Athanasius was a Sola Scripturist. How do you know he was wrong?
Christopher Lake replied:
Athanasius was a "Sola Scripturist"? How, then, does one explain the following statement from him about Mary?
"O noble Virgin, truly you are greater than any other greatness...(blah blah blah)...while you hold God in your hands."
Now, why would he reply that way? A bit of a Freudian slip, perhaps, that one who holds to Sola Scriptura couldn't possibly hold to the cult of Mary as held by the Roman Catholic Church. Because the Scripture doesn't teach anything resembling Rome's cult of Mary.
I'm not sure he meant it that way, but that's sure how it sounded.
Pretty funny. But is that quote really even from Athanasius? Seems I've seen it before as pseudo-Athanasian.
ReplyDeleteNo idea; the thrust of the post remains either way.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably not Athanasius, but the underlying problem is the same.
ReplyDeleteOf course, some of the buffoons that defend Rome don't even think that you can find the Trinity in Scripture ... so we shouldn't be surprised when they admit that one can't get the Marian dogmas from Scripture.
Of course, some of the buffoons that defend Rome don't even think that you can find the Trinity in Scripture ... so we shouldn't be surprised when they admit that one can't get the Marian dogmas from Scripture.
ReplyDeleteOr a Savior Who can actually save...
In Him,
CD
Rhology and all:
ReplyDeleteIn the case that it was unclear to anyone here, when I posted in the "Back from nature" thread, and said that that would be my last comment here, I meant my last comment at Triablogue, nor merely my last comment under that thread.
Rhology, you and others here can continue to try to "refute" the arguments that I have made (and will make now here). You can mock me personally (and justify it, by telling yourselves that I am a reprobate.)
However, after I offer my thoughts here, I won't reply to any responses-- *not* because I *have* no reply, and not because your Biblical arguments are truly *sound*, but rather, because it has been proven to me that to try to actually *dialogue* with the writers of this blog is not fruitful.
I know that you think I am a reprobate, from your interpretation of Scripture. I'm not expecting any of you to become Catholics (or to return to the Catholic Church, in applicable cases)-- as I have now done, from the "Reformed Baptist" movement, because the Catholic Church's teaching is both more *explicitly Biblical* and more *historically Christian* (than Protestantism of any kind).
Before I go though, I want to simply offer some thoughts, from my serious study of Scripture and church history.
Many of you will tune all of, or most of, this out-- and I understand. I would have done the same, as a Reformed Baptist who *hated* the Catholic Church, and who considered most Catholics to be lost and mired in unBiblical idolatry.
If one wants to loudly assert that Catholic tradition "contradicts" Scripture, one can do so, *as* an assertion, based on one's own interpretation of Scripture... I did so, and loudly, as a Reformed Baptist. Much like the writers of this blog, in fact. (continued...)
BUT from my painful experience, the more that one seriously reads and studies, of both Scripture, and church history, it becomes more and more difficult to maintain that simple assertion. I write from lived experience.
ReplyDeleteIf you're rolling your eyes at this comment (or praying for me with a broken heart, which is better, as it is God-ward), and you are convinced that I am a "Catholic reprobate," (which you think is basically redundant) remember that I once interpreted the Bible and thought that Catholics were reprobates too. My private judgment of Scripture, and the teaching in my Reformed Baptist church, told me so, and I trusted them as the leading of the Holy Spirit.
However, I was wrong, in that particular "interpretation" of the Holy Spirit in my life. (The Spirit wasn't wrong, of course. I was.)
As a Calvinist Protestant, I had to, and did, assert that my own "private judgement" on the meaning of Scripture was better than that of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Augustine, Athanasius, and the other early Church Fathers, of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries, who fought against heretics *and* who held to Catholic Sacred Tradition-- which is not always *explicitly stated* in Scripture but which is *entirely complementary* to it.
As a Reformed Baptist, anytime that I dipped into the above Church Fathers and found anything faintly "Catholic," I asserted that my understanding of Scripture was simply better than theirs. (It helped that for most of the time that I was a Protestant, both earlier, as an Arminian, and then, as a Calvinist, I just "dipped" into the Fathers-- and almost always valued my interpretation of Scripture far above theirs...)
