Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Orthodox Admits That His Historical Case For Eastern Orthodoxy Is "Madness"

Since some people might benefit from it, I've decided to post, in this separate thread, a recent reply I wrote to Orthodox. You can read the context of this post here. My reply to Orthodox addresses many issues related to sola scriptura, making historical judgments, the case for Eastern Orthodoxy, etc.

Orthodox writes:

"As far as I know you've never told us how these early sources allegedly define apostolic succession in different ways. I tried tracing back your supposed references and it led me nowhere."

I told you, and you left the thread:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/unity-apostolic-succession-and.html

Most of what I discussed you didn't even attempt to interact with. What you did attempt to interact with you often misrepresented.

You write:

"We know as much now about who split from whom and why as they did back when it happened."

Why should we believe that? You've given us no reason to believe it. You just give us an assertion without any supporting argumentation. Do you know what was in the mind of each person involved in the divisions between East and West? No. Do you have all conceivable relevant information about the history of each issue they disagreed about? No. And since choosing to be Eastern Orthodox involves more than making judgments about the division between East and West that occurred several centuries into church history, you also have to make judgments about issues involving the earliest centuries. You've cited 1 Timothy in support of your view of the church, for example. How do you know that Paul wrote 1 Timothy? You've cited Ezekiel 11. How do you know that Ezekiel wrote that book, that it's canonical, that the passage you've cited means what you think it means, etc.? You have to make a long series of probability judgments in order to make a historical case for Eastern Orthodoxy. Yet, you've criticized Protestants for relying on probability judgments. You're contradicting yourself.

You write:

"What I mean is that Church history for us is the history of an infallible church. Sure, that doesn't mean that the actors involved are themselves infallible, but it does mean they are witnesses to what an infallible organization was up to."

If you're using your own fallible judgment about fallible witnesses, then the fact that an infallible church allegedly is involved doesn't remove the fallibility from the process. Similarly, I rely on fallible judgments about fallible witnesses to infallible scripture. You've repeatedly criticized Protestants for doing so, yet you do it yourself.

You write:

"But we do consider them witnesses to the infallible organization."

Again, if you can arrive at a fallible probability judgment about the Eastern Orthodox rule of faith by means of the fallible testimony of fallible witnesses outside of that rule of faith, then why can't Protestants do the same with their rule of faith? You're being inconsistent.

And you've given us no reason to believe that men like Irenaeus and Epiphanius were witnesses to Eastern Orthodoxy. When I documented Epiphanius' opposition to the veneration of images, you said that he must have been following his personal judgment rather than "the mind of the church". If he chose to follow his personal judgment rather than the mind of the church, then on what basis do you supposedly know that he was Eastern Orthodox?

You write:

"Jospehus is a witness to an heretical and distinctly fallible group."

Here we have another example of the shallowness of your thinking on these issues. Earlier, you cited lexicons in support of your understanding of an ecumenical council. Where do you think the scholars who produce lexicons get their data? Often from non-Christian sources, like Josephus. And how do scholars know when to date particular events in church history, what dates to assign to particular documents, where particular documents were written, etc.? Partially from non-Christian sources, like Josephus. For example, much of what we know about first century Israel and the destruction of Jerusalem in particular comes from Josephus. By citing lexicons, which aren't just produced by Eastern Orthodox scholars, you're appealing to non-Eastern-Orthodox sources (non-Eastern-Orthodox scholars and non-Eastern-Orthodox sources they rely on). Much the same can be said of your appeals to archeology. You've appealed, for example, to the use of images among ancient non-Christian Jews. Yet, if we cite the ancient non-Christian Jew Josephus, you object. You're being inconsistent again.

You write:

"Which is fair enough, except that Josephus is not even a part of the people of God at this point."

He doesn't have to be. You've suggested that sources like Josephus may have changed the Old Testament canon, but the fact that he wasn't a Christian doesn't prove that he did. We've already given you some reasons why we doubt your assertion that the canon was changed. Such a change isn't mentioned in the earliest interactions between Christians and Jews, a desire to oppose Christianity would be more likely to result in the removal of a book like Isaiah than to result in the removal of a book like Tobit, etc. But whatever you think of such arguments, the issue at hand in this context is whether it's reasonable in principle to appeal to a source like Josephus. It is. If you can appeal to non-Christian sources by means of lexicons, archeology, etc., then so can we.

You write:

"You havn't answered anything about any book. You've got this bad habit of pretending you have answered things and linking back to some previous obfuscation."

I haven't answered "anything"? I cited the fact that books like Genesis and Isaiah were referred to as scripture by Jesus and the apostles. Where did you ever refute that fact? You didn't. I and Steve Hays repeatedly cited books and other sources, such as articles in the archives of this blog, concerning individual books of the Bible. For example, here are some of my previous discussions about the authorship of John's gospel:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/07/who-wrote-gospel-of-john.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/07/dagoods-multiplies-his-errors.html

Have you read such articles and the many others that exist in the archives of this blog? Have you refuted any of them? No, you haven't.

I've discussed some of the issues surrounding 2 Peter with you in a recent thread. I've also addressed other data relevant to making judgments about a canon. Your claim that I "haven't answered anything about any book" is ridiculous.

You write:

"And remember, your ecclesiology is not an all or nothing affair like ours. You've got to make an apologetic for every last book of your rule of faith."

As we've documented, Eastern Orthodox disagree with each other about what is Tradition and what isn't. Thus, using your own reasoning, you must "make an apologetic for every last Tradition". And since you rely on books like 1 Timothy in order to make your argument for Eastern Orthodoxy in the first place, then you must make an argument for such books when making your initial case for Eastern Orthodoxy. Have you done so? No, not in any of our discussions, even when we've asked you to.

You write:

"LOL, well this is a protestant blog. You set the agenda here, and I merely respond to what you're attacking."

No, you don't. When we ask you for a list of all Eastern Orthodox Traditions, you don't produce it. When we ask you to give us an argument for Eastern Orthodox Tradition, such as defending your use of documents like the gospel of Matthew and 1 Timothy, you don't do it.

You write:

"Early sources considered it apostolic? Yes, but they considered lots of things you reject as apostolic too."

You need to be more specific. I've gone into detail as to why I trust the authorship attributions in question. We have a lot of data from a wide variety of sources: internal evidence, manuscript evidence, the testimony of Christian sources, the testimony of non-Christian sources, information about how the relevant sources viewed pseudonymity, etc. While I've gone into detail on such matters, and we've written at length on such subjects in the archives of this blog, you keep giving us vague assertions about how "they considered lots of things you reject as apostolic". You aren't giving us any reason to agree with you. You're just making unsupported assertions.

You write:

"In point of fact, there is no witness at all to how Peter considered this document."

Even if Mark had published his gospel after Peter died, the document could still be approved by one or more of the other apostles. The issue is apostolic approval, not Petrine approval.

As I said before, all of these arguments you're raising against a historical case for the canon do nothing to refute sola scriptura and nothing to establish Eastern Orthodoxy. If we were persuaded to accept a shorter canon, we'd still have a canon, and we'd still have no reason to be Eastern Orthodox.

You write:

"All the Tradition is really saying is that the document is reputed to have been written by Mark, who was someone in contact with Peter."

No, that's not all that the sources were saying. As I explained earlier, the evidence suggests that apostolicity was the primary canonical criterion of the early Christians. That's why most Christians didn't consider documents like First Clement, the writings of Papias, and Polycarp's Letter To The Philippians to be scripture, even though such men were widely believed to have been disciples of the apostles. The gospel of Mark wouldn't have been accepted as scripture just because it was written by an associate of an apostle. In all likelihood, it was believed to have apostolic approval. Papias, who lived in the late first and early second centuries, had to consult an older church leader ("the Elder", probably the apostle John) in order to get confirmation of his information on the origins of Mark's gospel. Apparently, then, the document was circulating as early as the middle of the first century (when Papias wasn't alive or was too young to know much about it). It circulated for decades before the last apostle died. It's highly unlikely that it would have circulated for so long as an unapproved book, then have been accepted universally as an approved book (canonical) in the second century.

You write:

"On that basis there would be a number of apostolic fathers whose writings would be candidates for being scripture."

Apparently, you're too ignorant of the subject we're discussing to realize that you just made an argument for my position rather than yours. The fact that the writings of men like Clement of Rome and Papias were widely rejected from the canon, whereas a document like Mark's gospel was widely accepted, is evidence of my position. It's evidence that the issue under consideration in early Christianity wasn't just whether an associate of the apostles wrote a document. Rather, the issue was apostolic approval. Mark had it. Men like Papias didn't.

You write:

"For example, it is commonly rejected now that Matthew was written in Hebrew as was understood in the early church. It is also now commonly rejected that Matthew was the first Gospel written, now in favour of Mark."

There are scholars who accept such views or variations of them, such as the existence of a Hebrew Matthew that predated the Greek version from which our gospel is derived. There's nothing inherent in Protestantism that requires one to reject such concepts.

Furthermore, the people who reject something like the concept of a Hebrew Matthew do so on the basis of even earlier evidence: the text of Matthew itself. Thus, what they're arguing is that we have conflicting data from early sources. They make a decision to go with one early source over the other. It doesn't therefore follow that they're being inconsistent by accepting the testimony of early sources when those early sources don't conflict with other early sources. You haven't explained why doing so allegedly would be unreasonable. People who reject a Hebrew original of Matthew don't have comparable reasons to reject the apostolicity of Mark's gospel.

And it should be noted that when you give examples of widely attested traditions among the early sources, you can't cite Eastern Orthodox beliefs like the veneration of images and praying to the deceased. Rather, you have to cite concepts like the language of Matthew's gospel. Do all Eastern Orthodox agree about that language? Is that one of the Traditions of Eastern Orthodoxy? Have all Eastern Orthodox scholars accepted every popular belief of the early Christians? No, to the contrary, some of the popular beliefs of the early Christians contradict what Eastern Orthodoxy teaches, as I've repeatedly documented.

You write:

"If the protestants find these very early traditions about the scriptures so unreliable, how can they suddenly find certitude about much vaguer testimony about what Peter thought about Mark's work?"

You keep misrepresenting the issues under discussion. Maybe that's because you know that you would lose a dispute that represents the issues accurately.

We don't need to have "certitude", nor do I claim to have it. What I claim, in making my historical case for a canon, is probability. And you've done nothing to overturn my conclusion.

You write:

"It's hard to think of a book of the NT for which significant objections have not been raised."

First of all, the Bible consists of more than the New Testament. Do you think there's "significant" doubt that Jesus and the apostles considered books like Genesis and Isaiah scripture?

Secondly, what "significant" doubt is there about a document like 1 Corinthians? As Bart Ehrman, a liberal agnostic scholar who often writes against Christianity, has commented, "No one doubts, however, that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians." (Misquoting Jesus [San Francisco, California: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005], p. 183) So, what are the allegedly "significant" reasons for doubting the Pauline authorship of 1 Corinthians? You can't claim that you were addressing some other issue, like the inerrancy of each book, since that isn't what we were discussing. We were discussing issues of canonicity, and since I've argued for apostolicity as the primary canonical criterion, then the issue on the table with regard to a document like 1 Corinthians would be who wrote it. So, what is the "significant" reason we have for doubting that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians?

And since your historical case for Eastern Orthodoxy depends on passages like Ezekiel 11 and 1 Timothy 3, would you explain how you know that such documents were written by the people you think they were written by? If there are "significant" doubts about a document like 1 Timothy, and such "significant" doubts are supposed to be a problem for my historical case for a canon, then why aren't they a problem for your historical case for Eastern Orthodoxy?

You write:

"I once met a Christian of otherwise apparently conservative disposition who seemed to have such a low opinion of Paul as to consider him not really an apostle, and that he had highjacked Jesus' message."

First of all, that isn't the issue we were discussing. We were discussing authorship issues. You've changed the subject to whether Paul was an apostle.

Secondly, if you aren't aware of the historical evidence for Paul's apostleship, then we have yet another example of your high level of ignorance. Paul repeatedly tells us in his own writings that he had good relations with the other apostles, some of the Pauline churches followed one or more other apostles at the same time that they followed Paul, early disciples of other apostles spoke highly of Paul (Clement of Rome and Polycarp, for example), Paul's writings were widely accepted by churches across the Christian world, etc. The evidence for Paul's apostleship is early, widespread, and explicit. The fact that you, an anonymous Eastern Orthodox layman, claim to have come across some other unnamed "conservative Christian" who doubted Paul's apostleship doesn't give us much reason to doubt Paul's status as an apostle. The fact that this unnamed person you refer to doubted Paul's apostleship doesn't give us reason to doubt it.

You write:

"You lack the necessary documentation, and an infallible link between Paul and the Twelve original apostles, because you rely on Paul's own testimony."

You've acknowledged that you rely on probabilities in order to make your historical case for Eastern Orthodoxy. Yet, you keep using terms like "certitude" and "infallible" to refer to what Protestants supposedly need to have in making their historical case. If probabilities are enough for you, then why aren't they enough for us?

You write:

"If your criteria is what you can prove historically there's no telling where the madness can end."

You keep giving us a (false) historical case for Eastern Orthodoxy. You cite passages like Ezekiel 11 and 1 Timothy 3. You cite patristic sources like Irenaeus and Tertullian. By your own standards, then, "there's no telling where the madness can end" with your historical case for Eastern Orthodoxy.

30 comments:

  1. Orthodox,

    Can you provide us with the infallible proofs that what you hold to be necessary for salvation, the consensus of the councils or the teachings of your church are true? Do you have the original documents? Have you seen them? How do you know the documents are what they are? Did you see the infallible church councils writing these documents? Did Christ or the apostles tell you all this personally? If you think they did, what is the infallible proof that they are who they are? Somewhere among your comments you wrote that your infallible authority was Christ and the apostles? What is the infallible proof that your authority was actually Christ and the apostles? The infallible EO Church? How do you know that you infallible authority ie. Christ and the apostles are infallible? What is the infallible proof for this? What is the infallible proof that your church is infallible?

    If you can't provide us with these infallible proofs, how do you expect me to join your church or believe what your church says? How do you expect anyone to be saved? I cannot accept any historical documents because they are not infallible! I cannot accept what the EO Church says because I do not have any infallible proofs that what it says is true! Must I myself be God first to be able to know all these things infallibly and then be saved?? But then, I would not need to be saved. I would be the saviour instead.

    I pray that God will be gracious to you to turn you from your errors.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I must be really winning since you have to use false claims in the title of this blog entry.

    >Most of what I discussed you didn't even attempt to
    >interact with. What you did attempt to interact with
    >you often misrepresented.

