Sometimes our critics do us the favor of denying the validity of their own belief system. Orthodox is generous with such favors, and here's another one from one of his most recent posts:
"And furthermore, this historical method is an anachronism and is necessarily so. Even the ability to check all the evidence is a 20th century thing. This could lead to a continually shifting canon. One minute a book is in because the evidence seems enough. The next minute it is out because some new writing is discovered, or some new internal analysis is done, or some new scholarly argument is published. You are tossed around in the wind and waves with no source of authority. This is why ONLY a living tradition can work....The only valid argument against a particular tradition is that it isn't being lived in all the Orthodox Church. And if it isn't being lived, it isn't dogmatically Eastern Orthodox to begin with."
How does he know that his "living tradition" is the right one? By examining church history? Then he's back to the sort of uncertainties of historical judgment that he just dismissed as unacceptable.
And how does he know what's "being lived" in Eastern Orthodoxy? Does he have discussions about every issue with every individual Eastern Orthodox in the world? How does he know what's happening in an Eastern Orthodox church a thousand miles away on a given day? By the time any such information would reach him, it would be historical information, information about a past that he didn't witness. And he's told us that basing our judgments on the uncertainties of historical research is unacceptable. He's denied the validity of his own belief system.
Notice, also, that Orthodox often raises common skeptical arguments against the historical verifiability of the Biblical canon. He doesn't seem to have read much conservative scholarship, and he often makes claims that reflect a high degree of ignorance about the relevant issues. Why is it that so many of the people who tell us that their denomination "gave us the Bible" are so ignorant of the Bible and willing to so uncritically repeat the arguments of skeptics?
There's a pretty major and fundamental difference which is that we approach church history as a believer, whereas a protestant approaches it as a skeptic.
ReplyDeleteThus if the church is believing that a certain thing is true, or that Irenaeus or Athanasius wrote a document, or that a certain teaching is apostolic, we presume that is is so, sans compelling evidence otherwise. Thus fundamental position of faith and presumption of innocence of the Church gives the believer a good basis from which to examine the living tradition.
However the protestant, who approaches the situation as a skeptic, wanting every tradition proven from square one, from the starting assumption that everything is a false tradition, everything is a corruption until proven otherwise, there is no firm foundation. This is the situation I was portraying in the above quote.
Of course protestants are schizophrenic at this point. Their own tradition, which consists of the 66 books is actually taken with the same child-like faith that the Orthodox take the traditions, and any challenge to it we find a totally biased spin put onto any suggestion or evidence that there could be either more books or less.
But if protestants were actually consistent, not believing any tradition without a very compelling or even fairly compelling case that it must be so, they would have to be greatly reducing their canon.
So again it comes down to consistency. Orthodox are, protestants aren't.
>Notice, also, that Orthodox often
>raises common skeptical arguments
>against the historical
>verifiability of the Biblical
>canon. He doesn't seem to have
>read much conservative
>scholarship, and he often makes
>claims that reflect a high degree
>of ignorance about the relevant
>issues. Why is it that so many of
>the people who tell us that their
>denomination "gave us the Bible"
>are so ignorant of the Bible and
>willing to so uncritically repeat
>the arguments of skeptics?
Is Dan Wallace of NET bible fame a skeptic? I wouldn't have thought so. But read some of the NET bible discussions of authorship. Many times it just comes down to essentially "this book is claiming to be written by the apostle, and it was used by such and such ECFs."
And what of Bruce Metzger? People in the previous threads have been recommending I read him as a stunning example of proving the canon historically. But he often says uncritically that the pastoral epistles are usually considered to be pseudo-Pauline.
I'm sure you've got some marvellous scholars in mind, but the fact is you can't prove historically that all the NT is apostolic. Even less can you prove your OT canon is the correct God-breathed version. Show us that Esther is scripture. You can't. Show us that 2 Peter or 3 John is scripture. You can't. You MUST rely on Tradition, and you must do so uncritically.
"You MUST rely on Tradition, and you must do so uncritically."
ReplyDeleteTradition as historical evidence or as a fideistic assumption? And again, which tradition? Which church father? The "Church" at what period of history?
Culture, politics, and language influenced theological tradition all throughout the early church. For example, when the Bible was translated into Latin, the Greek verb, dikaiosune, which meant "to declare righteous" in its Biblical context, was incorrectly translated as, iustificare, which meant "to make righteous". And so, the doctrine of justification went astray very early on in the West.
If we use Orthodox's "let's blindly follow tradition" approach instead of a historical approach (which includes examining tradition as historical evidence), we'd be wrong.
Who authenticates and determines which tradition? Who is going to validate the tradition chooser? Orthodox's appeal to Tradition argument will either end up in infinite regress or circular reasoning.
Either Scripture is self-authenticating (as the post-apostolic church recognized) or it's "turtles all the way down".