Scripture itself does not say that all we need to believe and do, as Christians, is explicitly stated in Scripture. It does not even say that everything which is "essential" is *clear* in Scripture. I'm not speaking as an "Emergent" here-- decidedly not. People have stated, here, that the issue of infant baptism vs. credobaptism is a "non-essential." However, when they do so, they should be fully aware, and should give *very sober thought* to, the fact that they are asserting their own *private, and fairly contemporary interpretation* of the Scriptures, as over against over both the Protestant Reformers and the early (and not-so-early) Church. This is not a light matter, to be dismissed as a "non-essential," or by simply saying, "I studied the Scriptures and the best Protestant commentaries. What else do should I do?"
Been there, done that. This was my thinking, at least, as a Reformed Baptist: "Regardless of what anyone else in history understood of the Scriptures on baptism, if it appears to *me* to say something different, then I'm going with that. Period. I believe that it is by the illumination of the Holy Spirit that *I'm* hearing the passages on baptism clearly, unlike all of the the Protestant Reformers, before the Radical Reformation (and certainly like those unregenerate Catholics)." (continued...)
When I wrote, above, that the Catholic Church is more "explicitly Biblical" than Protestantism, I mean that when John 20:19-23 speaks of Jesus saying to the disciples, as He sent them out for ministry, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained," He meant what he said. The Catholic understanding of this verse is the explicitly Biblical understanding. I have read Protestant "exegesis" of this verse, and it is not exegesis but eisegesis. (continued...)
ReplyDeleteThere are many, many other examples, wherein the Catholic understanding of Biblical passages is more explicitly Biblical than *any* of the multitude of Protestant understandings that I have encountered.
ReplyDeleteWhen James states that man is not justified by faith alone, he *means* it. There is no need to engage in eisegesis which supposedly "harmonizes" James' statements on works with Paul's statements on faith.
The Catholic understanding of both James and Paul is the explicitly Biblical one, as opposed to the common Protestant understandings, which, again, engage in not exegesis but eisegeis.
Calvinists love to speak of, and to apply, Biblical context-- as well they should, as the Bible is the word of God, and as Christians who want to *truly understand* the word of God, context is crucial. In that light, in Paul's letters, when he writes of being justified, apart from "works of the law," we must carefully read the surrounding passages, to understand the surrounding *context*, in the passages, and in the book(s) as a whole.
When Paul speaks of "works of the law," he is not referring to any and all works, period. He is not referring to works of mercy, love, and service, done by a Christian who is doing those works, not to earn salvation, but out of love for, and obedience to, God.
(Such works could be explicit Gospel proclamation, defending human life against abortion, and counseling people who are hurting. Christians, really, should be doing all three. I do-- but NOT to "earn my salvation," but rather, out of love for, and obedience to, God. When Paul writes of being "justified apart from works of the law," he is not referring to *these* sorts of works-- the works of mercy, love, and service, without which we are not justified, because according to James, "faith alone," without works, does not save.)
Again, I have read and heard the Protestant "exegesis" on James: "He is speaking of justification of one's faith before man, the proving of the reality of that faith. He is not speaking of justification before God."
I have heard this "exegesis" of James before , many times, and I used to believe it, as a Reformed Baptist. It is *eisegesis*.
Back to Paul, and being justified by faith, apart from works of the law (and note that "justified by faith alone" is not what Paul writes, *anywhere*, and James *explicitly denies* it), very often, if one reads the surrounding passages, when Paul writes of these "works of the law," he is referring to circumcision and other ceremonial works of the Mosaic Law, which some Jewish Christians of that time were trying to impose on Gentile converts as part of their new Christian life.
Whenever and wherever Paul states that we are "justified by faith apart from works of the law," or simply, "justified by faith," it is *eisegesis* to say that he means "justified by faith alone," for the following reasons:
1. Paul *never* says that we are justified, before God or before man, by "faith alone."
2. James explicitly denies that we are justified by "faith alone." He explicitly states that faith alone, apart from works, does not justify, does not save, and is *dead*.