    Again, and I'm sure I said this before, I see nothing in this linked article that needs interacting with. It is all perfectly in accordance with EO understanding of apostolic succession. There is a question mark in my mind about something that is said about Tertullian, but since there is no citation of Tertullian, there is nothing to interact with.

    >Do you know what was in the mind of each
    >person involved in the divisions between East
    >and West? No.

    I don't need to know. The people of the time didn't know what was in each others minds. That's why I say I know as much as they knew.

    >Do you have all conceivable relevant information
    >about the history of each issue they disagreed
    >about? No.

    Yes I do.

    >You've cited 1 Timothy in support of your view of
    >the church, for example. How do you know that
    >Paul wrote 1 Timothy? You've cited Ezekiel 11.
    >How do you know that Ezekiel wrote that book,
    >that it's canonical, that the passage you've cited
    >means what you think it means, etc.? You have to
    >make a long series of probability judgments in
    >order to make a historical case for Eastern
    >Orthodoxy. Yet, you've criticized Protestants for
    >relying on probability judgments. You're
    >contradicting yourself.

    No I'm not.

    If you asked a historian with a rationalist historical approach about the book of Acts, he would say there are some things in the book that are certainly true, some that are probably true, some that are probably not true, and some that are almost certainly not true. That is the historical rational approach.

    You on the other hand take a different approach. You take a "one in all in" approach to Acts. That isn't historical/rational, rather it is a theological stance to take all or nothing. You don't require proof that every verse in Acts is true, you've just been convinced of certain things about the overall work, and taken a theoloical stance that therefore the whole book is trustworthy.

    Now think of the madness if you had to prove that every verse in Acts was true, and not only that, prove every verse was accurately transmitted through to the present day. Unworkable. You have to admit that accepting the whole book of Acts is much more workable than proving it piecemeal.

    In the same way, I believe your book-at-a-time approach to proving scripture is unworkable compared to accepting the whole canon on the basis of the church. The fact that all approaches require historical investigation does not refute that proving the bible a verse at time is unworkable.

    >If you're using your own fallible judgment about
    >fallible witnesses, then the fact that an infallible
    >church allegedly is involved doesn't remove the
    >fallibility from the process. Similarly, I rely on
    >fallible judgments about fallible witnesses to
    >infallible scripture. You've repeatedly criticized
    >Protestants for doing so, yet you do it yourself.

    You cannot use the fallibility of your interpretation and identification of an infallible source to invalidate the usefulness of the source itself.

    You say we are equal because I fallibly identify an infallible identifier of infallible scripture interpreting it infallibly with the Church, whereas you fallibly identify infallible scripture interpreting it fallibly.

    But by this argument a pagan is on level pegging with you because they fallibly interpret who God is and what God wants based on their own fallible feelings and interpretation of the world.

    If inserting fallibility into the equation puts every view on level pegging, then scripture is superfluous.

    But I say that truth is not made worthless by the insertion my fallible interpretation. The fact that I have an actual source of authority for what is scripture is not made the less useful nor less necessary because I have to discern what that authority is.

    Scripture is not less useful nor less necessary, because you have to discern what it is and what it means. You cannot get clarity about the means of salvation without scripture. Neither can you get clarity about the canon without the source of authority for the canon.

    Trying to insert personal fallibility into the equation to try and obfuscate this, doesn't work any more than it works for a pagan to insert fallibility into a discussion about scripture to invalidate the necessity of scripture.

    >If he chose to follow his personal judgment
    >rather than the mind of the church, then on what
    >basis do you supposedly know that he was
    >Eastern Orthodox?

    We cannot equate the behaviour of people before a doctrine is made clear to all by the mind of the Church. This is like saying that you probably would have had a different canon had you lived in the 2nd century, therefore your canon is wrong. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

    >Where do you think the scholars who produce
    >lexicons get their data? Often from non-
    >Christian sources, like Josephus

    I think it doubtful that Josephus had an agenda to corrup the Greek language. I see no evidence for that. In any case, Josephus is a tiny fraction of the Greek documents used for lexicons.

    The same can't be said for Josephus' agenda with regards to his sect of Judaism. Josephus clearly has an apologetic agenda for his religious sect, and its beliefs. Read Josephus, or read the scholarly literature, you don't have to believe me.

    >And how do scholars know when to date
    >particular events in church history, what dates to
    >assign to particular documents, where particular
    >documents were written, etc.? Partially from
    >non-Christian sources, like Josephus.

    Anything that Josephus said must be examined through the lens of his apologetic agenda. I've read scholarly articles on Josephus that show how he fudged some things to neaten up his view of the world. I've read scholarly articles that show his penchant for exageration to serve is apologetic agenda. If Josephus is the basis of your rule of faith, I think you've got big problems. Besides which, as I've said, Josephus HAS NO LIST. You cannot in any way determine the limits of the canon from him.

    >Much the same can be said of your appeals to
    >archeology. You've appealed, for example, to the
    >use of images among ancient non-Christian
    >Jews. Yet, if we cite the ancient non-Christian
    >Jew Josephus, you object. You're being
    >inconsistent again.

    No I'm not, because I'm in a spiral to find the true church, whereas you're merely in a circle. Your position is analogous to that historian trying to prove each individual verse in Acts is true, whereas my positioin is analogous to just accepting Acts wholesale. If I accept Acts wholesale, all I have to do is prove one thing that says to accept Acts. I don't have to prove everything about everything. All I have to do is find one thing which shows me the true church and I can ignore as much as I like. I can ignore the historical problems of books and so on. Or I can use them if I want as an apologetic, but I'm not reliant on them. You however have to prove everything about everything because you recognize no final authority other than yourself. You have to prove every book you have is scripture, you have to prove every book you don't use is not scripture, and you have to prove everything about everything that it teaches. That's quite a burden compared to the single decision of where the true church is. Not even nearly comparable.

    >We've already given you some reasons why we
    >doubt your assertion that the canon was
    >changed. Such a change isn't mentioned in the
    >earliest interactions between Christians and Jews

    I don't know how early these early exchanges are. Are we talking about a time when the Jews were using the Masoretic text and the Christians were using the LXX? And yet we know these exhibit a different canon, and we know at least many if not most Christians recognized the LXX canon. We could both argue there was a change in the canon, the only dispute being in which direction it changed. So the lack of this being mentioned is no better for you than for me. However, I would say that the canon was in formation, as it had been for thousands of years. It doesn't have to be my position that the canon was settled.

    >I haven't answered "anything"? I cited the fact
    >that books like Genesis and Isaiah were referred
    >to as scripture by Jesus and the apostles.

    Since you've never been challenged about Genesis or Isaiah or John you can hardly have "answered" anything about these.

    >I've discussed some of the issues surrounding 2
    >Peter with you in a recent thread.

    "Discussing issues" is hardly the same as proving it canonical. If you're going to claim a book is infallible it's only reasonable you prove that to a high degree of probability. Would it be enough if someone were to prove the pope might possibly be infallible?

    >As we've documented, Eastern Orthodox
    >disagree with each other about what is Tradition
    >and what isn't. Thus, using your own reasoning,
    >you must "make an apologetic for every last
    >Tradition".

    Not true, because while there may be some fuzzy areas in tradition, most things are clearly Tradition or clearly not Tradition. Thus we have plenty to be 100% certain about, and we certainly know that we have enough certainty about enough things to operate the Church which is led by the Holy Spirit.

    Contrast your situation, where every book has a level of probability, and every interpretation has a level of probability, and then there is the probability you have omitted books that contain important doctrines, and then the probability you are in a false church lacking the Spirit's guidance.

    Everything for you is one probability stacked on another probability stacked on another one. You don't know for sure you have the truth, you don't know if you have too much truth or not enough truth. That cannot be compared to believing in a Spirit led Church with some fuzzy areas.

    >And since you rely on books like 1 Timothy in
    >order to make your argument for Eastern
    >Orthodoxy in the first place, then you must make
    >an argument for such books when making your
    >initial case for Eastern Orthodoxy.

    As I explained above, I can rely on 1 Timothy without making any case for it, if I believe the true Church has defined it.

    >No, you don't. When we ask you for a list of all
    >Eastern Orthodox Traditions, you don't produce
    >it.

    As I explained, I don't need a final list. That there may remain some fuzzyness about some traditions doesn't invalidate the usefulness of a Spirit led Church that has all the truth it needs. Contrast your situation where you don't know for sue if you have too many or too few books to gain enough truth to have a valid church, you don't know how many doctrines should be defined in your statement of faith (see other thread). Is adding too many doctrines being too exclusionary for your denomination? Is having too few not having enough respect for the truth? What about things you feel certain about but other rational Christians have a different opinion on? Who is the authority for how much is definitional? These are everyday problems in protestant land. It can hardly be compared to a few fuzzy areas in Orthodoxy that are of little concern to us.

    >>"Early sources considered it apostolic? Yes, but
    >>they considered lots of things you reject as >>apostolic too."
    >
    >You need to be more specific.

    Well, shall we say for example, the monarchial episcopate. There is no certain evidence that the monarchial episcopate is not apostolic. Some have tried to form inferences, but that's all they are. There no direct evidence against this being an apostolic tradition.

    >Even if Mark had published his gospel after Peter
    >died, the document could still be approved by
    >one or more of the other apostles. The issue is
    >apostolic approval, not Petrine approval.

    Which is even vaguer. All there is, is a (from your point of view) vague Tradition that the apostles approved it, but no witnesses, no information what apostles or anything. That's a critical factual break in your authority chain. You can't compare a break of this magnitude with someone's personal fallibility in for example, interpreting scripture or interpreting history. This is a break in history itself.

    >As I said before, all of these arguments you're
    >raising against a historical case for the canon do
    >nothing to refute sola scriptura and nothing to
    >establish Eastern Orthodoxy. If we were
    >persuaded to accept a shorter canon, we'd still
    >have a canon, and we'd still have no reason to be
    >Eastern Orthodox.

    My bet is most protestants would, when push comes to shove, join one of the churches which claims an authority to define canon before they would consider adopting a shorter canon. For protestantism to consider adopting a shorter canon after all this time would be proof positive of the bankruptcy of protestant ecclesiology.

    Now as to which church they should join after recognizing this fact, well that's beyond the scope of my commentary in this little blog. I can only suggest for people do do their own research.

    >The gospel of Mark wouldn't have been accepted
    >as scripture just because it was written by an
    >associate of an apostle. In all likelihood, it was
    >believed to have apostolic approval.

    Firstly, you can only trace this approval back to a Church Tradition, not back to any historical fact itself. Thus you are reliant on a pure Tradition whether you are savvy enough to admit it or not.

    Secondly, even if you think there is evidence of some kind of apostolic "approval", doesn't mean it is God-breathed scripture. Given the clear use of the apostles of the deutero-canonicals, it is reasonable to assume they "approved" of them as edifying and useful to the Church: they must be since they were useful to them. But does mere "approval" in some sense indicate infallibility? Paul "approved" of Timothy, does that mean Timothy is infallible? Does it mean he could write God-breathed scripture?

    Approval is a vague concept. The fact is, you don't have an infallible list of criteria for telling you what is scripture or what is God breathed. This is another place where your infallibility chain breaks down. You could have certain knowledge of who wrote what, and still not have a canon, because you have no criteria for knowing what is scripture. Even if something was written by an apostle, was everything the apostles wrote scripture? Was their shopping list scripture? Was every note they ever wrote God-breathed? You don't know, and you have no source of authority to know. Someone could prove to you infallibly that an apostle wrote something and you still have no infallible way of knowing if it is infallible.

    >There are scholars who accept such views or
    >variations of them, such as the existence of a
    >Hebrew Matthew that predated the Greek version
    >from which our gospel is derived. There's
    >nothing inherent in Protestantism that requires
    >one to reject such concepts.

    Sure, but neither do protestants seems to see the inherent inconsistency in utterly rejecting traditions that are as early as traditions that they need to have a hope of having a canon of scripture.

    >Furthermore, the people who reject something
    >like the concept of a Hebrew Matthew do so on
    >the basis of even earlier evidence: the text of
    >Matthew itself. Thus, what they're arguing is that
    >we have conflicting data from early sources.

    If traditions that early conflict, then how can they be certain enough to form a canon of scripture? Either a couple of ECF quotes is reliable, or it is not.

    You just can't have a canon of scripture without belief in a Spirit led church.

    >you can't cite Eastern Orthodox beliefs like the
    >veneration of images and praying to the
    >deceased. Rather, you have to cite concepts like
    >the language of Matthew's gospel. Do all Eastern
    >Orthodox agree about that language?

    Don't know and I don't care. A couple of ECF comments is not dogmatic for me. Neither is the language of Matthew dogmatic. I'm not the one who is forced to take a historical/rationalist approach to every single point of history that relates to my dogma. You have to prove that an unsubstantiated Church Tradition about Mark is true. I merely have to find the True church.

    >First of all, the Bible consists of more than the
    >New Testament. Do you think there's
    >"significant" doubt that Jesus and the apostles
    >considered books like Genesis and Isaiah
    >scripture?

    Are you happy to reduce your canon to Genesis and Isaiah?

    >Secondly, what "significant" doubt is there about
    >a document like 1 Corinthians?
    >
    >>I once met a Christian of otherwise apparently
    >>conservative disposition who seemed to have
    >>such a low opinion of Paul as to consider him
    >>not really an apostle, and that he had
    >>highjacked Jesus' message."
    >
    >First of all, that isn't the issue we were
    >discussing. We were discussing authorship
    >issues. You've changed the subject to whether
    >Paul was an apostle.

    No, it's not a different issue. The issue under discussion is what is God breathed canonical scripture.

    So Paul had "good relations" to the apostles? So what? So did Clement. Is what he wrote scripture?

    What is the criteria here? That he labelled himself "an apostle"? Firstly, you don't know that this label he gave himself is infallible and God breathed. Secondly, you don't know that the term "apostle" is a critial point in his authority to write God-breathed scripture. All the scholars argue how the term was used. How was Barnabas an apostle? Who appointed him? Is apostleship the criteria for writing scripture, or is it rather being one of the college of the Twelve, which clearly had a different status? Does Paul's "good relations" with the apostles mean they approved of every opinion of his? Why not Clement?

    You don't have answers to these questions, and you don't have a factual criteria for what is a candidate for being scripture.

    ReplyDelete
  3. “The same can't be said for Josephus' agenda with regards to his sect of Judaism. Josephus clearly has an apologetic agenda for his religious sect, and its beliefs. Read Josephus, or read the scholarly literature, you don't have to believe me.”

    And which sect was that? The Pharisees.

    Yet Orthodox likes to quote Mt 23:2-3 back to us. But that command has reference to the Pharisees. So, if Orthodox were attempting to be consistent, he would embrace the agenda of Josephus.