>Either Scripture is
ReplyDelete>self-authenticating (as the
>post-apostolic church recognized) o
Oooh, we have dissent in the protestant ranks today. Up to now everyone on this blog has been defending the canon as a historically verifyable list. Now we have SAINT AND SINNER defending the Mormon burning in the bosom view that the scripture is the scripture because I think it is. Trouble is, you just surrendered any meaningful dialogue with Mormons.
Orthodox wrote:
ReplyDelete"There's a pretty major and fundamental difference which is that we approach church history as a believer, whereas a protestant approaches it as a skeptic. Thus if the church is believing that a certain thing is true, or that Irenaeus or Athanasius wrote a document, or that a certain teaching is apostolic, we presume that is is so, sans compelling evidence otherwise. Thus fundamental position of faith and presumption of innocence of the Church gives the believer a good basis from which to examine the living tradition."
Why should we begin with faith in "the church" as you define it? You can't objectively argue that there is a church and that it's trustworthy without an appeal to historical knowledge. And your reference to "compelling evidence" involves the uncertainties of historical research. Yet, you criticized Protestant reliance on such historical judgments when they attempt to make an objective case for their belief system. You aren't being consistent.
You write:
"Their own tradition, which consists of the 66 books is actually taken with the same child-like faith that the Orthodox take the traditions, and any challenge to it we find a totally biased spin put onto any suggestion or evidence that there could be either more books or less."
You tell us of your "child-like faith" in Eastern Orthodoxy, but then you go on to misrepresent what Saint and Sinner said and to respond to him by writing:
"Up to now everyone on this blog has been defending the canon as a historically verifyable list. Now we have SAINT AND SINNER defending the Mormon burning in the bosom view that the scripture is the scripture because I think it is. Trouble is, you just surrendered any meaningful dialogue with Mormons."
If you can have a "child-like faith" in Eastern Orthodox Tradition, then why can't a Protestant have "child-like faith" in the Bible, and why can't a Mormon have "child-like faith" in Mormonism?
You write:
"But if protestants were actually consistent, not believing any tradition without a very compelling or even fairly compelling case that it must be so, they would have to be greatly reducing their canon."
We don't accept your conclusions about books like 2 Peter and 3 John. But if we did, we'd still have a canon, even if it's "greatly reduced". (I don't know why you use the term "greatly".) As I've asked you before, if we don't have any good arguments for including particular books in the canon, why is it supposed to be problematic for us to not include those books in our canon?
You write:
"Is Dan Wallace of NET bible fame a skeptic? I wouldn't have thought so. But read some of the NET bible discussions of authorship. Many times it just comes down to essentially 'this book is claiming to be written by the apostle, and it was used by such and such ECFs.'"
I've read some of his articles that address Biblical authorship. His arguments are more nuanced than your characterizations suggest. As I've explained to you before, the external evidence for authorship doesn't just come from church fathers. It also comes from sources you would consider heretical or non-Christian. And you still haven't proven your suggestion that the church fathers were Eastern Orthodox, so you've given us no reason to think that believing their testimony on historical matters is equivalent to believing Eastern Orthodox witnesses. Even if they had been Eastern Orthodox, it doesn't therefore follow that we would have to agree with them on everything in order to agree with them about anything. People often (in courts of law, in conversations in the workplace, etc.) accept a person's testimony on one subject without accepting every element of his worldview or everything else he says. You keep assuming that accepting the testimony of church fathers as part of our evidence for the canon is a problem for Protestants. You've given us no reason to accept that assumption.
You write:
"And what of Bruce Metzger? People in the previous threads have been recommending I read him as a stunning example of proving the canon historically. But he often says uncritically that the pastoral epistles are usually considered to be pseudo-Pauline."
What's the significance of what's "usually considered"? I haven't seen anybody in this forum argue that a position must be correct if it's supported by a majority of current scholarship.
>Why should we begin with faith in "the church" as you define it? You can't
ReplyDelete>objectively argue that there is a church and that it's trustworthy without
>an appeal to historical knowledge. And your reference to "compelling
>evidence" involves the uncertainties of historical research. Yet, you
>criticized Protestant reliance on such historical judgments when they
>attempt to make an objective case for their belief system. You aren't
>being consistent.
I don't criticize historical investigation wholesale. That is absurd. What I criticize is (a) claiming the need for historical investigation of a level of complexity that was not done in previous centuries and (b) historical investigation that raises a mere historical possibility of the kind suggested by secular historians to a level of authority that it ought to influence the church over and against its living tradition.
>then you go on to misrepresent what Saint and Sinner
Misrepresent how?
>If you can have a "child-like faith" in Eastern Orthodox Tradition, then
>why can't a Protestant have "child-like faith" in the Bible, and why can't
>a Mormon have "child-like faith" in Mormonism?
Because Jesus Christ did not start the Mormon church.
>As I've asked you before, if we don't have any good arguments for
>including particular books in the canon, why is it supposed to be
>problematic for us to not include those books in our canon?
I would have thought the answer to that is obvious. If you throw out some God-breathed books merely because the surviving evidence for proving its apostolicity to your personal satisfaction is not extant, you will find yourself teaching a false religion without all of God's truth.