The Protestant position that "we are justified by faith alone but not by a faith is alone" is based on *eisegesis*. It may well be unwitting eisegesis. It certainly was unwitting, for me, as a Reformed Baptist-- but eisegesis it was (and is). The Catholic position on justification, faith, and works is the explicitly *Biblical* one, the one which very carefully takes into account "the whole counsel of Scripture," for the sake of our eternal souls. (continued...)
The Catholic Church loves the Bible. The Church translated the Bible into Latin, because at the time, Latin was the common language of the people. The "Gutenberg Bible," printed before the Reformation, was the 73-book, "Catholic" canon of the Scriptures.
ReplyDeleteThe Catholic Church takes Scripture very seriously and exhorts her members to read it-- but again, the correct, 73-book canon, which certain Church Fathers argued about (such as Jerome, although he later accepted and translated that canon, because he accepted the Church which Christ founded, and which guarded the canon through the Holy Spirit).
That canon was accepted and affirmed in the 4th century by the Church, and it was accepted, read, and interpreted continually afterwards, to be *reaffirmed* at the Council of Trent, in response to Luther's attempted truncating of the canon (which Protestants have historically accepted, sadly).
The Church encourages her members to read the correct, historically accepted, 73-book canon of Scripture-- but *not* via the principle of private judgement, which is so extolled here, because private judgment, even when one *believes* that it is "illuminated by the Holy Spirit," can easily lead one into heresy.
Alas, private judgment in interpretation of Scripture is alive and well (and still leading people into heresy). Modalism, anyone?
However, that one is easy for Calvinists. Simply declare that the Modalist is either "unregenerate" or "extremely immature," and soon to come to a correct, Trinitarian understanding, and the question is solved!
However, the early Church knew that Biblical interpretation, and safeguarding of the historic, orthodox Christian, is not so "easy." The Trinity was declared to be part of orthodox Christian belief, at a council of the Catholic Church in the 4th century. The reasoning at the council was from Scripture-- but the Church knew that "private judgment" of Scripture was not sufficient for determining, and safeguarding,orthodoxy. Therefore, the council which formally set the boundaries for orthodoxy on the Trinity, from the Bible-- but *not* via "I'll go read the Bible, and decide what it says, even if all of Christian history disagrees with me!"
Again, that is the road to heresy. I've been there. I was a Reformed Baptist who thought as some here do. This was me: "I don't care what Athanasius thought about Mary! He probably didn't even say the quotes about her attributed to him by Church history scholars! If he did say them, he was *Biblically wrong*! The early Church, and the later Church, *may* have thought thought much more highly of Mary than I do, as a Reformed Baptist, but *I* don't see any basis for it in the Bible, so...." (continued...)
That was me, two years ago, as a Calvinist. I thought that I was battling "unBiblical, Marian heresy."
ReplyDeleteHowever, from the understanding of St. Athanasius, who defended the Trnity against the Arian heretics in the 4th century, I was the heretic, for not believing what he and the other early Christians believed about Mary, based on Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Not everything is explicit in Scripture, but what is explicit *and implicit*, the Catholic Church officially teaches, and it is part of the historic, orthodox Christian faith.
Calvinists will say that the love for Mary shown in St. Athanasius' quote is not even implicit in Scripture-- but how much of the Father's Biblical exegesis on Mary have they read? I had read almost none, as a Protestant. Whatever I did read, I dismissed, because it didn't fit with my "private judgment" of Scripture. The road to heresy....
On the issue of heresy, for Protestants who believe that the anathemas of Trent apply to them, The Catholic Church does *not* consider most of today's born-and-raised Protestants to be *willful* heretics. To be a willful heretic, one must have previously known, and truly accepted and embraced, the historic Christian faith, from Scripture and Tradition. The Catholic faith-- and much of the Eastern Orthodox faith, although their denial of the Papacy is unBiblical and ahistorical. The Church is very charitable in dialogue with the EO and today's conservative Protestants. The anathemas of Trent do not apply to most Protestants (and the EO) today.
The reason, partially, is this. In many cases, today's Protestants are simply lacking the complementary understanding of Scripture and Tradition, to which the earliest Christians held, and to which the Church holds today (2 Thessalonians 5:17).