    “Anything that Josephus said must be examined through the lens of his apologetic agenda. I've read scholarly articles on Josephus that show how he fudged some things to neaten up his view of the world. I've read scholarly articles that show his penchant for exageration to serve is apologetic agenda.”

    Oh dear! Looks like Orthodox has chosen to defy the dominical command in Mt 23:2-3.

    “No I'm not, because I'm in a spiral to find the true church, whereas you're merely in a circle.”

    Once again, he’s using metaphors as a substitute for arguments. But what if Jason prefers a hexagonal metaphor? What about squares and triangles?

    “You have to prove every book you have is scripture, you have to prove every book you don't use is not scripture, and you have to prove everything about everything that it teaches.”

    Two things wrong with this characterization:

    i) Jason distinguishes between defensive and offensive apologetics. He may have many personal reasons for what he believes. But in dealing with an outsider, he looks for common ground. He limits himself to publicly accessible evidence. That, however, doesn’t exhaust his personal reasons for believing what he does.

    ii) We have no a priori level of proof to attain. Our only obligation is to go with the best evidence that God has preserved for us.

    So it’s a case-by-case question of whether the evidence for our position is better than the evidence for our opponent’s evidence. The available evidence will vary depending on the position under review.

    We don’t have to prove everything. We only have to get the better of the argument in dealing with the counterarguments of the other side.

    Partial evidence will do just fine when you’re dealing with another opponent who has nothing more (and maybe less) than partial evidence.

    “Thus we have plenty to be 100% certain about, and we certainly know that we have enough certainty about enough things to operate the Church which is led by the Holy Spirit.”

    Just another string of question-begging assertions.

    “You don't know for sure you have the truth, you don't know if you have too much truth or not enough truth.”

    Other issues aside, how does Orthodox know for sure that he isn’t an alien abductee who has been subjected to psychological conditioning? What he takes to be compelling evidence for the Orthodox church is really simulated stimuli which the little green men have fed into his cerebral cortex.

    “That there may remain some fuzzyness about some traditions doesn't invalidate the usefulness of a Spirit led Church that has all the truth it needs.”

    And how does he identify that church? How does he identify the presence of the Spirit?

    “Contrast your situation where you don't know for sue if you have too many or too few books to gain enough truth to have a valid church, you don't know how many doctrines should be defined in your statement of faith (see other thread). Is adding too many doctrines being too exclusionary for your denomination? Is having too few not having enough respect for the truth? What about things you feel certain about but other rational Christians have a different opinion on? Who is the authority for how much is definitional? These are everyday problems in protestant land. It can hardly be compared to a few fuzzy areas in Orthodoxy that are of little concern to us.”

    Contrast his situation where he doesn’t know for sure if he’s been subjected to alien brain-washing. There is no Orthodox church. That’s all an illusion.

    Just between you and me, I have it on good authority that Jason is really a hyperdimensional being who is using Orthodox as a lab rat to determine if our species deserves to survive. Otherwise, the earth will be obliterated to make way for a hyperspace expressway.

    Unfortunately, the prospects for the human race aren’t looking very good at the moment, to judge by Orthodox’s performance.

    “As I explained above, I can rely on 1 Timothy without making any case for it, if I believe the true Church has defined it.”

    Notice the vicious circularity of his argument. On the one hand, he appeals to 1 Tim 3:15 to establish (on his misinterpretation) the church as the custodian of truth. On the other hand, he appeals to the true church to establish the meaning of 1 Tim 3:15.

    But unless he already knows, on some independent basis, that the church he belongs to is the true church, then he cannot invoke its interpretation of 1 Tim 3:15 to establish the intended referent.

    “Given the clear use of the apostles of the deutero-canonicals…”

    Such as?

    “The fact is, you don't have an infallible list of criteria for telling you what is scripture or what is God breathed.”

    And where is his infallible list of criteria to identify the true tradition of the true church? And how does he infallibly apply his infallible criteria, even assuming that such are available?

    “You just can't have a canon of scripture without belief in a Spirit led church.”

    Like Montanism?

    “A couple of ECF comments is not dogmatic for me.”

    And how many comment are enough comments to rise to the level of dogma? Where are his infallible criteria for determining the threshold between too few ECF comments and just enough ECF comments?

    “I'm not the one who is forced to take a historical/rationalist approach to every single point of history that relates to my dogma.”

    True. Orthodox prefers the ahistorical, irrationalist approach.

    “I merely have to find the True church.”

    And where’s his map and compass?

    “You don't have answers to these questions, and you don't have a factual criteria for what is a candidate for being scripture.”

    And where do we find his criteria for determining that he isn’t being fed false memories by those pesky little ETs? He would have to individually disprove every ufological interpretation.

    ReplyDelete
  4. >>“Given the clear use of the apostles of the
    >>deutero-canonicals…”
    >
    >Such as?

    Such as the dozens of references in the margin of your NA-27 or the original KJV's cross references. Such as the reference in Heb 11:35 to the events of 2 Maccabees.

    I don't see any reason to further respond to a childish comparison between the Hitch Hiker's guide and the body of Christ.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Steve writes:

    "i) Jason distinguishes between defensive and offensive apologetics. He may have many personal reasons for what he believes. But in dealing with an outsider, he looks for common ground. He limits himself to publicly accessible evidence. That, however, doesn’t exhaust his personal reasons for believing what he does. ii) We have no a priori level of proof to attain. Our only obligation is to go with the best evidence that God has preserved for us."

    Steve is correct, and these things have been explained to Orthodox many times. He frequently ignores what he's been told. When he does sometimes eventually change his position after being corrected, he acts as if his new position is what he's been saying all along. He'll criticize Protestants for relying on probability judgments, then he'll acknowledge that he relies on probability judgments and will object that Protestants shouldn't criticize him for doing so. It's bad enough that Orthodox has to be corrected on such issues to begin with. It makes it even worse when he then acts as if we're the ones who were wrong after he's changed his position.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Orthodox said:

    "Again, and I'm sure I said this before, I see nothing in this linked article that needs interacting with. It is all perfectly in accordance with EO understanding of apostolic succession. There is a question mark in my mind about something that is said about Tertullian, but since there is no citation of Tertullian, there is nothing to interact with."

    No, I gave you multiple examples of how what sources like Irenaeus and Tertullian wrote is inconsistent with your beliefs about apostolic succession. The scholar I cited mentioned passages in their writings that you failed to interact with, and I mentioned others that you failed to interact with. I went on to ask you if you had read the entirety of one of the documents of Tertullian that we were discussing. You refused to answer, probably because you hadn't read it, which would explain why you misrepresented what Tertullian said. You failed to address much of what I presented, and you eventually left the thread. Again, people can read our discussion for themselves at:

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/unity-apostolic-succession-and.html

    And, as I explained earlier, a vague reference to apostolic succession among some sources from the second century onward does nothing to prove that the earliest Christians were Eastern Orthodox. Even if you had been correct in your assertions about apostolic succession (you weren't), they wouldn't prove that the earliest Christians were Eastern Orthodox. We still await such evidence.

    You write:

    "I don't need to know. The people of the time didn't know what was in each others minds. That's why I say I know as much as they knew."

    The people alive several centuries ago were making probability judgments about other people, just as you have to rely on probability judgments about those same people. But given the nature of the historical record, many of the people alive at that time would have information that you don't have today. A bishop alive at that time would know more about what was in his own mind than you would know today. If you can make probability judgments about church history based on the evidence that's extant, so can Protestants. Telling us that you have enough evidence to do so confidently, whereas Protestants don't, is a claim you need to demonstrate, not just assert.

    You write:

    "You don't require proof that every verse in Acts is true, you've just been convinced of certain things about the overall work, and taken a theoloical stance that therefore the whole book is trustworthy."

    If the "theological stance" in question is demonstrable, then we do have "proof that every verse in Acts is true". Historians regularly accept the trustworthiness of a source's claims based on a broader principle. Not every claim made by somebody like Josephus or Tacitus will be verifiable by means of corroboration from another writer or archeology, for example. What Tacitus reports about a war may be corroborated by some archeological evidence, but what he reports about a conversation he had with a general in that war probably won't be. Yet, what he reports about that conversation can be accepted based on broader principles of verisimilitude, how accurate Tacitus is elsewhere, etc.

    You write:

    "Now think of the madness if you had to prove that every verse in Acts was true, and not only that, prove every verse was accurately transmitted through to the present day. Unworkable. You have to admit that accepting the whole book of Acts is much more workable than proving it piecemeal."

    The issue is what's true, not what you consider "workable". The fact that it's easier to accept Acts on the basis of a vague appeal to "Tradition" doesn't prove that your vague appeal to "Tradition" is reliable.

    You write:

    "In the same way, I believe your book-at-a-time approach to proving scripture is unworkable compared to accepting the whole canon on the basis of the church. The fact that all approaches require historical investigation does not refute that proving the bible a verse at time is unworkable."

    You've repeatedly appealed to 1 Timothy 3:15 to argue for the alleged authority of Eastern Orthodoxy. If you can argue for accepting one book (1 Timothy) or one verse (1 Timothy 3:15) before arguing for the acceptance of the entire canon, then how can you claim that it's unacceptable to argue for the authority of one book or one verse apart from the rest of the canon? You're doing what you criticize Protestants for doing.

    Your appeal to church authority is only as good as the truthfulness of your claim that the church in question has such authority. And you've given us no reason to believe that Eastern Orthodoxy has the authority you claim it has.

    You write:

    "But by this argument a pagan is on level pegging with you because they fallibly interpret who God is and what God wants based on their own fallible feelings and interpretation of the world. If inserting fallibility into the equation puts every view on level pegging, then scripture is superfluous."

    You're missing the point, and it seems that you're doing so intentionally. I was addressing the fact that all of us rely on probability judgments about history. You initially criticized Protestants for relying on probability judgments. But now you acknowledge that you do the same. You've been inconsistent. Instead of acknowledging your error, you're now acting as if you acknowledged your dependence on probability judgments all along, as if you never criticized such reliance on probabilities. You're acting as if I was disagreeing with you on some other matter, such as whether "pagans" are on "level pegging" with Christians in the views they hold. But I wasn't addressing the correctness of pagan beliefs. I was addressing the fact that all of us rely on probability judgments. It doesn't therefore follow that I was claiming that all probability judgments are correct or that pagan beliefs are as probable as Christian beliefs. You're confusing categories.

    You write:

    "But I say that truth is not made worthless by the insertion my fallible interpretation."

    I never said or suggested that truth is made worthless by the insertion of fallibility. The point is that you're relying on your fallible probability judgments about history, even though you previously criticized Protestants for doing the same.

    You write:

    "We cannot equate the behaviour of people before a doctrine is made clear to all by the mind of the Church."

    I've already addressed that erroneous argument, and you didn't interact with what I said. Again, you've claimed that the veneration of images was an apostolic tradition always held by the church. You claimed to have evidence of the practice as early as the second century. Given the fact that Epiphanius was a bishop, that the veneration of images would be something highly visible by its nature, etc., how could Epiphanius be ignorant of such an apostolic tradition always held by the church? If "the mind of the church" on that issue wasn't "clear" at the time of Epiphanius, then why are we supposed to believe that "the mind of the church" had always accepted the veneration of images?

    Earlier, you claimed that the church clarifies issues when they're disputed. As I've documented, there was widespread opposition to the veneration of images for hundreds of years. People had taken positions similar to that of Epiphanius long before Epiphanius was born. Why, then, didn't the church clarify the issue previously? Why, instead, do we have to wait until the eighth century for something like an ecumenical council's ruling on the subject?

    Readers should note that Orthodox's "mind of the church" doesn't seem to produce the sort of unity and clarity he claims that we need. He criticizes Protestants for disagreeing over even minor issues, and he often refers to how unclear scripture supposedly is, yet he's willing to accept a "mind of the church" that allows people like Epiphanius to be ignorant of an alleged apostolic tradition for hundreds of years.

    You wrote:

    "I think it doubtful that Josephus had an agenda to corrup the Greek language. I see no evidence for that."

    Now you're saying that we can use non-Christian sources like Josephus, as long as we have good reason to believe that they're credible in the given context. That's what the Protestants here have been saying all along. You're now accepting what you opposed earlier.

    You write:

    "The same can't be said for Josephus' agenda with regards to his sect of Judaism. Josephus clearly has an apologetic agenda for his religious sect, and its beliefs."

    How do you know that his "agenda" involved the removal of the books of the Old Testament that you accept and that Protestants reject? You don't. If you can't show a logical connection between this "agenda" of Josephus and the removal of your books from the canon, then citing such an "agenda" doesn't make your case. And you aren't just making this accusation against Josephus. You're making it against the ancient Jews in general.

    You write:

    "Besides which, as I've said, Josephus HAS NO LIST. You cannot in any way determine the limits of the canon from him."

    We don't have to have a list of every book in order to reach some reliable conclusions, such as that he didn't accept your canon.

    You write:

    "You however have to prove everything about everything because you recognize no final authority other than yourself."

    As we've explained to you repeatedly, we accept apostolic authority. Your claim that we "recognize no final authority other than ourselves" is an absurd mischaracterization.

    Just as you can accept an entire book, like Acts, on the basis of alleged church authority, Protestants can accept the entire book of Acts on the basis of apostolic authority. The difference is that we have good reasons for accepting apostolic authority, whereas you don't have any good reasons for accepting your assertions about Eastern Orthodox authority.

    You write:

    "You have to prove every book you have is scripture, you have to prove every book you don't use is not scripture, and you have to prove everything about everything that it teaches. That's quite a burden compared to the single decision of where the true church is. Not even nearly comparable."

    You have to make judgments about each segment of the canon of your rule of faith as well. You have to decide what is Tradition and what isn't, how to interpret each Tradition, etc. Steve Hays and I have repeatedly discussed this issue with you, but you keep acting as if you're ignorant of it. See, for example:

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/04/in-search-of-true-church.html

    You write:

    "Since you've never been challenged about Genesis or Isaiah or John you can hardly have 'answered' anything about these."

    The problem here is that you're failing to follow the argument. The issue we were discussing was whether I've made a case for any book of the Bible. You denied that I had done so. I cited Genesis, Isaiah, and John as examples of books for which I had made a case. Now you're acting as if you never disputed the fact that I had made a case for such books. You're not being consistent.

    If I have made a case for some books, and you don't dispute the cases I've made, then you're acknowledging that we can arrive at a canon of at least some books by means of taking a historical approach. And as I said before, even if we have a smaller canon, we still have a canon. A smaller canon wouldn't refute sola scriptura, nor would it establish Eastern Orthodoxy. So, if you acknowledge that we can arrive at a canon through the historical approach I've discussed, then why do you keep claiming that I can't have a canon through such a process, that I have no authority, etc.? I realize that you can change your objections in mid-discussion, as you've done many times before, but how do you justify your initial objections in light of what you're now admitting?