>His arguments are more nuanced than your characterizations suggest.
For all the "nuances", at the end of the day they come down to a battle of wits between you and the skill and daring of the authors of pseudepigrapha. This is not a foundation for God's church.
And all the nuancing in the world won't tell you if Esther is canonical.
>As I've explained to you before, the external evidence for authorship
>doesn't just come from church fathers. It also comes from sources you
>would consider heretical or non-Christian.
As I recall one of your prime examples of secular external evidence was a 4th century emperor called Julian the Apostate, LOL. Where do you think he got any information from other than the church? This is truly absurd in the extreme. You will reject teachings from 1st C people like Ignatius who knew the apostles because they are "tradition", but you will accept traditions based on evidence from 4th century heretical emperors. The world has gone mad!
>And you still haven't proven your suggestion that the church fathers were
>Eastern Orthodox, so you've given us no reason to think that believing
>their testimony on historical matters is equivalent to believing Eastern
>Orthodox witnesses.
Eastern Orthodoxy is a number of organizations which have existed all the way back to the 1st century church. Even if I can't convince you that they are EO as far as every single doctrine, it is a verifiable fact that I am in the organization that they were in, so I can claim they were Eastern Orthodox.
>Even if they had been Eastern Orthodox, it doesn't therefore follow that
>we would have to agree with them on everything in order to agree with them
>about anything. People often (in courts of law, in conversations in the
>workplace, etc.) accept a person's testimony on one subject without
>accepting every element of his worldview or everything else he says.
This is very true. But when it comes to questions of the same class and type, both normal people and courts of law will with great common sense treat them the same. In this case the question is maintaining the tradition of what the apostles taught doctrinally versus an oral tradition on what books the apostles wrote. If you can't get one of these right, the logical conclusion is you can't trust them to get the other right either. And in fact, if they are so consistently bad and rotten at keeping the doctrine right into the 4th century, then you would pretty much have to say they almost certainly at least made some mistakes in their canon.
>What's the significance of what's "usually considered"? I haven't seen
>anybody in this forum argue that a position must be correct if it's
>supported by a majority of current scholarship.
Obviously. But if something is considered correct by a majority of at least secularly respected scholars of the type that Bruce Metzger considers worthy, one must at least say it is historically plausible, if not probable that their position may be correct. And since your consistent position is to abandon traditions that don't have all the aces in line, you would have to abandon lots of books as "doubtful".
And again, the 4th century church which finalized the recognition of the canon did not use your criteria, and hardly would have come up with the same canon if they had.
"Now we have SAINT AND SINNER defending the Mormon burning in the bosom view that the scripture is the scripture because I think it is. Trouble is, you just surrendered any meaningful dialogue with Mormons."
ReplyDeleteNo, the nature of Scripture as self-attesting is not a "Burning in the bosom view." It is the affirmation that the Holy God of all creation doesn't stutter when he speaks. Moreover, the affirmation of Holy Scripture as self-attesting is not a theological novelty introduced into the Church in the 16th century. It is a traditional affirmation held by many in the Early Church from which many present-day Orthodox professors have long since departed. I was a view held by Justin Martyr (ANF, Vol. I, Fragments of the lost Work of Justin on the Resurrection, Chapter I, The Self–Evidencing Power of Truth), Irenaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies, 2:28:2), Clement of Alexandria (The Stromata, Book II, Chapter II; Book IV, Chapter 1; Book VII, Chapter 16).), Lactantius (The Divine Institutes, Book III, Chapter I.), Hilary of Poitiers (On the Trinity, Book I.18), Nemesius of Emesa (On the Nature of Man, Chapter 2, Of the Soul 18), Salvian the Presbyter (The Governance of God, Book 5.2), Origen (Origen, De Principiis, Book IV, Chapter 1.6), Epiphanius (The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Books II and III (Sects 47–80, De Fide), 66. Against Manichaeans, 10,4), and Augustine (Tractates on John, Tractate 7.16, John 1:34–5).
Moreover, your double-standard on the identification of the canon is quite clear to us. 1) The council of Trullo (Quinisext) approved four canonical lists of the Scriptures, all differing with one another, as one of your own scholars has observed, Demetrios J. Constantelos: "The early church as a whole did not take a definite position for or against the Deuterocanonicals. Church leaders and ecclesiastical writers of both the Greek east and Latin west were not in full agreement. Some preferred the Hebrew canon, while others accepted the longer canon that included the Deuterocanonicals. The ambivalence of ecumenical and local synods (Nicea, 325 CE; Rome, 382; Laodicea, 365; Hippo, 393) was resolved by the Trullan Synod (692). It adopted deliberations of councils that had favored the shorter list, and decisions of other synods that had advocated the longer list." See his article “Eastern Orthodoxy and the Bible” in Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan, eds., The Oxford Companion to the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 174; and 2) He also points out that "The canonicity of the Deuterocanonical books is still a disputed topic in Orthodox biblical theology." Again, see his article “Eastern Orthodoxy and the Bible” in Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan, eds., The Oxford Companion to the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 175.
