencies.” My understanding of Athanasius’ response is that he said their wording (agenetos) is also found nowhere in Scripture, his reason for supporting homoousius is that it best conveys “the sense of the Scriptures,” it actually doesn’t have Sabellian tendencies, and finally, the side he supports is religious and Scriptural while the semi-Pelagian side is irreligious and un-Scriptural.
However, if a person is interested in the question, let him know, that, even if the expressions are not in so many words in the Scriptures, yet, as was said before, they contain the sense of the Scriptures, and expressing it, they convey it to those who have their hearing unimpaired for religious doctrine…
it is unseemly and most irreligious, when Scripture contains such images, to form ideas concerning our Lord from others which are neither in Scripture, nor have any religious bearing.
Which parts of De Decretis do you want to point out? Is there anything you would have said differently about Athanasius’ response to his critics, particularly where you’d argue that he goes beyond the Scriptures in spite of his best efforts to convey “the sense of the Scriptures”?
Critical exegesis is extremely important for Catholics (all Christians IMO). I wasnt referring to its usefullness in the Church today but rather that it wasnt in and of itsself enough back in the 4th century.
I think I would argue that critical exegesis of Scripture played a far more central role in the defense of 4th-century doctrine than it does in the more controversial doctrines/dogmas of the second millennium- primarily from Trent and Vatican II. I think the CC of this millennium operates differently from the CC of the first millennium, and the only way that will change is if the CC and OC reunite.
my point was that using the development of doctrine concept IMO points to the authority of the Scriptures that has to be coupled with the authority of the Church and the process that God used which admittedly had a very human side to it.
From what I’ve read in De Decretis, Athanasius’ primary argument was that the teaching pertaining to homoousius properly conveys the “sense of the Scriptures.” My impression of his appeal to authority was that he pointed to the decisions of earlier councils as secondary support in order to demonstrate that his primary argument was factual, and that this secondary support was entirely dependent on the ability of earlier councils (ie., Nicea) to properly convey the “sense of the Scriptures” and demonstrate that this is actually what they did. At that time, however, no one had raised the possibility that those councils were infallible. That was centuries away.
In relation to your last post i did not call you a heretic and not sure if you confused me with another poster.
I did indeed. Someone else responded to what I’d said to you and I thought it was you. Sorry about that.
Anyways your quotes of Athanasius prove how important Scripture was to him but taken in a larger context IMO those 4 century debates prove the necessity of the Church “going beyond the NT” not against of course:thumbsup:
Depending on what you mean by “going beyond the NT,” all Protestants might be guilty of doing that. However, if the meaning of “going beyond Scripture” is equivalent to the minimum that you must be guilty of in order to violate SS, I don’t believe Athanasius shows any indication of doing that. And as far as when he actually uses the words “go beyond Scripture,” he equated that with heresy.
But then again, you don’t have to be Catholic.