    You write:

    "'Discussing issues' is hardly the same as proving it canonical. If you're going to claim a book is infallible it's only reasonable you prove that to a high degree of probability."

    You didn't specify "proving it canonical" in your comments I was responding to. But the books Steve Hays and I cited do address the canonicity of 2 Peter. If you don't want to consult such books, that's not our problem.

    You write:

    "Not true, because while there may be some fuzzy areas in tradition, most things are clearly Tradition or clearly not Tradition. Thus we have plenty to be 100% certain about, and we certainly know that we have enough certainty about enough things to operate the Church which is led by the Holy Spirit."

    If you only need to be "clear" on "most" things, then why have you claimed that it's unacceptable if Protestants aren't "clear" on even one book in their canon? Earlier, you argued that we can't be "unclear" on even one book. But now you're telling us that it's acceptable if Eastern Orthodox are "unclear" on some of their Traditions, as long as they're "clear" on "most" others.

    And where are you getting your "100% certain" claim? You've said that your judgment about the authority of Eastern Orthodoxy is a probability judgment. If so, then the teachings you accept on the basis of such a probability judgment are not "100% certain".

    You write:

    "As I explained above, I can rely on 1 Timothy without making any case for it, if I believe the true Church has defined it."

    But you're claiming that you know that you can rely on "the true Church" on the basis of 1 Timothy. How can you accept 1 Timothy on the basis of church authority if 1 Timothy is what informs you of church authority?

    You write:

    "Well, shall we say for example, the monarchial episcopate. There is no certain evidence that the monarchial episcopate is not apostolic. Some have tried to form inferences, but that's all they are."

    As we've told you before, we can allow freedom where scripture allows it. If Eastern Orthodox can allow each other some "fuzziness", as you put it, on some issues, then why can't Protestants allow "fuzziness"? You keep applying double standards.

    You write:

    "For protestantism to consider adopting a shorter canon after all this time would be proof positive of the bankruptcy of protestant ecclesiology."

    Since Eastern Orthodox disagree with each other over the Old Testament canon, should we conclude that "adopting a shorter canon after all this time would be proof positive of the bankruptcy of Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology"? What about the disagreements among Eastern Orthodox about what is Tradition and what isn't? If not everything thought to be Tradition is Tradition, then does such a shortening of the Eastern Orthodox canon prove that the Eastern Orthodox system is "bankrupt"? You've predicted that Protestants would leave Protestantism rather than accept a shorter canon of scripture. Would you also predict that Eastern Orthodox will leave Eastern Orthodoxy if they're convinced that their concepts of Tradition, or the Eastern Orthodox canon of scripture in particular, are mistaken?

    You write:

    "Now as to which church they should join after recognizing this fact, well that's beyond the scope of my commentary in this little blog. I can only suggest for people do do their own research."

    In other words, you have no case for Eastern Orthodoxy. Instead of admitting it, you use the dubious excuse that making a case for Eastern Orthodoxy is "beyond the scope" of this blog. We've seen you attempt to make such a case for Eastern Orthodoxy in earlier posts, though. And your attempts were unconvincing.

    You write:

    "Someone could prove to you infallibly that an apostle wrote something and you still have no infallible way of knowing if it is infallible."

    You keep applying double standards. You tell us that probability is enough when making an argument for Eastern Orthodoxy, yet you criticize Protestants for not having an "infallible way of knowing".

    You object that something may not be scripture just because an apostle approved of it. But I cited apostolic approval in a specific context. You're ignoring that specific context. If the early sources accept the gospel of Mark as scripture, then it makes no sense to argue that the gospel of Mark may have only had apostolic approval in some non-scriptural sense. If it had apostolic approval in a non-scriptural sense, then why would such approval lead to widespread acceptance of Mark's gospel as scripture?

    I've repeatedly explained to you how this process would operate. You keep ignoring what you've been told. Again, we have reason to accept apostolic authority by means of historical evidence pertaining to who Jesus is, what He taught about apostolic authority, the miracles performed by the apostles, etc. We conclude that apostolic books were considered scripture because of what Jesus said about apostolic authority, what's said in some of the apostolic books about their own authority, and what was widely reported on the subject by early post-apostolic sources. You would have to make the same sort of argument about documents like the gospel of Matthew and 1 Timothy, or at least the passages in those documents that you're appealing to, in order to use passages like Matthew 16 and 1 Timothy 3 to argue for Eastern Orthodox authority. If you understand such a process when arguing for Eastern Orthodoxy, then why do you act as if you don't understand it when criticizing Protestantism?

    You write:

    "Sure, but neither do protestants seems to see the inherent inconsistency in utterly rejecting traditions that are as early as traditions that they need to have a hope of having a canon of scripture."

    You haven't given us any examples of traditions we reject that we ought to accept. The fact that a tradition is "early" doesn't prove that it's in the same category as an authorship attribution for a Biblical book. More than earliness is involved. We've explained these things to you repeatedly. You keep ignoring what you've been told.

    You write:

    "If traditions that early conflict, then how can they be certain enough to form a canon of scripture? Either a couple of ECF quotes is reliable, or it is not."

    When we discuss authorship attribution, we're addressing something that involves many people around the ancient Christian world. When sources like Justin Martyr and Irenaeus refer to the authorship attributions of the gospels, for example, they're not just giving their own views. These books were read in church services regularly. Issues of authorship were prominent on people's minds, as we know from how they behaved and what they reported in their writings. An issue like whether the gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, on the other hand, wouldn't have been on people's minds as often and wouldn't have been discussed as often.

    The fact that some beliefs of early sources are unreliable doesn't prove that all of the early beliefs are unreliable. If you can trust early authorship attributions for 1 Timothy without trusting what Papias said about premillennialism and without agreeing with Hermas concerning a limitation on the forgiveness of sins, for example, then why can't Protestants trust some early beliefs without trusting all of them? Likewise, historians regularly trust some of what a source reports without believing that source on every subject. There's much more involved than the earliness of a source. Your approach toward these issues is overly simplistic, and it's self-defeating. Your objections to Protestantism would defeat your historical case for Eastern Orthodoxy if you applied the objections consistently. But you don't.

    You write:

    "A couple of ECF comments is not dogmatic for me. Neither is the language of Matthew dogmatic. I'm not the one who is forced to take a historical/rationalist approach to every single point of history that relates to my dogma."

    You just did. By deciding that "the language of Matthew isn't dogmatic", you've made a judgment about the nature of the early Christian belief in a Hebrew version of Matthew. If you can accept what the early Christians said about the authorship of 1 Timothy, yet not accept what they said about the language of Matthew, or consider that issue non-dogmatic, then why can't Protestants do the same? Just as the Eastern Orthodox hierarchy doesn't require you to take a position on the language of Matthew's gospel, scripture doesn't require it of Protestants.

    You write:

    "I merely have to find the True church."

    And you have to find out whether the church has the authority you think it has, what is and what isn't the Tradition of that church, how to interpret the Tradition, etc. Eastern Orthodox disagree with each other on such issues.

    You write:

    "So Paul had 'good relations' to the apostles? So what? So did Clement."

    You keep missing the point, even when the point is obvious. Paul repeatedly and explicitly claims to be an apostle. He mentions the subject often in his writings. He repeatedly puts himself in the same category as men like Peter and John. If he was a non-apostle who was making false claims to apostolic authority and was distorting what Jesus taught, then why would the apostles be in good relations with him? Why would men like Clement of Rome and Polycarp refer to Paul's writings as scripture, writings in which Paul refers to himself as an apostle? If Paul wasn't an apostle and was distorting what Jesus taught, then why would the apostles and their disciples be in good relations with Paul, preserve his letters, refer to them as scripture, etc.?

    The fact that you need to have these things explained to you tells us a lot about your ignorance. You thought that it was significant that some unnamed "conservative Christian" suggested to you that Paul might not have been an apostle and might have distorted what Jesus taught. Apparently, you didn't know how to make a historical case for Paul's apostleship and the reliability of his claims about Jesus. But your ignorance isn't a problem for Protestants. Your ignorance of such issues doesn't prevent Protestants from making a historical case for Paul's apostleship and the reliability of his claims about Jesus. You might be easily deceived by people like this unnamed "Christian conservative" you met, but we aren't.

    You write:

    "That he labelled himself 'an apostle'? Firstly, you don't know that this label he gave himself is infallible and God breathed. Secondly, you don't know that the term 'apostle' is a critial point in his authority to write God-breathed scripture. All the scholars argue how the term was used. How was Barnabas an apostle?"

    We don't have to know that Paul's reference to himself as an apostle was "God-breathed" in order to make the judgment that it's historically probable that the other apostles accepted the claim. We would then make a judgment about whether it's probable that those other apostles would accept the claim if Paul was actually a non-apostle who was distorting what Jesus taught.

    And we know what Paul meant by "apostle" by examining how he compared himself to men like the Twelve and how others treated him. In passages like Galatians 1-2 and 2 Corinthians 11-12, Paul places himself at the same level as the Twelve in terms of authority. And he tells men like Timothy to pass on what they had received from him rather than adding to it. Men like Timothy were of lesser authority. They couldn't deliver new revelation to the churches as Paul sometimes claimed to be doing in his letters. We also know how Paul was perceived by contemporaries and people who lived shortly after his time. Those people place him in the same category as the Twelve in terms of apostleship. To conclude that he was an apostle in a lesser sense would be ridiculous.

    You would have to go through the same sort of historical argument in order to arrive at your reading of 1 Timothy 3:15. How do you know that 1 Timothy is authoritative? You can't appeal to church authority, since you're using 1 Timothy to argue for that church authority in the first place.

    ReplyDelete
  7. orthodox said:
    >>“Given the clear use of the apostles of the
    >>deutero-canonicals…”
    >
    >Such as?

    Such as the dozens of references in the margin of your NA-27 or the original KJV's cross references. Such as the reference in Heb 11:35 to the events of 2 Maccabees.

    I don't see any reason to further respond to a childish comparison between the Hitch Hiker's guide and the body of Christ.

    ******************************

    Now you're backpedaling from your original claim. You said "apostles." Indeed, you even used the plural.

    But when I ask for examples, you can't come up with even one apostolic example to illustrate your claim. The author of Hebrews was not an apostle, unless you happen to believe in Pauline authorship. If so, what's your argument?

    ReplyDelete
  8. >No, I gave you multiple examples of how what
    >sources like Irenaeus and Tertullian wrote is
    >inconsistent with your beliefs about apostolic
    >succession.

    Ahh yes, this was the thread where I quoted:

    "[The apostles] founded churches in every city, from which all the other churches, one after another, derived the tradition of the faith, and the seeds of doctrine, and are every day deriving them, that they may become churches. Indeed, it is on this account only that they will be able to deem themselves apostolic, as being the offspring of apostolic churches." -- Tertullian

    This is completely in accordance with Eastern Orthodoxy, and was completely mischaracterized by the claims you gave. The fact that not every ECF might go into any fine details of how this works is irrelevant. They all agree with orthodoxy and disagree with you.

    >You've repeatedly appealed to 1 Timothy 3:15 to
    >argue for the alleged authority of Eastern
    >Orthodoxy. If you can argue for accepting one
    >book (1 Timothy) or one verse (1 Timothy 3:15)
    >before arguing for the acceptance of the entire
    >canon, then how can you claim that it's
    >unacceptable to argue for the authority of one
    >book or one verse apart from the rest of the
    >canon? You're doing what you criticize
    >Protestants for doing.

    No I'm not because my beliefs can have as many legs as I care to discover. I could base my entire belief in Eastern Orthodoxy on something extra scriptural and never have to justify a single book. This is why searching for the true church is a spiral, not a circle. I can use multiple sources, multiple books, multiple reasonings to zone in on the true church.

    You on the other hand, if you prove something about 1 Timothy, all you've proven is... 1 Timothy. It doesn't mean you're not in a false church, it doesn't prove anything about James or Peter, it doesn't prove you have correct doctrine. You've just moved .0001% towards any kind of useful goal.

    >And you've given us no reason to believe that
    >Eastern Orthodoxy has the authority you claim it
    >has.

    Don't exagerate now. You know that Orthodoxy has a direct succession from the apostles church. You know that folks in the early church like Tertullian put enormous weight on the necessity of having a succession from the apostles' church. That's a whole heap of reasons right there. Don't try and pretend that is "no reason" when the church since the earliest times has considered that very significant.

    >You initially criticized Protestants for relying on
    >probability judgments. But now you acknowledge
    >that you do the same. You've been inconsistent.
    >Instead of acknowledging your error, you're now
    >acting as if you acknowledged your dependence
    >on probability judgments all along, as if you
    >never criticized such reliance on probabilities.

    You refuse to see the difference between probabilities inherent in your theological system, and probabilities simply related to being a human being. There are critical breaks in history that make your actual theological system probability based, because you have no infallibility chain back to God as an authority. We do have that link. That both systems need probability to evaluate their claims doesn't alter that fundamental difference.

    >how could Epiphanius be ignorant of such an
    >apostolic tradition always held by the church? If
    >"the mind of the church" on that issue wasn't
    >"clear" at the time of Epiphanius, then why are
    >we supposed to believe that "the mind of the
    >church" had always accepted the veneration of
    >images?

    As I said before (and you never seem to listen), it is not necessary to Orthodoxy that the mind of the Church has always perceived the acceptability of the veneration of images, just as it is not necessary to Orthodoxy that the Church has always perceived the two natures of Christ.

    What is important to Orthodoxy is that the truth revealed by the apostles, in the hands of the Spirit led church, leads to the inference and conclusion that the veneration of images is permissible, or even desirable.

    That I personally think it was actually done back to the earliest church is my opinion, but isn't critical to the debate.

    >Why, then, didn't the church clarify the issue
    >previously? Why, instead, do we have to wait
    >until the eighth century for something like an
    >ecumenical council's ruling on the subject?

    For various reasons, it was not necessary to resolve this issue via a council till the 8th century. That doesn't mean it wasn't authoritative until the 8th century. It was certainly authoritatively clear by the 4th century.

    >He criticizes Protestants for disagreeing over
    >even minor issues, and he often refers to how
    >unclear scripture supposedly is, yet he's willing
    >to accept a "mind of the church" that allows
    >people like Epiphanius to be ignorant of an
    >alleged apostolic tradition for hundreds of years.

    And for "hundreds of years" the canon was not settled. Is that a major or minor issue for Jason? It's got to be major. And yet despite the rhetoric, I'd bet my bottom dollar Jason's denomination is quite comfortable making the canon a dogmatic part of his church's beliefs. Why? Well, again, despite all the rhetoric, which has already been conceeded is just the trash that is trotted out in internet debates, normal every day protestants recognize that when the canon was settled, it was settled. It oughtn't become unsettled again because of the latest scholarship.