So, in short, you don't have any room to be throwing out claims of inconsistency, because that double-standard is littering your own doorstep.
DTK
>It is a traditional affirmation held
ReplyDelete>by many in the Early Church from
>which many present-day Orthodox
>professors have long since departed.
I agree that it is self-attesting to the church as a whole, but to say that an individual can be certain via the same attestation, without the church, leads you right into the Mormon burning bosom. And this "traditional affirmation" you speak of in the church fathers: WHERE IS IT IN SCRIPTURE, Mr Sola Scriptura? Because if it ain't there, you're just preaching a tradition (again).
Needless to say, you've demonstrated that you can't defend the canon without quoting a tradition.
>1) The council of Trullo
>(Quinisext) approved four
>canonical lists of the Scriptures,
>all differing with one another
Which is exactly why individual attestation doesn't work. Until the whole church has agreement, there is just your opinion vs my opinion. The fact that the canon is a slow developing realisation is no problem to Orthodoxy for which the entire tradition is authoritative, but it is a problem for you.
Notice that Orthodox has given us yet another post in which he makes many false and misleading claims and makes little effort at offering supporting arguments and documentation. He writes:
ReplyDelete"I don't criticize historical investigation wholesale. That is absurd. What I criticize is (a) claiming the need for historical investigation of a level of complexity that was not done in previous centuries and (b) historical investigation that raises a mere historical possibility of the kind suggested by secular historians to a level of authority that it ought to influence the church over and against its living tradition."
As he often does, he's changing his argument in the middle of a discussion. Compare Orthodox's latest assertions, for which he offers no supporting argumentation, with what he said previously.
Earlier, he said that he objects to a process in which "some new writing is discovered, or some new internal analysis is done". But historical research, by its nature, involves taking all of the evidence into account. You can't choose to ignore any new data that arises on the basis that taking new data into account would be too complicated. The fact that Orthodox would make such suggestions is absurd and reflects the mindset of somebody who isn't being honest. Does he realize that some of the documents we now refer to as writings of the church fathers weren't extant for a while until being rediscovered in recent times? Yet, Orthodox told us that we must avoid a process that would allow for "some new writing being discovered". What are we supposed to do when a document is discovered? Ignore it? If we were to find a copy of Papias' lost work, for example, would Orthodox tell us that we should ignore what's in it when studying church history? Again, the fact that Orthodox makes such comments, and keeps changing his arguments from post to post, doesn't reflect well on his knowledge of the subjects or his honesty.
He writes:
"Misrepresent how?"
Saint and Sinner repeatedly said that he supports "examining tradition as historical evidence". He went on to refer to the self-authentication of scripture, and he said nothing to suggest that he was referring to something like the burning in the bosom of Mormonism. Yet, you ignored his comments on historical investigation and read the Mormon concept of a burning in the bosom into what he said about self-authentication. See David King's post as well for a further explanation of why you were in error.
You write:
"Because Jesus Christ did not start the Mormon church."
That's a historical claim. It requires historical study. Yet, you told us that you can just accept Eastern Orthodox Tradition with "child-like faith". You told us that "You MUST rely on Tradition, and you must do so uncritically." Why is your "child-like faith" and uncritical approach acceptable with Eastern Orthodoxy, but not with Mormonism?
You write:
"If you throw out some God-breathed books merely because the surviving evidence for proving its apostolicity to your personal satisfaction is not extant, you will find yourself teaching a false religion without all of God's truth."
Whether the books are God-breathed is the issue in question. If we have no reason to think that they are God-breathed, then why should we think that leaving them out of the canon would be bad? You can't have it both ways. The people you're addressing aren't Eastern Orthodox. If Eastern Orthodox authority allegedly is the only reason for accepting a book as canonical, and we reject Eastern Orthodox authority, then why are we supposed to think that it would be a bad thing to reject that book's canonicity?
You write:
"For all the 'nuances', at the end of the day they come down to a battle of wits between you and the skill and daring of the authors of pseudepigrapha. This is not a foundation for God's church."
Since you keep ignoring things people have already told you, let me repeat what I said earlier. The historical argument for the canon of scripture is just one means of arriving at a canon. It isn't the only means. God can lead His people to a recognition of scripture without such historical investigation. But since we're having a dispute about the canon in a forum such as this one, in which objective evidence is expected to be cited, then I'm focusing on an objective means of justifying a canon. God's work in saving people and leading them to His word isn't dependent on historical arguments.
But as far as objective argumentation is concerned, would you explain how you allegedly avoid "a battle of wits between you and the skill and daring of the authors of pseudepigrapha"? If you were to make an objective historical case for Eastern Orthodoxy, you'd have to do so by means of historical documents. And just as we can question the authorship of scripture, we can question the authorship of patristic and other historical documents. The need to distinguish between the true and the false isn't limited to scripture. Are you aware that people forged patristic documents, forged additions to ecumenical councils, etc.? Are you aware that there are textual disputes, disputes over dating, etc. with regard to patristic documents, texts of ecumenical councils, letters written by later bishops, etc.?