Many (most?) Protestants don't deny that early Christian, *Biblical* understanding of Scripture and Tradition, while actually *knowing* it to be true. They deny it, strongly believing it to be false. Of course, that doesn't *make* it false. (The official teaching of the Catholic Church is not relativistic!)
However, an *honest* misunderstanding of the historic Christian understanding of Scripture and Tradition, handed down from the original apostles and the early Church-- an honest misunderstanding of it reduces one's culpability for rejecting it.
More than a few former Catholics, who have become committed Protestants, *may* well have an honest misunderstanding of the orthodox, complementary nature of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. I did, as a former Catholic-- which is part of why I became a Reformed Baptist. Misunderstanding of the Catholic Church and her teachings, and the principle of private judgement/interpretation of the Scriptures, led me to hatred of the Catholic Church, embracing of Calvinism, and unwitting heresy (each three linked to the other). (continued...)
The Bible is Catholic. I know that this statement will outrage most of this blog's audience, but I have been a Calvinist Protestant, and the Bible is not Protestant. I learned this, to some degree, against my own desires!
ReplyDeleteIt would have been much, much easier for me to stay Protestant, if not for obedience to God... I speak from the very hard experience of loss of many Protestant friends, and the loss of Protestant-oriented ministry and career opportunities. I do *not* speak from any "heavy burden" of Catholicism. The Biblical truth is not truly burdensome.
The Bible is Catholic, and St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus, St. Augustine, St. Athanasius, St. John Chystostom, and the other early heroes of the faith are Catholic. (The Eastern Orthodox claim some of those saints as their too, which I won't quibble too much with, as the EO understanding of the faith is much more similar to the historic, orthodox, Christian, Catholic understanding than the EO will admit.)
The Calvinist Protestant understanding of the Scriptures, found on this blog, is Biblically and historically novel, which became painfully obvious, as I more deeply looked into, and studied over, both the Scriptures and the early Church Fathers.
(Not that I hadn't seriously loved and studied the Scriptures, as a Reformed Baptist, of course!)
The "looking into the Church Fathers," mentioned above, involved more than reading about them on blogs, or reading selected passages from them in polemical works by Protestants *or* Catholics.
Therefore, don't just read my quote from St. Athanasius and accept it-- *or* reject it as being either "unBiblical" or a quote wrongly attributed to him. Read the man's writings for yourselves, from the original sources, easily accessible, in full, in book form, and for free, on the internet.
Don't neglect Scripture, to be sure. It's the infallible word of God (!!!)-- but Protestant private judgment, in regard to it, sometimes misunderstood as "the working of the Holy Spirit, can literally lead one away from historic, orthodox Christian faith. That is how I became a "Calvinist Baptist."
A helpful site... http://wwww.churchfathers.org/
ReplyDeleteDon't just read from that site alone though; as I mentioned above, also go to the original sources for the early Church Fathers, easily found in book form, and on-line at Christian Classics Ethereal Library. http://www.ccel.org/fathers.html
God bless all of you! I won't be back again to reply to any of your comments, not because I don't care for all of you, but because I've been where most of you seem to be, and it was impossible for a Catholic to reason with me, at that time, too. In a certain, and very real, sense, God had to open my eyes to the Biblical truth of the Catholic Church (which I had walked away from, many years ago, not realizing the truth that was actually there, at the time)!
Sorry... that should have been http://www.churchfathers.org/
ReplyDeleteGod bless you and goodbye!
Thanks, Christopher, but that was all just your private judgment. The pope hasn't "infallibly" attributed that passage to Athanasius, for example. That's your conclusion.
ReplyDeleteYou've also *assumed* the authority of the Roman church, and your commitment to that church -- which you reached by your own private judment to begin with (remember, you researched these things) -- then colors your whole perspective.
The fact is that the Church Fathers weren't either Roman Catholic or Protestant as those divisions are understood today. They wrote in their own times. And they wrote many and various things, often disagreeing with each other and themselves.
You are interpreting (or misinterpreting) them, and the scriptures, according to a false spirit. (1 Jn. 4:1).
Christopher:
ReplyDeleteMy reply.