    In the same way, we don't revisit the faith all the time to see what the latest opinions and scholarship says on every issue to see if the church is wrong. Once it is settled it is settled.

    >How do you know that his "agenda" involved the
    >removal of the books of the Old Testament that
    >you accept and that Protestants reject? You
    >don't.

    I don't know why I'm bothering to argue about this since Josephus HAS NO LIST. For all anyone knows, his canon may have been the LXX. He certainly quotes it that way.

    Had he had a list, and had it differed to the Christian list, then obviously his apologetic agenda would be to support his sect against other sects. All this is so obvious that it shouldn't even need spelling out. And I've already provided reasons why his sect could have differed in the first place. e.g. losing the Hebrew originals in the upheavals of the 1st century.

    >We don't have to have a list of every book in
    >order to reach some reliable conclusions, such as
    >that he didn't accept your canon.

    You keep trotting it out, but you have no evidence. THERE IS NO LIST.

    Besides which, I don't need his canon to agree with mine to support my canon. My position is the canon was in formation. Frankly it matters not at all to me if his canon agrees with you or me or anyone else. The main point is, nobody knows what his canon is because THERE IS NO LIST.

    >As we've explained to you repeatedly, we accept
    >apostolic authority. Your claim that we
    >"recognize no final authority other than
    >ourselves" is an absurd mischaracterization.

    You define what scripture is, and you define what scripture means. That would be sola-self wouldn't it? I've heard protestant apologists accuse Rome of sola-ecclesia because Rome defines what scripture is and what scripture means. By the same criteria, you have sola self.

    >The difference is that we have good reasons for
    >accepting apostolic authority, whereas you don't
    >have any good reasons for accepting your
    >assertions about Eastern Orthodox authority.

    I don't have good reasons? And yet my reasons, the succession of the churches, is the very same reasons that the early church fathers cited as good reasons. Purely on an empirical basis, you're talking nonsense.

    >You have to make judgments about each
    >segment of the canon of your rule of faith as
    >well. You have to decide what is Tradition and
    >what isn't, how to interpret each Tradition, etc.

    Normatively, I need do no such thing. I rely on the teaching authority in the church to tell me. Sure, on occasion, I may have to double check on them, but that is more exception than rule. The bishops and clergy are self-correcting from each other. In the normative case I can accept and rely on the presbyters to run the church, submitting to their authority just as scripture says.

    >So, if you acknowledge that we can arrive at a
    >canon through the historical approach I've
    >discussed, then why do you keep claiming that I
    >can't have a canon through such a process, that I
    >have no authority, etc.?

    What does the word canon mean? It means a standard. If some people started rejecting doubtful books because they didn't quite reach their standard of proof you wouldn't have a standard, you'd just have different opinions. You can't run a congregation like that long term. One person preaching from a book, and the next person rejecting its authority.

    >But the books Steve Hays and I cited do address
    >the canonicity of 2 Peter. If you don't want to
    >consult such books, that's not our problem.

    I know they address it, but they don't PROVE it. You're obfuscating, and what's worse is you won't admit it.

    >If you only need to be "clear" on "most" things,
    >then why have you claimed that it's unacceptable
    >if Protestants aren't "clear" on even one book in
    >their canon?

    What if that "one book" you aren't clear on is the book of Mormon? You don't have a criteria for what scripture is within scripture itself. You don't have a definition within scripture for who can be an apostle. The very foundations of your religion are outside the stated bounds of your stated authority.

    >>Well, shall we say for example, the monarchial
    >>episcopate. There is no certain evidence that
    >>the monarchial episcopate is not apostolic.
    >>Some have tried to form inferences, but that's
    >>all they are."
    >
    >As we've told you before, we can allow freedom >where scripture allows it.

    How come if some ECFs say that Mark has apostolic approval, you believe it, but when all the early church attests to the monarchial episcopate, it is simply a matter of opinion? It wasn't a matter of opinion to people like Ignatius who knew the apostles personally.

    >Would you also predict that Eastern Orthodox
    >will leave Eastern Orthodoxy if they're convinced
    >that their concepts of Tradition, or the Eastern
    >Orthodox canon of scripture in particular, are
    >mistaken?

    I'm not completely up to date with the issues surrounding 3 Esdras in the Russian bibles, but assuming it is a genuine difference of understanding, it simply means agreement is not yet reached. As I keep explaining, there's a fundamental difference between issues on which agreement is reached with issues on which agreement is not reached. Most protestants take this for granted that the NT canon is settled. If people in their church started messing with the canon that they previously regarded as settled my bet is they would certainly acknowledge the concept of something being settled.

    >In other words, you have no case for Eastern
    >Orthodoxy. Instead of admitting it, you use the
    >dubious excuse that making a case for Eastern
    >Orthodoxy is "beyond the scope" of this blog.

    Well it's kind of pointless trying to explain why Orthodoxy is the true church to someone who doesn't even believe any organization is the true church. That's a bit like trying to prove a eschatological viewpoint to someone who doesn't even believe in God.

    >You object that something may not be scripture
    >just because an apostle approved of it. But I cited
    >apostolic approval in a specific context. You're
    >ignoring that specific context.

    Wow, transmission of Tradition is so accurate that it could never possibly confuse anything, even so much as the unstated context. And yet you reject other Traditions that are actually explicit, not merely "context".

    >If it had apostolic approval in a non-scriptural
    >sense, then why would such approval lead to
    >widespread acceptance of Mark's gospel as
    >scripture?

    Why was Clement accepted as scripture? Why was the Didache? Why was the Shepherd of Hermes? Wasn't tradition ever so accurate just a second ago?

    >When we discuss authorship attribution, we're
    >addressing something that involves many people
    >around the ancient Christian world. When
    >sources like Justin Martyr and Irenaeus refer to
    >the authorship attributions of the gospels, for
    >example, they're not just giving their own view

    And yet in the other ongoing thread, one of the Triablogue crew assumes that Hebrews is not Pauline, despite being described as such in the early church, and despite all the early manuscripts circulating Hebrews as part of the Pauling corpus.

    Now what's the story again? Traditions of authorship are highly accurate, or not very accurate? Can you folks get your stories straight?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Jason and Steve,

    Have you ever had to constantly respond to an interlocuter who flings around assertions, assumes what he has yet to prove, shifts the goal posts, and basically rambles on ad infinitum and many times off-topic? I dunno, just wonderin'...

    ReplyDelete
  10. Orthodox writes:

    "This is completely in accordance with Eastern Orthodoxy, and was completely mischaracterized by the claims you gave. The fact that not every ECF might go into any fine details of how this works is irrelevant. They all agree with orthodoxy and disagree with you."

    You assert that I "mischaracterized" Tertullian, yet you've never demonstrated it, and you left our discussion without interacting with much of what I had said. You also repeatedly refused to tell us whether you had read the entirety of the document of Tertullian that we were discussing. If you had read it in its entirety, you shouldn't have misrepresented it as you did. I've read the document, and I demonstrated that you were misusing it. I also demonstrated that you reject some of what Irenaeus wrote on this subject, such as what he said about the need for all churches to agree with the church of Rome.

    Your claim that "all" the fathers agree with you and disagree with me on this subject not only hasn't been documented, but also is absurd on its face. Many of the fathers never even addressed the issue, or addressed it too vaguely to identify their view with Eastern Orthodoxy, so your claim that all of them agreed with you and disagreed with me is ridiculous. It's another example of your carelessness.

    You write:

    "I could base my entire belief in Eastern Orthodoxy on something extra scriptural and never have to justify a single book. This is why searching for the true church is a spiral, not a circle. I can use multiple sources, multiple books, multiple reasonings to zone in on the true church."

    You cited Biblical passages like 1 Timothy 3:15 as a justification for your belief in church authority. Yet, now you're denying that a book like 1 Timothy or a verse like 1 Timothy 3:15 can be shown to have the relevant authority on historical grounds. You've even suggested that Protestants can't make a historical case for the apostleship of Paul. You've told us that you accept 1 Timothy as authoritative on the basis of church authority. Now that we've pointed out that you can't have it both ways, that you can't use 1 Timothy to justify church authority while claiming that church authority is needed to justify the relevant authority of 1 Timothy, you're making a vague appeal to other "extra-scriptural" sources. But you've already appealed to 1 Timothy. Are you retracting that argument? And what are these "extra-scriptural" sources you refer to?

    You write:

    "You know that Orthodoxy has a direct succession from the apostles church. You know that folks in the early church like Tertullian put enormous weight on the necessity of having a succession from the apostles' church."

    I also know that Tertullian added qualifiers to his comments about apostolic succession, such as requiring that the church leaders involved meet doctrinal and moral standards. I also know that Tertullian said that churches need not have a succession if they agree with apostolic teaching, as I documented in our earlier discussion. I know that Tertullian was born less than a century after the time of the apostles, which means that a historical succession had much more evidential significance in his day than it does in ours. There are groups today that claim a succession from the apostles, yet contradict what Eastern Orthodoxy teaches. If a succession doesn't keep those churches from error and from being false churches by your own standards, then why should we believe that a succession assures your denomination of avoiding such things?

    You write:

    "There are critical breaks in history that make your actual theological system probability based, because you have no infallibility chain back to God as an authority. We do have that link. That both systems need probability to evaluate their claims doesn't alter that fundamental difference."

    As I told you earlier, being linked to scripture links us to God. If you're going to object that we accept scripture through fallible mediators, such as the testimony of fallible historical sources or our own fallible judgment, then the same can be said of your acceptance of Eastern Orthodoxy. You've acknowledged that you accept Eastern Orthodoxy and interpret it through fallible mediators. The fact that you consider the Eastern Orthodox denomination infallible, and think that it's existed throughout church history, doesn't change the fact that you're accepting that allegedly infallible denomination and interpreting it through fallible means. Similarly, I believe that scripture is infallible and has existed since the time of the apostles (and earlier for the Old Testament), yet I accept it and interpret it through fallible means. If my situation is unacceptable because of the fallible means, then so is yours.

    And I want to remind the readers that Orthodox originally rejected appeals to probability. He repeatedly said that probabilities are unacceptable, that we can't have faith in God or the church, for example, without certainty on these matters. He repeatedly ridiculed my appeal to probabilities by asking what percentage I would assign to my probability beliefs. But now Orthodox accepts the appeal to probability. We ought to keep that fact in mind, since it illustrates how ignorant Orthodox is of these issues and how he so often changes his arguments in the middle of a discussion.

    Orthodox writes:

    "As I said before (and you never seem to listen), it is not necessary to Orthodoxy that the mind of the Church has always perceived the acceptability of the veneration of images, just as it is not necessary to Orthodoxy that the Church has always perceived the two natures of Christ."

    I'm not the one who isn't listening. As I told you before, your appeal to what other Eastern Orthodox believe doesn't justify what you've argued. You took the position that even Christians as early as the second century understood and practiced the veneration of images. You also said that the church would clarify the issue if it was disputed. Yet, there was widespread opposition to the veneration of images for hundreds of years, and bishops like Epiphanius not only didn't know about your alleged apostolic tradition of venerating images, but even opposed the concept. Telling us that some other Eastern Orthodox hold a different view of doctrinal history than you hold, a view in which something like the veneration of images can be absent or widely contradicted for hundreds of years while remaining an apostolic tradition supposedly always held by the church, doesn't justify what you've argued. What you're doing would be like my appealing to the fact that some Protestants are paedobaptists when a false claim I've made about my credobaptism is challenged.

    You write:

    "For various reasons, it was not necessary to resolve this issue via a council till the 8th century. That doesn't mean it wasn't authoritative until the 8th century. It was certainly authoritatively clear by the 4th century."

    You keep telling us about the alleged advantages of having your infallible denomination to clarify issues for us, yet you tell us that your denomination waited until hundreds of years after people were rejecting the veneration of images to clarify the issue. And once the issue was made "authoritatively clear", men like Epiphanius still knew nothing of it, and an ecumenical council was needed to address it hundreds of years later.

    Again, if men like Epiphanius were Eastern Orthodox, as you've claimed, then why would they reject teachings that were "certainly authoritatively clear" in their day?

    You write:

    "And for 'hundreds of years' the canon was not settled. Is that a major or minor issue for Jason?"

    As I've explained to you repeatedly, I don't make claims about the canon comparable to your claims about Eastern Orthodox teachings such as the veneration of images. I don't claim that all first millennium Christians were members of my denomination, that my canon has been held by that denomination throughout church history, that I can show that even church fathers as early as the second century followed it, etc. Since you make different claims about an issue like the veneration of images than I make about an issue like the canon, treating the two as if they're in the same category doesn't make sense.

    You write:

    "In the same way, we don't revisit the faith all the time to see what the latest opinions and scholarship says on every issue to see if the church is wrong. Once it is settled it is settled."

    Your denomination's authority claims have never been settled, and your judgment that they have been settled is fallible. If future discoveries weigh against your denomination's claims, it would make no sense to ignore those future discoveries. As I've told you before, I'm honest enough to face the truth. My belief system doesn't need to shield itself from potential future falsification. Your frequent negative comments about scholarship, such as your initial opposition to relying on probability judgments (something you've been inconsistent on), are a reflection of how little confidence you have in your belief system. You rely on modern scholarship when you read your Bible, when you appeal to lexicons, when you cite patristic documents that had been lost to previous generations, when you appeal to archeological discoveries, etc., yet you arbitrarily tell us that we must ignore scholarship if it's inconsistent with Eastern Orthodoxy at any point. You claim to be so concerned about church history, yet you keep distancing yourself from historical scholarship and historical argumentation. You initially didn't even want to rely on probability judgments, which is necessary for reaching historical conclusions. Any Mormon, Roman Catholic, or King James Onlyist could argue along the lines of what you're (inconsistently) arguing above.

    You write:

    "Had he had a list, and had it differed to the Christian list, then obviously his apologetic agenda would be to support his sect against other sects. All this is so obvious that it shouldn't even need spelling out. And I've already provided reasons why his sect could have differed in the first place. e.g. losing the Hebrew originals in the upheavals of the 1st century."

    Josephus was born well before the events surrounding 70 A.D., and people would have remembered a widely accepted canon that included several more books during the time of the apostles, if such a widely accepted canon existed. You're not giving us any reason to conclude that Josephus or any other early Jewish source removed the books you want to include. All you're doing is speculating that it might have happened. If it did happen, and if opposition to Christianity was the primary or only motive, then we wouldn't expect the Jews involved to remove books like Tobit and 1 Maccabees while keeping books like Isaiah and Daniel. We wouldn't expect such a change in the canon to go unmentioned by the earliest Christian sources. Justin Martyr accuses some Jews (not all) of altering the text of some passages of scripture, but he says nothing of the removal of the books you want to include. The Christians who do accept one or more of the Apocryphal books accept different ones in different cases. They don't seem to have any knowledge of a particular set of Apocryphal books that had been widely accepted at the time of Jesus and the apostles or earlier. If the canon that you refer to as "forming" in the first century doesn't seem to have included the Apocryphal books you want to add, then why should we think that the Old Testament Jesus and the apostles appealed to included such books? If their Old Testament didn't include such books, then on what basis are we supposed to accept them?