And why should we accept your estimation of the significance of "pseudepigrapha"? You've repeatedly shown yourself to be ignorant of church history and the evidence for the Biblical documents. You have an interest in making the historical evidence against Biblical authorship attestations seem better than it actually is.
You write:
"As I recall one of your prime examples of secular external evidence was a 4th century emperor called Julian the Apostate, LOL. Where do you think he got any information from other than the church? This is truly absurd in the extreme."
I wasn't citing "prime examples". I was citing an example of a non-Christian source. It doesn't therefore follow that I consider Julian "one of my prime examples". And he didn't just have access to church sources. He also had access to pagan and Jewish sources and many Christian and non-Christian documents no longer extant. If such sources had credible historical arguments against the New Testament authorship attributions, Julian would have been in a position to know it. Regardless of how much weight is assigned to his testimony, he is an example of how non-Christian sources have an influence on canonical judgments. The same is true of sources you would consider schismatic or heretical. One of the examples I cited earlier was Tertullian. Your suggestion that historical evidence for the canon is equivalent to Eastern Orthodox Tradition is absurd.
You write:
"You will reject teachings from 1st C people like Ignatius who knew the apostles because they are 'tradition', but you will accept traditions based on evidence from 4th century heretical emperors."
When did I say that I "reject teachings from 1st C people like Ignatius who knew the apostles because they are 'tradition'"? I didn't. I don't reject any teachings just because "they are tradition". Papias lived at about the same time as Ignatius, and he probably was a disciple of the apostle John. Do you accept everything Papias advocated, such as his premillennialism? What about The Epistle Of Barnabas? You accept everything it teaches? What about Hermas? Do you agree with his view of limited repentance, for example (people can lose salvation without any chance of regaining it after committing particular sins)?
You write:
"In this case the question is maintaining the tradition of what the apostles taught doctrinally versus an oral tradition on what books the apostles wrote. If you can't get one of these right, the logical conclusion is you can't trust them to get the other right either."
Yet again, you give us assertions in place of evidence. Whether I think a patristic source is wrong is going to depend on which source is in view and which issue is under consideration. I agree with the church fathers on the large majority of issues, as does anybody who holds a generally conservative view of scripture. If a patristic source can be shown to be wrong on a given issue, it doesn't therefore follow that we should assume that he's also wrong on a canonical issue where we can't show that he's wrong. Different sources have differing degrees of credibility, depending on who they knew, where they lived, what type of information they were commenting on, etc. If issues of authorship were given attention early on, due to a desire to preserve apostolic teaching, the need to place author names on books used in church services, etc., then an authorship attribution for a particular book might be more reliable than a church father's view on some more speculative issue that people weren't as concerned about, such as some details about eschatology or questions about the afterlife. And we don't just have the testimony of some church fathers to go by. We also have internal evidence, manuscripts, and the testimony of non-Christian sources, for example. Why do these things have to be explained to you? Why do you call yourself a Christian, yet so carelessly attempt to undermine people's historical confidence in the authorship of books you call Divinely inspired?
You write:
"But if something is considered correct by a majority of at least secularly respected scholars of the type that Bruce Metzger considers worthy, one must at least say it is historically plausible, if not probable that their position may be correct."
Given the qualifiers you've included ("at least say it is historically plausible, if not probable", "may be correct"), how is anybody supposed to interact with such an unclear assessment?
You write:
"And since your consistent position is to abandon traditions that don't have all the aces in line, you would have to abandon lots of books as 'doubtful'."
I don't know what you mean by "have all the aces in line", but all I ask for is a historical probability. And the fact that a book's traditional authorship attribution is doubted by a majority of modern scholars doesn't settle the question of probability.
You write:
"And again, the 4th century church which finalized the recognition of the canon did not use your criteria, and hardly would have come up with the same canon if they had."
Where was the canon "finalized" in the fourth century? People continued to hold to a variety of Old and New Testament canons in later centuries. See, also, David King's relevant comments above.
This is yet another example of your unreliability on historical matters. You claim to be so deep in "tradition", yet have such a shallow understanding of Biblical and early post-apostolic church history.
Orthodox writes:
ReplyDelete"Which is exactly why individual attestation doesn't work. Until the whole church has agreement, there is just your opinion vs my opinion."
Readers should take note of what happened here:
- Orthodox asserted, without evidence, that it was "the 4th century church which finalized the recognition of the canon".
- David King documented (in addition to documenting other things) that disagreements over the canon continued beyond the fourth century.
- Orthodox responded by acting as if what David King had demonstrated was consistent with his (Orthodox's) view of the canon. In contrast to his earlier reference to the "finalization" of the recognition of the canon in the fourth century, Orthodox now comments that "The fact that the canon is a slow developing realisation is no problem to Orthodoxy". But it is a problem for the truthfulness of Orthodox's previous claim about when the canon's recognition was finalized.