    You write:

    "You define what scripture is, and you define what scripture means. That would be sola-self wouldn't it?"

    You keep using self-defeating arguments. If I "define" scripture by following my own judgment about what is and isn't scripture, then you "define" Tradition by following your own judgment about what is and isn't Tradition. Eastern Orthodox disagree with each other about what is and isn't Tradition, and even if all agreed on the issue, it would still be your personal judgment to follow their position rather than a Roman Catholic view of Tradition, for example. Just as I arrive at my rule of faith and interpret that rule of faith by means of my own judgment, so do you.

    You write:

    "Normatively, I need do no such thing. I rely on the teaching authority in the church to tell me. Sure, on occasion, I may have to double check on them, but that is more exception than rule. The bishops and clergy are self-correcting from each other. In the normative case I can accept and rely on the presbyters to run the church, submitting to their authority just as scripture says."

    Your decision to trust your denomination is a personal judgment, and your judgments about what's "normative", when you need to "double check" the hierarchy, etc. are further personal judgments. Telling us that you "normatively" trust your hierarchy doesn't refute anything I've said. What you allow yourself to do in "non-normative" situations is something you've criticized Protestants for doing.

    You write:

    "What does the word canon mean? It means a standard. If some people started rejecting doubtful books because they didn't quite reach their standard of proof you wouldn't have a standard, you'd just have different opinions. You can't run a congregation like that long term."

    The fact that the people in Protestant church X could theoretically disagree about the canon doesn't give us any reason to reject sola scriptura. Not only is it theoretically possible that Eastern Orthodox would disagree with each other about what is and isn't Tradition, but we know that they have had such disagreements and still do.

    You write:

    "I know they address it, but they don't PROVE it."

    Earlier, you objected that Steve and I were citing books you didn't have access to. Now you're making a claim about the books we've cited on 2 Peter. Have you read those books?

    You write:

    "You don't have a criteria for what scripture is within scripture itself. You don't have a definition within scripture for who can be an apostle. The very foundations of your religion are outside the stated bounds of your stated authority."

    You've already acknowledged that you rely on fallible witnesses, such as church fathers and lexicons, to identify and interpret your rule of faith. If you can do it, why can't I? You keep contradicting yourself.

    You write:

    "How come if some ECFs say that Mark has apostolic approval, you believe it, but when all the early church attests to the monarchial episcopate, it is simply a matter of opinion?"

    As I've told you before, it's incorrect to say that "all the early church" attests to the monarchical episcopate. As fathers such as John Chrysostom and Jerome noted, the monarchical episcopate was a gradual development that didn't exist everywhere. As I told you earlier, I consider the monarchical episcopate one acceptable form of church government among others. Nothing in the church fathers compels us to think of that form of church government as the only acceptable one.

    You write:

    "It wasn't a matter of opinion to people like Ignatius who knew the apostles personally."

    The claim that Ignatius was a disciple of the apostles wasn't made until long after his lifetime. We don't have evidence for his knowing the apostles comparable to what we have for somebody like Clement of Rome or Polycarp. Why don't you explain to us why you think he was a disciple of the apostles?

    As I explained to you in another thread, one you left, I've repeatedly given you examples of the earliest church fathers disagreeing with you. If you can disagree with the fathers on some issues, yet accept their testimony on issues related to what you believe about church authority, then why can't I accept some of their beliefs while rejecting others?

    You write:

    "Well it's kind of pointless trying to explain why Orthodoxy is the true church to someone who doesn't even believe any organization is the true church. That's a bit like trying to prove a eschatological viewpoint to someone who doesn't even believe in God."

    In other words, you don't want to give us a justification for your claims about your denomination. You attempted a justification earlier, and it failed, so now you're claiming that this forum isn't the place for such a discussion. If it's not the place now, why was it a fitting place previously?

    You said:

    "Wow, transmission of Tradition is so accurate that it could never possibly confuse anything, even so much as the unstated context."

    I didn't say that the sources in question (not your "Tradition") "could never possibly confuse anything". The issue is probability, not certainty. The sources I mentioned could possibly be wrong, yet probably be right. You've given us no reason to think that they were wrong.

    You write:

    "Why was Clement accepted as scripture? Why was the Didache? Why was the Shepherd of Hermes? Wasn't tradition ever so accurate just a second ago?"

    Accepted by whom? You keep singling out one issue involved in these judgments while ignoring others. Your overly simplistic approach toward these issues tells us a lot about your ignorance of historical matters.

    You write:

    "And yet in the other ongoing thread, one of the Triablogue crew assumes that Hebrews is not Pauline, despite being described as such in the early church, and despite all the early manuscripts circulating Hebrews as part of the Pauling corpus."

    Pauline authorship of Hebrews is disputed by some of the earliest fathers, and the issue continued to be disputed in later centuries. My view is that Tertullian probably was correct in naming Barnabas as the author, for a variety of reasons. You've only mentioned a portion of the relevant data.

    ReplyDelete
  11. >You assert that I "mischaracterized" Tertullian, yet
    >you've never demonstrated it

    It seems so obvious I don't know why I need to demonstsrate it. You cited a claim that Tertullian believed any church who had the apostolic faith was kosher. But what he actually said was that those who are the offspring of these churches are kosher. That's a mischaracterization.

    >Many of the fathers never even addressed the
    >issue, or addressed it too vaguely to identify
    >their view with Eastern Orthodoxy, so your claim
    >that all of them agreed with you and disagreed
    >with me is ridiculous.

    You can keep hoping I suppose that everyone who said nothing agreed with you, and everyone who commented agrees with me. I find that rather absurd.

    >Yet, now you're denying that a book like 1
    >Timothy or a verse like 1 Timothy 3:15 can be
    >shown to have the relevant authority on
    >historical grounds.

    Let's say I need 100 points of evidence before I believe something is inspired. If I evaluate Timothy or 2 Peter separately, and they only get 30 points, that's a problem. But if I evaluate the Church as a whole I can get some points here, some points there and get a few thousand points, and I accept the whole religion as a package deal. Then it doesn't matter if Timothy has 1 point or 100 points. And some of those points could be personal experience. If see some miracle in the Church, that might be a couple of points and I don't even need consult history about 1 Timothy. For example, I've experienced certain miraculous events related to icons. Now if God were anti-orthodox icons, it seems unlikely he would be sending down icon related miracles.

    You on the other hand need those 100 points of evidence for everything you hold to. You need it for each book in scripture and you need it for each doctrine you propose to believe. And that is why each protestant and each protestant church has an ever expanding range of views. Everyone has their own standards of evidence with predictable results. Fortunately they aren't taking seriously your historical canon theory, or more chaos would break out.

    >I also know that Tertullian said that churches >need not have a succession if they agree with
    >apostolic teaching, as I documented in our
    >earlier discussion.

    "Let them produce the original records of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that their bishop shall be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the apostles or of apostolic men" - Tertullian

    You keep saying you've documented things, and then when I go back and check it is never there. Just some vague obfuscation from your favourite scholars. No cigar.

    >There are groups today that claim a succession
    >from the apostles, yet contradict what Eastern
    >Orthodoxy teaches.

    I know, but the point is your false statement that there are no reasons whatsoever to believe in Eastern Orthodoxy has been refuted.

    >If a succession doesn't keep those churches from
    >error and from being false churches by your own
    >standards, then why should we believe that a
    >succession assures your denomination of
    >avoiding such things?

    Because nobody ever claimed that succession is a guarantee of preserving the truth, it is merely a pre-requisite of preserving the truth. It's just the same as you with scripture. Scripture isn't a guarantee that you understand the truth, it is merely a prerequisite.

    >If you're going to object that we accept scripture
    >through fallible mediators, such as the testimony
    >of fallible historical sources or our own fallible
    >judgment, then the same can be said of your
    >acceptance of Eastern Orthodoxy.

    Wrong. While my acceptance of Eastern Orthodoxy may be fallible, I believe the mediation of the overall Tradition through history is infallible. So I'm fallible in my interpretation of it, as every human being is in whatever they do. But the transmission of the truth to me is available through infallible sources: the living church.

    You are reliant on many fallible links. Apart from the ones already discussed, the transmission and identification of the canon, the criteria of the canon, the interpretation of doctrine, you've got the transmission of the text itself through fallible scribes. You truely do have to evaluate every verse one by one to decide what doctrinal weight you should put onto it. What does John 1:18 say about Christ? Before you can exegete, you have to decide for yourself what the text actually is. Another fallible link in the chain. I'm free to evaluate what it is too, but I do so within the context of the overall religion. I'm not going to be up and changing my Christology based on a decision about the text which ultimately traces back to my own fallibility when the church has spoken on that issue. And that's why our Church can stay together for 2000 years, and protestants can't, because we recognize the overall church being led by the Spirit.

    >Telling us that some other Eastern Orthodox
    >hold a different view of doctrinal history than
    >you hold, doesn't justify what you've argued.

    Depends what your aim is here. To have the satisfaction of scoring points against me, or to prove something about Orthodoxy. If you want to feel like you've scored points against me, I don't care. My aim is not to promote my personal opinions.

    >an ecumenical council was needed to address it
    >hundreds of years later.

    What is your position? Was the trinity made authoritatively clear in the 1st century by scripture? If so, why was an ecumenical council needed hundreds of years later?

    >Again, if men like Epiphanius were Eastern
    >Orthodox, as you've claimed, then why would
    >they reject teachings that were "certainly
    >authoritatively clear" in their day?

    This is what the Catholic Encyclopedia says about Epiphanius:

    "His character is most clearly shown by the Origenist controversies, which demonstrated his disinterested zeal but also his quickness to suspect heresy, a good faith which was easily taken advantage of by the intriguing, and an ardour of conviction which caused him to forget the rules of canon law and to commit real abuses of power."

    When protestants start trawling the ECFs looking for crumbs to support them, they seem to lose a sense of overall perspective. These folks were human beings, in some cases deeply flawed human beings. Epiphanius was controversial enough that he was off openly opposing the Patriarch of Constantinople. Clearly submission to authorities was not one of his strong suits.

    >I don't claim that all first millennium Christians
    >were members of my denomination, that my
    >canon has been held by that denomination
    >throughout church history, that I can show that
    >even church fathers as early as the second
    >century followed it, etc. Since you make different
    >claims about an issue like the veneration of
    >images than I make about an issue like the
    >canon, treating the two as if they're in the same
    >category doesn't make sense.

    Well you're confusing the basic things that Orthodoxy claims with what I personally believe.

    >If future discoveries weigh against your
    >denomination's claims, it would make no sense
    >to ignore those future discoveries. As I've told
    >you before, I'm honest enough to face the truth.

    Are you REALLY honest enough, or do you merely gather together your apologetic gusto to refute those things which are a threat to your own sources of authority? When the scholars come out saying that the pastoral epistles are "pseudo Pauline", did you sit down, carefully weighing the pros and cons like the statue of blind lady justice, coming to a balance of probabilities decision? Or do you run off looking for ways to refute the new found threat, gathering together every bit of ammo to throw whilst ignoring the weight of the opposition?

    Come now, be honest. We all can see where you are at.

    >people would have remembered a widely
    >accepted canon that included several more
    >books during the time of the apostles, if such a
    >widely accepted canon

    You assume that there was agreement about the canon, when I argue there was not.

    >If it did happen, and if opposition to Christianity
    >was the primary or only motive, then we wouldn't
    >expect the Jews involved to remove books like
    >Tobit and 1 Maccabees while keeping books like
    >Isaiah and Daniel.

    So you claim, but I've already given reasons why it could play out this way. Your crystal ball has no more information than mine.

    >We wouldn't expect such a change in the canon
    >to go unmentioned by the earliest Christian
    >sources.

    So you claimed before. And as I explained before, there is no doubt about the change in canon, the only argument is in which direction it occured.

    >Justin Martyr accuses some Jews (not all) of
    >altering the text of some passages of scripture,
    >but he says nothing of the removal of the books
    >you want to include.

    Since Justin was probably writing from Italy conversing with Jews who were themselves probably using the LXX in a completely different society from which Jews in Palestine circulated, I hardly think this is of any significance.

    >The Christians who do accept one or more of the
    >Apocryphal books accept different ones in
    >different cases. They don't seem to have any
    >knowledge of a particular set of Apocryphal
    >books that had been widely accepted at the time
    >of Jesus and the apostles or earlier.

    Well they believed they had such knowledge. Whether you think they had real knowledge is your judgment call.

    >If the canon that you refer to as "forming" in the
    >first century doesn't seem to have included the
    >Apocryphal books you want to add, then why
    >should we think that the Old Testament Jesus
    >and the apostles appealed to included such
    >books?

    Huh?? The very nature of a canon in formation is an ongoing process of acceptance. The fact that Christians generally DID accept these books without any great discussion or argument indicates to me that they WERE generally included.

    But again, THERE IS NO LIST, so you can't neatly cordon off your books and say "these are the sure ones", and point to the others saying "these are the questionable ones". There is a very fuzzy line between both groups. You can't say for sure the limits of what they accepted.

    >Eastern Orthodox disagree with each other about
    >what is and isn't Tradition,

    They SOMETIMES disagree. That excludes that description "SOLA".

    >and even if all agreed on the issue, it would still
    >be your personal judgment to follow their
    >position rather than a Roman Catholic view of
    >Tradition

    That's still not "sola". I'm giving the history of the Church a say.

    >Not only is it theoretically possible that Eastern
    >Orthodox would disagree with each other about
    >what is and isn't Tradition, but we know that
    >they have had such disagreements and still do.

    But as I've explained before, we have a mechanism and a committment to fix such disagreements if they threaten unity. You do not. When problems come, you just split off a new church and keep going.

    >Now you're making a claim about the books
    >we've cited on 2 Peter. Have you read those
    >books?

    What for, since you only claim they "address the issues". That's not a hard proof of canonicity. If it was, the liberal scholars would have given up that theory, right?

    >You've already acknowledged that you rely on
    >fallible witnesses, such as church fathers and
    >lexicons, to identify and interpret your rule of
    >faith. If you can do it, why can't I?

    Because the sum total of the Holy Tradition is not fallible. We can both look to the fallible witnesses, but only I have an ecclesiology where I can arrive at an infallible result.