"I agree that it is self-attesting to the church as a whole, but to say that an individual can be certain via the same attestation, without the church, leads you right into the Mormon burning bosom. And this "traditional affirmation" you speak of in the church fathers: WHERE IS IT IN SCRIPTURE, Mr Sola Scriptura? Because if it ain't there, you're just preaching a tradition (again)."
ReplyDeleteI told you very clearly where it is in Scripture. It is everywhere in Scripture because the Holy God of all doesn't stutter when He speaks in Holy Scripture. You view is sub-biblical as demonstrated by a text like 1 John 5:9, [i]If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son.[/i] Your whole contention is against the God-given directive that God's own witness is greater. The ancient examples I gave agree with me and disagree with you. Thus, even tradition stands against you, and exposes your own claim to support it. This is precisely why we give no serious thought to your inconsistent claims. We tend to think that such folk as yourself are more enamored with some romantic image of what you think is the witness of tradition, than what it really is.
DTK
>You can't choose to ignore any new
ReplyDelete>data that arises on the basis that
>taking new data into account would
>be too complicated. The fact that
>Orthodox would make such suggestions
>is absurd and reflects the mindset
>of somebody who isn't being honest.
Amazing. So the truth keeps changing according to the latest scholarship. Two possibilities: either we know we have the truth now because of a living tradition, or you just have a tentative truth that will be overturned as soon as we find a better argument or a new manuscript or a better analysis.
>What are we supposed to do when a
>document is discovered? Ignore it?
>If we were to find a copy of
>Papias' lost work, for example,
>would Orthodox tell us that we
>should ignore what's in it when
>studying church history?
Why ignore it? All I'm saying is that it doesn't change the Faith as we now know it. Are you going to add a new book to scripture if a manuscript is found with evidence equally convincing as 3 John?
>That's a historical claim. It
>requires historical study. Yet,
>you told us that you can just
>accept Eastern Orthodox Tradition
>with "child-like faith". You told
>us that "You MUST rely on
>Tradition, and you must do so
>uncritically." Why is your
>"child-like faith" and uncritical
>approach acceptable with Eastern
>Orthodoxy, but not with Mormonism?
The Mormon church claims the church fell into apostasy in the 1st century. So if the church falls into apostasy every blink of an eye, why would I have child like faith in the Mormon church? Mormonism is a self-confessed contradiction of the apostolic faith. I don't need to refute it historically, because they've refuted themselves.
>If we have no reason to think that
>they are God-breathed, then why
>should we think that leaving them
>out of the canon would be bad?
You're confounding the ideas of "no reason" and "no historically verifiable reason". Lacking the latter does not show that they aren't God breathed on the basis of the Tradition.
>Since you keep ignoring things
>people have already told you, let
>me repeat what I said earlier. The
>historical argument for the canon
>of scripture is just one means of
>arriving at a canon.
You never said that earlier. Looks like you're changing course now.
>God can lead His people to a
>recognition of scripture without
>such historical investigation.
Ah huh! But now if he leads his people you've got two options:
(a) You rely on your own burning in the bosom. (Hello Book of Mormon)
or
(b) You have some way of identifying "his people" prior to knowing the canon.
>If you were to make an objective
>historical case for Eastern
>Orthodoxy, you'd have to do so by
>means of historical documents. And
>just as we can question the
>authorship of scripture, we can
>question the authorship of
>patristic and other historical
>documents. The need to distinguish
>between the true and the false
>isn't limited to scripture. Are
>you aware that people forged
>patristic documents, forged
>additions to ecumenical councils,
>etc.? Are you aware that there are
>textual disputes, disputes over
>dating, etc. with regard to
>patristic documents, texts of
>ecumenical councils, letters
>written by later bishops, etc.?
Sure. And I can think of a few patristic documents that would be good for my case, and which Evangelical scholars in the main don't question, that I have my own personal doubts about. So what am I going to do? Abandon the Faith, because I have doubts about some particular extant evidence? Throw out the canon because there are problems in the verification? Or do I keep the big picture in mind, holding to the catholic faith that is believed and expressed in the overall church? You do it with the canon, you just won't admit it.
>You have an interest in making the
>historical evidence against
>Biblical authorship attestations
>seem better than it actually is.
What is the burden of proof here? Can you prove that Peter wrote 2 Peter? In fact, no you can't. Can you prove Esther is God-breathed? No you can't.
>I agree with the church fathers on
>the large majority of issues, as
>does anybody who holds a generally
>conservative view of scripture.
Puhlease.
>Where was the canon "finalized" in
>the fourth century? People
>continued to hold to a variety of
>Old and New Testament canons in
>later centuries.