    >As I've told you before, it's incorrect to say that
    >"all the early church" attests to the monarchical
    >episcopate. As fathers such as John Chrysostom
    >and Jerome noted, the monarchical episcopate
    >was a gradual development that didn't exist
    >everywhere.

    I'm not aware of Chrysostom saying anything about it. Jerome doesn't "attest" to anything other than a monarchial episcopate. He gives an opinion it wasn't always so, but he gives no reason to believe he has any inside knowledge that we don't have. There's no solid evidence that it was a "gradual development", given its early and widespread attestation. In fact, James appears to be the bishop of Jerusalem in Acts.

    And even if it wasn't the earliest practice, that wouldn't refute my actual proposition, which is that it was an apostolic command that the church should have a monarchial episcopate at a later date. Scholars have recognized that there is an evolving ecclesiology even within the book of Acts.

    >The claim that Ignatius was a disciple of the
    >apostles wasn't made until long after his lifetime.

    Well the history is that he was bishop for 40 years, 30 of which were prior to John's death. And that's ignoring the tradition that he was appointed by Peter himself. Don't you think during those 30 years he might have met John?

    But I guess now even these highly specific traditions about who he met are now unreliable? And yet the murky tradition of who approved Mark and in what context is rock solid?

    >If you can disagree with the fathers on some
    >issues, yet accept their testimony on issues
    >related to what you believe about church
    >authority, then why can't I accept some of their
    >beliefs while rejecting others?

    Because doing so as a hodge podge on every conceivable issue can never lead to the unified church that Christ said he was aiming for. If you think Ignatius knew the apostles, and your protestant friend doesn't, and you have different church polities as a result, how can that ever lead to church unity? Yes I look to Ignatius and others to find the true church as a matter of history, but I do so with the result of finding the unity that Christ desired, whereas you do it to find yet another personal opinion and schism. If all God wanted was everyone with a different opinion, he could have stayed in heaven.

    >Pauline authorship of Hebrews is disputed by
    >some of the earliest fathers

    The point remains. On an issue that you need certainty on: authorship, history has become confused. You can't say purely historically that history can become confused on one book but is oh so certain everywhere else.

    >In other words, you don't want to give us a
    >justification for your claims about your
    >denomination. You attempted a justification
    >earlier, and it failed, so now you're claiming that
    >this forum isn't the place for such a discussion. If
    >it's not the place now, why was it a fitting place
    >previously?

    I drop some pearls on you from time to time. It doesn't mean I'm opening the entire treasury. Everyone is fully capable of exploring Orthodoxy themselves. The best exploration is Psalm 34:8, "taste and see", not yet another round of intellectual naval gazing that the west is so fond of.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Orthodox writes:

    "Let's say I need 100 points of evidence before I believe something is inspired. If I evaluate Timothy or 2 Peter separately, and they only get 30 points, that's a problem. But if I evaluate the Church as a whole I can get some points here, some points there and get a few thousand points, and I accept the whole religion as a package deal. Then it doesn't matter if Timothy has 1 point or 100 points. And some of those points could be personal experience. If see some miracle in the Church, that might be a couple of points and I don't even need consult history about 1 Timothy. For example, I've experienced certain miraculous events related to icons. Now if God were anti-orthodox icons, it seems unlikely he would be sending down icon related miracles."

    If you're going to include "personal experience", then so can Protestants. And telling us about the theoretical possibilities involving what "points" you would assign to different factors does nothing to establish your earlier claims about 1 Timothy. Your appeal to 1 Timothy 3:15 was contradicted by your later arguments, which is why you keep trying to avoid giving a justification for your earlier appeal to 1 Timothy.

    You write:

    "You on the other hand need those 100 points of evidence for everything you hold to. You need it for each book in scripture and you need it for each doctrine you propose to believe."

    The only way we can evaluate your analogy is if you tell us what the terms mean. What are the "points" equivalent to? Simply saying that we need "100 points", then asserting that Protestants don't have that, gives us no reason to agree with you. I could just as easily say that Eastern Orthodox need "100 points", then assert that they don't have that many points.

    You write:

    "Everyone has their own standards of evidence with predictable results."

    You have your own standards, which is why you're Eastern Orthodox rather than Buddhist or Roman Catholic. You use your own standards to disagree with other Eastern Orthodox about how to argue for Eastern Orthodoxy, what is Tradition and what isn't, etc.

    You write:

    "You keep saying you've documented things, and then when I go back and check it is never there. Just some vague obfuscation from your favourite scholars. No cigar."

    The scholar I cited referred to specific passages in the patristic sources, passages you didn't interact with. And I cited other passages, from Tertullian and other sources. Again, anybody interested can read our exchange and see why you left the thread without addressing the evidence against your claims:

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/unity-apostolic-succession-and.html

    You write:

    "Because nobody ever claimed that succession is a guarantee of preserving the truth, it is merely a pre-requisite of preserving the truth."

    And how do you supposedly know that?

    You write:

    "So I'm fallible in my interpretation of it, as every human being is in whatever they do. But the transmission of the truth to me is available through infallible sources: the living church."

    Truth is transmitted to me through the infallible scriptures. If you're going to object that I accept that infallible source by means of fallible mediators, then the same objection can be applied to your system. You've already acknowledged that you identify and interpret your allegedly infallible denomination by means of fallible mediators. Or are you going to contradict yourself again?

    You write:

    "Apart from the ones already discussed, the transmission and identification of the canon, the criteria of the canon, the interpretation of doctrine, you've got the transmission of the text itself through fallible scribes."

    You keep using self-defeating arguments. Are you saying that the documents you rely on to trust in and interpret Eastern Orthodoxy have been preserved infallibly? The writings of Tertullian you've cited are preserved infallibly? How do you allegedly know that? Where has Eastern Orthodoxy given us an infallible text for every Biblical book, each ecumenical council, etc.? Are you saying that Eastern Orthodox Bibles have never differed from one another in any aspect of their text? In the past, you've claimed that every Christian of the first millennium was Eastern Orthodox. Yet, different first millennium sources accept different texts for passages like Mark 16 and John 7-8. If those first millennium Christians didn't have and didn't need an infallible textual transmission, then why do we supposedly need it? Your denomination hasn't even settled disputes over the canon among its own members, much less has it given us an infallible text for the Bible.

    You write:

    "And that's why our Church can stay together for 2000 years, and protestants can't, because we recognize the overall church being led by the Spirit."

    How do you know that you've "stayed together for 2000 years"? Is every document you rely on to make that judgment infallibly preserved? Or is it acceptable for you to rely on fallible texts, whereas Protestants can't?

    You write:

    "Was the trinity made authoritatively clear in the 1st century by scripture? If so, why was an ecumenical council needed hundreds of years later?"

    I don't claim that the councils in question were "needed". And I don't claim that every Christian belonged to my denomination, a denomination that supposedly was teaching a Trinitarian view of God throughout church history, as the infallible interpreter of scripture. Again, I make different claims about church history than you do. When somebody like Epiphanius contradicts you, that contradiction has significance that his contradicting me doesn't have.

    You write:

    "Epiphanius was controversial enough that he was off openly opposing the Patriarch of Constantinople. Clearly submission to authorities was not one of his strong suits."

    Athanasius also opposed "authorities". You've said, in other contexts, that the laity have to sometimes reject what the hierarchy does. But now you're using unqualified references to "submission to authorities" to criticize Epiphanius. So, in addition to disagreeing with you on the veneration of images, Epiphanius disagreed with you on matters of church authority. How does such a fact help your case? Why are we supposed to think that Epiphanius was Eastern Orthodox? Adding "submission to authorities" to the list of issues he disagreed with you about doesn't advance your argument.

    And what about the many other patristic sources who opposed the veneration of images? Were they all opposing church authority, yet they were all Eastern Orthodox who had no significant disagreements with each other, as you claimed about all first millennium Christians in an earlier discussion?

    You write:

    "Since Justin was probably writing from Italy conversing with Jews who were themselves probably using the LXX in a completely different society from which Jews in Palestine circulated, I hardly think this is of any significance."

    Readers should note how often Orthodox utilizes such bad arguments. It tells us something about how ignorant he is of these issues.

    Justin Martyr lived in Italy for a while, but he also lived in other places, including Israel. And he would have heard about Christians and Jews who lived elsewhere. The fact that he lived in Italy for a while doesn't prove that his comments are only applicable to the people who lived there. If the Jewish people removed several books from a widely accepted canon, especially if they did so in opposition to Christianity, it would be difficult for somebody like Justin to not hear of it. And it's unlikely that other early Christian sources would fail to mention it as well, that some Christian sources would even appeal to the Jews as reliably handing down the canon, etc. The argument that the Jews removed the books you want to add is highly implausible on multiple grounds.

    You write:

    "That's still not 'sola'. I'm giving the history of the Church a say."

    Why do you have to be corrected on the same points so many times? Again, if you can rely on sources outside of your rule of faith, such as fallible church fathers and fallible lexicons and fallible archeological assessments, then why can't Protestants rely on sources outside of their rule of faith? The fact that you don't use the term "sola" to describe your rule of faith doesn't change the fact that you limit your rule of faith to some entities and not others. The "sola" is present in your rule of faith in principle, regardless of whether you use the term "sola". If you can "give the history of the Church a say" in the sense of relying on fallible witnesses outside of your rule of faith, then why can't I do the same?

    You write:

    "But as I've explained before, we have a mechanism and a committment to fix such disagreements if they threaten unity. You do not. When problems come, you just split off a new church and keep going."

    Again, how do you know that denominational unity is the standard? You assume it, but never prove it.

    If somebody leaves your denomination, as some people do, you no longer consider that person Eastern Orthodox. What you're saying, then, is that all Eastern Orthodox are Eastern Orthodox. There are no Eastern Orthodox who are members of some other denomination. The same is true of any group that defines its rule of faith in a denominational manner. Why is that fact supposed to impress us?

    You write:

    "What for, since you only claim they 'address the issues'."

    I didn't say that they only "address the issues" in the sense you're suggesting. You made a claim about what the books we cited contain. I asked you if you had read the books. Now you ask us "what for". If you haven't read the books, then how can you dismiss them as you have?

    You write:

    "That's not a hard proof of canonicity. If it was, the liberal scholars would have given up that theory, right?"

    You're using another self-defeating argument. If Protestants need "hard proof" that makes liberals "give up" their theories, then you need the same. Yet, there are many liberals who still haven't accepted the authority claims of Eastern Orthodoxy. Why are you asking Protestants for "hard proof" that makes liberals "give up" when you don't apply that standard to your alleged reasons for believing in Eastern Orthodoxy?

    You write:

    "ecause the sum total of the Holy Tradition is not fallible. We can both look to the fallible witnesses, but only I have an ecclesiology where I can arrive at an infallible result."

    If your "result" is infallible because of the alleged infallibility of your Traditions, then why isn't my "result" infallible because of the alleged infallibility of my books of scripture?

    You write:

    "I'm not aware of Chrysostom saying anything about it. Jerome doesn't 'attest' to anything other than a monarchial episcopate. He gives an opinion it wasn't always so, but he gives no reason to believe he has any inside knowledge that we don't have."

    First you said that "all the early church" attested to the monarchical episcopate. Now you're saying that you're "not aware" of Chrysostom's comments (which I am aware of), and you're dismissing Jerome's view on the basis that "he gives no reason to believe he has any inside knowledge that we don't have". If Jerome thought that it was acceptable for some earlier churches to not have a monarchical episcopate, then the fact that the monarchical episcopate existed in his day doesn't prove that Jerome "attested" the monarchical episcopate in any way relevant to your argument. I also "attest" it in the sense of considering it one acceptable form of church government among others.

    You write:

    "And even if it wasn't the earliest practice, that wouldn't refute my actual proposition, which is that it was an apostolic command that the church should have a monarchial episcopate at a later date."

    Where is that apostolic command?

    You write:

    "Well the history is that he was bishop for 40 years, 30 of which were prior to John's death. And that's ignoring the tradition that he was appointed by Peter himself. Don't you think during those 30 years he might have met John?"

    You're not giving us any sources. Again, I'm aware of late sources who refer to Ignatius as a disciple of the apostles. But you've given us no sources, much less any reason to agree with those sources.

    You write:

    "And yet the murky tradition of who approved Mark and in what context is rock solid?"

    As I said, I have articles in the archives of this blog documenting how Mark was viewed among first and second century sources and the implications of those views. You've given us nothing comparable regarding your view of Ignatius of Antioch.

    You write:

    "The point remains. On an issue that you need certainty on: authorship, history has become confused."

    You keep demanding "certainty" and evidence from us while tellling us that probability and less or no evidence is acceptable for you.

    ReplyDelete
  13. >If you're going to include "personal experience",
    >then so can Protestants.

    But what can a personal experience prove to a protestant? I havn't heard any faith testimonies or miracle stories that 2 Peter is scripture. And if you had such an experience, all you would have proved is just 2 Peter, after which I guess you would have to hope for 65 more miracles.

    >What are the "points" equivalent to? Simply
    >saying that we need "100 points", then asserting
    >that Protestants don't have that, gives us no
    >reason to agree with you. I could just as easily
    >say that Eastern Orthodox need "100 points",
    >then assert that they don't have that many
    >points.

    Points can mean whatever you want them to mean. Make up your own definition of points, then go interview the people at your local church. Ask them to give you 100 points of proof that 2 Peter is scripture, or else testify that they have ever in their lives found 100 points. My guess is you're met with blank stares. So the adherents of your religion are basing their faith on nothing at all. Now go ask an Orthodox Christian for the required number of reasons they believe in the inspiration of the Orthodox church. Nobody will stare at you blankly, they'll give you a bunch of reasons.

    Isn't it interesting that we generally know the basis for our faith, but protestants generally don't?

    >The scholar I cited referred to specific passages
    >in the patristic sources, passages you didn't
    >interact with.

    So you cited someone who cited someone who cited someone. I guess it would be too devastating to your position to actually quote the text in question and not hide behind your scholars?

    >>"Because nobody ever claimed that succession
    >>is a guarantee of preserving the truth, it is
    >>merely a pre-requisite of preserving the truth."
    >
    >And how do you supposedly know that?

    Firstly because it is a Tradition, and Paul said to hold to the traditions. Secondly because the act of holding to the traditions requires succession.

    >Truth is transmitted to me through the infallible
    >scriptures. If you're going to object that I accept
    >that infallible source by means of fallible
    >mediators, then the same objection can be
    >applied to your system.

    Wrong, because the overall mediator in my system is an infallible Church.

    >You've already acknowledged that you identify
    >and interpret your allegedly infallible
    >denomination by means of fallible mediators. Or
    >are you going to contradict yourself again?