Well, it was probably finalised in some churches, but not others. How does it help your case to say it wasn't even finalised in the 4th century? How is your infallible rule of faith going to work in the 4th century and even beyond when you can't be sure if some more books are in or out? And you don't even have a scriptural mandate for saying the Shepherd of Hermes is out or the Epistle of Clement are out. They weren't written by apostles (but you don't have a scripture saying that is the criteria) and you can't show for example that Clement doesn't get in because he knew the apostles, like Luke gets in for the same reasons. This is why your big cutover doesn't work. And if relying on Tradition also has problems, at least we believe we are ultimately led into the truth, but you have to revisit every area of doubt in 2000 years of heresies. You have to revisit everything from whether Revelation is scripture, to church polity, to the literalness of of the eucharist. And the protestant reformers themselves couldn't seem to work these things out satisfactorily in their own mind.
Orthodox said:
ReplyDelete"So the truth keeps changing according to the latest scholarship. Two possibilities: either we know we have the truth now because of a living tradition, or you just have a tentative truth that will be overturned as soon as we find a better argument or a new manuscript or a better analysis."
The fact that new evidence comes to light doesn't mean that "the truth keeps changing". You've said that recognition of the canon of scripture developed over time. Does it therefore follow that you were saying that "the truth keeps changing" with regard to the canon?
When you read the Bible, who do you think translated it into the edition you're reading? Modern scholars. And those modern scholars utilize computers, archeology, lexicons, and other modern tools. The same is true of the patristic documents you read. Scholars are continually finding new manuscripts, expanding their understanding of what terms in the original languages meant, etc. Such discoveries are then incorporated into Bible translations, translations of patristic documents, etc.
Your comments about avoiding modern scholarship, as well as your ignorance of the fact that you already rely on modern scholarship so much, doesn't reflect well on your knowledge of the issues you're discussing. Perhaps you should spend more time thinking and studying and less time posting in online forums.
You write:
"All I'm saying is that it doesn't change the Faith as we now know it. Are you going to add a new book to scripture if a manuscript is found with evidence equally convincing as 3 John?"
All that you're doing is making a fideistic assertion. It's highly unlikely that some unknown book with evidence comparable to what we have for the canonical books would be found. But if such a book were to be found, rejecting it wouldn't make sense. You haven't given us any good reason to reject such a book.
Besides, that isn't the issue we were initially discussing. (I can understand why you'd want to change the subject.) You initially objected even to accepting new evidence for books that you already accept as scripture. That's absurd.
You write:
"The Mormon church claims the church fell into apostasy in the 1st century. So if the church falls into apostasy every blink of an eye, why would I have child like faith in the Mormon church? Mormonism is a self-confessed contradiction of the apostolic faith. I don't need to refute it historically, because they've refuted themselves."
Would you document a Mormon source saying that "the church falls into apostasy every blink of an eye"? Your assertion about whether apostasy is plausible is itself a historical claim. You can't objectively support the claim without appealing to historical evidence. That goes beyond your "child-like faith" and "uncritical" acceptance of Eastern Orthodoxy's claims.
You write:
"You're confounding the ideas of 'no reason' and 'no historically verifiable reason'. Lacking the latter does not show that they aren't God breathed on the basis of the Tradition."
I was addressing objective evidence, not a subjective faith in Eastern Orthodoxy. If you want to make an objective case for your canon, and you want to appeal to "the Tradition", then you would have to objectively demonstrate that your concept of "the Tradition" has the significance you claim it has. So far, you've failed to do so and have repeatedly refused to do it.
You write:
"You never said that earlier. Looks like you're changing course now."
You're mistaken. Here's what I wrote in response to you in an earlier thread, several days ago:
"And Protestants acknowledge that the Holy Spirit can lead people apart from historical study, that God can reveal Himself to people in private, etc. Protestants appeal to history, grammatical arguments from the text of scripture, and such in order to make an objective case for their belief system, but it doesn't therefore follow that they deny that people can be led by God in any other manner." (http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/pre-reformation-disunity.html)
This is another example of what I mean when I refer to how little effort you seem to make to think about what other people are telling you.
You write:
"Puhlease."
Since I agree with the church fathers so much on issues such as monotheism, the fall of mankind, the historicity of the Old Testament, the existence of Satan, the virgin birth, the sinlessness of Jesus, His resurrection, etc., why would you claim that I don't agree with them on the large majority of issues? I also agree with theologically conservative Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics much more often than I disagree with them. Saying "Puhlease" isn't a convincing refutation.
You write:
"Well, it was probably finalised in some churches, but not others."
That's not what you said earlier.
You write:
"How does it help your case to say it wasn't even finalised in the 4th century?"
The issue is what's true, not what "helps my case".
You write:
"And you don't even have a scriptural mandate for saying the Shepherd of Hermes is out or the Epistle of Clement are out. They weren't written by apostles (but you don't have a scripture saying that is the criteria) and you can't show for example that Clement doesn't get in because he knew the apostles, like Luke gets in for the same reasons."
Who told you that "Luke gets in" because he knew the apostles? That's not my argument. You don't even understand what Evangelicals believe about canonicity. As I said before, you need to spend more time thinking and studying and less time posting in online forums.
You write:
"And if relying on Tradition also has problems, at least we believe we are ultimately led into the truth, but you have to revisit every area of doubt in 2000 years of heresies. You have to revisit everything from whether Revelation is scripture, to church polity, to the literalness of of the eucharist."
You're ignoring what I documented regarding the variety of views of the eucharist held in the early centuries of Christianity. If there was only one denomination in the first millennium, and John 16:13 proves that those people were being "led into truth" on the euchrist and other issues, then why do the early sources hold such a variety of views on issues like the eucharist? You keep making historical claims that are contradicted by the historical record.
>The people you're addressing aren't
ReplyDelete>Eastern Orthodox. If Eastern
>Orthodox authority allegedly is the
>only reason for accepting a book as
>canonical, and we reject Eastern
>Orthodox authority, then why are we
>supposed to think that it would be a
>bad thing to reject that book's
>canonicity?
Here we are again with obfuscation designed to hide the fact that he doesn't actually have any verifyable basis for the canon.
He refers to "Eastern Orthodox" authority, probably in an attempt to paint a picture in people's minds of those obscure domed churches that protestants have never set foot in. But then he will go back to the tradition of church fathers in the 300s, those icon using, saint praying, apostolic succession promoting church fathers, who by any meaningful definition were "Eastern Orthodox" as a large part of his evidence for his one "tradition" of defending every last one of the 66 books that his particular tradition holds to, no matter the paucity of the remaining evidence.
>God's work in saving people and
>leading them to His word isn't
>dependent on historical arguments.
Then what is it dependent on? An extra-scriptural tradition that allegedly God is leading your particular church into? Looks like sola scriptura just went out the window.
>But as far as objective
>argumentation is concerned, would
>you explain how you allegedly
>avoid "a battle of wits between
>you and the skill and daring of
>the authors of pseudepigrapha"? If
>you were to make an objective
>historical case for Eastern
>Orthodoxy, you'd have to do so by
>means of historical documents.
Because I don't suggest you rely on any one ECF document being infallible. I suggest you look to the overall picture. Again, you argue for reductio ad absurdum.
>You have an interest in making the
>historical evidence against
>Biblical authorship attestations
>seem better than it actually is.
If you want to claim that every last book is verifiably apostolic from historical documents, it would be up to you to demonstrate such a thing. Anyone here who wants to investigate this will easily find that you need faith in the Tradition to come to this conclusion.
>I don't know what you mean by
>"have all the aces in line", but
>all I ask for is a historical
>probability. And the fact that a
>book's traditional authorship
>attribution is doubted by a
>majority of modern scholars
>doesn't settle the question of
>probability.
So the standard of measurement is probability, presumably >50% that the extra-scriptural traditions concerning authorship are correct. But you will deny other people's assessment of traditions being apostolic like the position of the bishop in the church from 1st century writers like Ignatius.
Apparently the ultimate authority in protestantism now are the bookmakers. And not just any bookmakers, but just the ones whose odds he likes.
Orthodox writes:
ReplyDelete"Here we are again with obfuscation designed to hide the fact that he doesn't actually have any verifyable basis for the canon."
I and Steve Hays have repeatedly posted articles in this forum and elsewhere addressing the evidence for the canonicity of Biblical books, such as the ones you've mentioned. We've also cited books that address such issues. We haven't addressed these issues in depth in our discussions with you, however, since you've refused to go into such depth to defend your assertions about Eastern Orthodox tradition and since refuting your argument on this subject doesn't require a defense of every Biblical book. You still aren't explaining to us why we should think that rejecting a book like 2 Peter supposedly would be problematic if we don't have any good reason to accept it. If Eastern Orthodox authority claims are the only reason for accepting the canonicity of 2 Peter, and you can't make an objective case for those authority claims, as we've seen to be the case, then why should we accept your suggestion that rejecting 2 Peter is a bad thing?
You write:
"But then he will go back to the tradition of church fathers in the 300s, those icon using, saint praying, apostolic succession promoting church fathers, who by any meaningful definition were 'Eastern Orthodox'"
I've refuted your claims on all three issues that you've mentioned, and you've failed to justify your assertion that the fathers were Eastern Orthodox as a whole. You keep making assertions without evidence.
You write:
"An extra-scriptural tradition that allegedly God is leading your particular church into?"
I was referring to individuals, not "my particular church". God can work in the individual's heart, as we see frequently in scripture (Proverbs 21:1, Jeremiah 31:33, Acts 16:14). Paul refers to how Christians can recognize the word of God (1 Corinthians 14:37, 1 Thessalonians 2:13). Would you suggest that God can't so work in an individual's life, that instead we can only recognize God's word through the Eastern Orthodox church?
You write:
"Because I don't suggest you rely on any one ECF document being infallible. I suggest you look to the overall picture."
Your appeal to "the overall picture" still involves historical investigation. And historical investigation involves distinguishing between authentic and inauthentic documents, true and false document attributions, etc. You don't avoid such issues just because you're making an argument for Eastern Orthodox tradition rather than a canon of scripture.