    That individuals are fallible does not negate that the whole is infallible.

    >Are you saying that the documents you rely on to
    >trust in and interpret Eastern Orthodoxy have
    >been preserved infallibly?

    I don't have to say that because what Orthodoxy claims to preserve is the true faith. Individual conduits of the true faith, the text of scripture, the individuals passing on the traditions, can be done fallibly, yet the end result, the true faith, is divinely transported in the church. There is no point having a perfect text which does not result in the true faith. We would probably both agree that scripture alone has only rarely resulted in people having the true faith (although we would disagree on why, and who they were).

    >How do you know that you've "stayed together
    >for 2000 years"? Is every document you rely on
    >to make that judgment infallibly preserved? Or is
    >it acceptable for you to rely on fallible texts,
    >whereas Protestants can't?

    Perhaps the math can enlighten you where text cannot.

    Because you evaluate each piece individually, every doubt compounds. If you have a 5% doubt about every book of the NT, you only have an 18% chance that you have the correct canon. That means you are almost certainly hearing regular sermons from false books.

    But if you evaluate the evidence towards a single goal: a true church, each piece of evidence diminishes doubt. So if there were 27 pieces of evidence that point me towards the true church, each containing 5% doubt, then there is only a
    .000000000000000000000000000000000000074505% chance I have the wrong faith. Or in other words, basically zero. The exact numbers or issues of doubt aren't important, it is the basic concept that you can take the religion piecemeal, smorgasboard style, and hope to come up with the true faith.

    >I don't claim that the councils in question were
    >"needed".

    Neither do I. This was the false characterization you were trying to lay on me.

    >Athanasius also opposed "authorities". You've
    >said, in other contexts, that the laity have to
    >sometimes reject what the hierarchy does. But
    >now you're using unqualified references to
    >"submission to authorities" to criticize Epiphanis

    It's not a criticism per se, it is simply an observation about peculiarities of his character. Merely because opposing authorities under certain circumstances can be permissible doesn't mean we shouldn't evaluate their actions in light of their traits. Worse for Epiphanis from an Orthodox point of view is that he opposed Chrysostom, one of the most highly thought of saints. Yet strangely he doesn't appear to have criticized Chrysostom's use of, nor veneration of icons. Isn't that interesting?

    >And what about the many other patristic sources
    >who opposed the veneration of images?

    "Many" other? Is this again where you cite a citation of someone citing a citation? I don't recall any number that I would regard as many.

    Whatever ones there are you seem to put great stock in. I put more stock in the deafening silence of criticism about a practice that came to be practiced from East to West. How jarring would it be if in a baptist church people wholesale suddenly started venerating icons? It would be very jarring huh? Yet there isn't much of a blip in the historical record that some change took place. Isn't this your big argument about the Jewish canon, a lack of comment?

    >>"Since Justin was probably writing from Italy
    >>conversing with Jews who were themselves
    >>probably using the LXX in a completely different
    >>society from which Jews in Palestine circulated, I
    >>hardly think this is of any significance."
    >
    >Readers should note how often Orthodox utilizes
    >such bad arguments. It tells us something about
    >how ignorant he is of these issues.

    Having pulled out the ad-hominem again, let's see if you can document your claims, or if it is all obfuscation again.

    >Justin Martyr lived in Italy for a while, but he also
    >lived in other places, including Israel.

    I know of no evidence that Justin Martyr liven in Israel subsequent to his conversion, which is all that matters to us. I see no reason to believe the Jews Justin came into contact with weren't using the LXX just the same as Justin used. In fact even Josephus who you think is in some indefinable way on your side, and who lived in Israel, used the LXX. I know of no serious scholar who argues that the LXX of the 1st century was devoid of deuterocanonical books.

    As we both know, at the very least, many of the early Christians believed in the more extensive canon. Protestants would have us believe this is because those poor ignorant Christians were ignorant of the Jews. But now you say it is implausible for Christians to be ignorant of the Jews.

    You always want it both ways in these arguments.

    >Again, how do you know that denominational
    >unity is the standard? You assume it, but never
    >prove it.

    What other kind of unity has significance? In your invisible church theory, everyone who agrees with the important points are the Church. So what's the point of Jesus' prayer that the Church should be one? If you define Church and its unity as the unity of those who agree with the core propositions, then you've just defined a tautology.

    >What you're saying, then, is that all Eastern
    >Orthodox are Eastern Orthodox. There are no
    >Eastern Orthodox who are members of some
    >other denomination. The same is true of any
    >group that defines its rule of faith in a
    >denominational manner. Why is that fact
    >supposed to impress us?

    The impressible part is holding an organization together for 2000 years. If you were going to be truthful you would be forced to admit that holding any organization together for 2000 years is impressive.

    >you haven't read the books, then how can you
    >dismiss them as you have?

    Because you just told me they don't prove 2 Peter canonical.

    >If Protestants need "hard proof" that makes
    >liberals "give up" their theories, then you need
    >the same. Yet, there are many liberals who still
    >haven't accepted the authority claims of Eastern
    >Orthodoxy.

    The problem of liberals is their adversion to accepting supernatural claims of any description. That rules out any hope of them accepting Orthodox claims to authority. However who wrote what book is a mere matter of history that even athiests can agree on if the evidence exists.

    >If your "result" is infallible because of the alleged
    >infallibility of your Traditions, then why isn't my
    >"result" infallible because of the alleged
    >infallibility of my books of scripture?

    Because there is no infallibility chain between Jesus and you. Infallibility is like keeping something pure. Any step in its handling is liable to corrupt it without an infallible system for keeping it pure. If you take something pure, then mix it with the impure, you can never be certain again of its purity. You can't be sure of scripture's purity because it comes to you surrounded by a host of problems and questions as to its status via "traditions" that are impure in your system.

    >Now you're saying that you're "not aware" of
    >Chrysostom's comments (which I am aware of)

    Wow, so you're "aware" of something, but you're not going to share it. Isn't that interesting.

    >Jerome thought that it was acceptable for some
    >earlier churches to not have a monarchical
    >episcopate, then the fact that the monarchical
    >episcopate existed in his day doesn't prove that
    >Jerome "attested" the monarchical episcopate in
    >any way relevant to your argument.

    Neither did he testify against a monarchial episcopate in any way that is relevant to your argument.

    And even if it wasn't the earliest practice, that wouldn't refute my actual proposition, which is that it was an apostolic command that the church should have a monarchial episcopate at a later date."

    >Where is that apostolic command?

    It's in the tradition of the early fathers. Remember your big argument that the silence about the change of canon was supposed to be some big argument for your side? So where is the big 2nd century argument against the monarchial episcopate? There is nothing so divisive as church polity because it relates to power, and power is always controversial. Everyone wants it, and no one wants to give it up. But there is no blip in history.

    >Again, I'm aware of late sources who refer to
    >Ignatius as a disciple of the apostles. But you've
    >given us no sources, much less any reason to
    >agree with those sources.

    I have no idea what you consider "late", so I don't know what standard I have to aim for here.

    But if you don't trust say 4th century sources who tell us who Ignatius was and basic facts about who he knew among the apostles, why do you trust the transmission of history concerning who these ECFs were who attest to apostolic approval of Mark? How do you know history doesn't exaggerate their position and links to the apostles? I'll bet whoever you will cite for Mark won't be as early as Ignatius, and thus wouldn't have the same simple plausibility.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Orthodox writes:

    "But what can a personal experience prove to a protestant? I havn't heard any faith testimonies or miracle stories that 2 Peter is scripture. And if you had such an experience, all you would have proved is just 2 Peter, after which I guess you would have to hope for 65 more miracles."

    Once again, you've responded without giving the issue under discussion much thought. Just as you can conclude that an alleged miracle occurring in relation to an icon is meant to support the practice of venerating icons, a Protestant could claim to have experienced a miracle in relation to the Bible and interpret that miracle as support for the authority of the Bible.

    You write:

    "Points can mean whatever you want them to mean. Make up your own definition of points, then go interview the people at your local church. Ask them to give you 100 points of proof that 2 Peter is scripture, or else testify that they have ever in their lives found 100 points. My guess is you're met with blank stares. So the adherents of your religion are basing their faith on nothing at all. Now go ask an Orthodox Christian for the required number of reasons they believe in the inspiration of the Orthodox church. Nobody will stare at you blankly, they'll give you a bunch of reasons. Isn't it interesting that we generally know the basis for our faith, but protestants generally don't?"

    You're not giving us any reason to agree with your assessment. Why should we trust your judgment about how the average Protestant and the average Eastern Orthodox would respond? And how would the alleged response of the average Protestant prevent me from giving a better response?

    If you're suggesting that the case we make for our beliefs in a forum such as this one should be at a level that the average Protestant or average Eastern Orthodox would provide, then are we to believe that the average Eastern Orthodox would know who men such as Origen and Epiphanius are, would be discussing the details of their lives and their theology, would be appealing to lexicons to define words in an ecumenical council, etc.? Is an Eastern Orthodox factory worker in Russia, for example, going to be significantly familiar with Chalcedonian Christology or how Acts 15 has historically been interpreted in relation to ecumenical councils, for instance? If not, should you refrain from discussing such issues when arguing for Eastern Orthodoxy?

    If you're suggesting that the average Protestant would need to know how to respond to every objection that might be raised against the canonicity of a document like 2 Peter, then you ought to apply the same standard to the average Eastern Orthodox. Just as you can ask a Protestant for evidence that Paul was an apostle before accepting any of Paul's writings as apostolic, I could ask the same of an Eastern Orthodox before accepting his appeal to 1 Timothy 3:15. How does he know when to date the document? How does he know who wrote it? How does he know that Paul was an apostle in the same sense as the Twelve? How does he know that Paul wasn't just expressing a false personal opinion in 1 Timothy 3:15? Etc. I could also ask the average Eastern Orthodox how he knows that documents attributed to men like Irenaeus and Athanasius were actually written by those men. How does he know that the text of those alleged patristic documents hasn't been corrupted? How does he know that his local Eastern Orthodox leaders are teaching things consistent with the mind of the church? Etc.

    What you seem to be doing is demanding the most detailed of defenses of 2 Peter from Protestants while accepting something like a vague appeal to "Tradition", "consensus", etc. from Eastern Orthodox. You seem to be applying a double standard. You judge Protestants by how well they'd answer the most advanced of questions while judging Eastern Orthodox by how well they'd answer questions less advanced. That's a false comparison. If you aren't making such a false comparison, then how do you justify what you're claiming about the average Protestant and the average Eastern Orthodox?

    You write:

    "So you cited someone who cited someone who cited someone. I guess it would be too devastating to your position to actually quote the text in question and not hide behind your scholars?"

    Why did you cut off your quote of what I said just before I mentioned that my article did cite patristic passages? Why would you ask me a question that I had answered just after what you quoted from me, then ignore that answer I had already given?

    You write:

    "Firstly because it is a Tradition, and Paul said to hold to the traditions."

    You're appealing to Paul again, as you did with 1 Timothy 3:15. You'll need, then, to address the questions I've been asking you about 1 Timothy, questions that you've refused to answer so far. You suggested earlier that Protestants couldn't make a historical case for the apostleship of Paul, that they couldn't make a historical case for the inspiration of apostolic writings, etc. So, then, let's apply your own standards to your argument above. How do you know that Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians 2:15 (or whatever Pauline passage you have in mind)? How do you know that what Paul wrote is correct? You can't appeal to church authority, since we're discussing a matter upon which your argument for church authority would depend. Why should we be concerned with what "Paul said" if we have no historical reason to believe that Paul was an apostle or that his writings were Divinely inspired? If you're going to make a historical case for the authority of Paul or the inspiration of 2 Thessalonians, for example, then why did you suggest earlier that Protestants couldn't make such a historical case?

    You write:

    "Secondly because the act of holding to the traditions requires succession."

    How so? And what is "succession"? The term "apostolic succession" can be defined in more than one way. How do you know what the correct definition is?

    You write:

    "Wrong, because the overall mediator in my system is an infallible Church."

    As you acknowledged earlier, you identify and interpret that allegedly infallible church by means of fallible sources. Saying that an infallible church is involved doesn't change the fact that you identify and interpret that church through fallible means. If my doing so with scripture makes my situation unacceptable, then your doing so with your rule of faith makes your situation unacceptable.

    You write:

    "That individuals are fallible does not negate that the whole is infallible."

    The whole what? If you're saying that the whole church is infallible, then how is that relevantly different from my belief that the whole Bible is infallible? Just as I identify and interpret the Bible through fallible means that are outside of the Bible, you do the same with your church.

    The scholars who translate the patristic documents you read aren't all Eastern Orthodox. The lexicons you've appealed to (without documentation) aren't part of the Eastern Orthodox denomination. The archeological evidence you've appealed to when (erroneously) arguing for the veneration of images isn't part of your denomination. You just recently appealed to the Catholic Encyclopedia, not an Eastern Orthodox source, to defend your view of Epiphanius. Etc. You can't claim that all historical data relevant to identifying the church and all sources relevant to interpreting the church are part of your denomination. You rely on fallible means to identify and interpret your rule of faith, and those fallible means can't be said to all be part of your church.

    You write:

    "Individual conduits of the true faith, the text of scripture, the individuals passing on the traditions, can be done fallibly, yet the end result, the true faith, is divinely transported in the church."

    If you're going to distinguish between "the true faith" and documents meant to express it, such as scripture, then so can Protestants. We can view the revelation of God delivered to the Biblical authors as "the true faith" while allowing for fallibility in textual transmission, just as you do. We know that different copies of scripture and different editions of the text of the ecumenical councils, for example, differ from one another. If you can reliably perceive what the ecumenical councils taught, despite the fallibility of the copies of their rulings that we have, then the same is true of scripture for Protestants. Similarly, when you cite a source like Tertullian to argue for church authority, you have to rely on a fallible textual transmission of Tertullian's writings. You can't appeal to church authority to tell you what to believe about Tertullian, since church authority is the issue under consideration. If you can reach reliable conclusions based on fallible texts allegedly coming from sources like Tertullian, then Protestants can reach reliable conclusions based on fallible copies of scripture.

    You write:

    "Because you evaluate each piece individually, every doubt compounds. If you have a 5% doubt about every book of the NT, you only have an 18% chance that you have the correct canon. That means you are almost certainly hearing regular sermons from false books. But if you evaluate the evidence towards a single goal: a true church, each piece of evidence diminishes doubt. So if there were 27 pieces of evidence that point me towards the true church, each containing 5% doubt, then there is only a
    .000000000000000000000000000000000000074505% chance I have the wrong faith. Or in other words, basically zero. The exact numbers or issues of doubt aren't important, it is the basic concept that you can take the religion piecemeal, smorgasboard style, and hope to come up with the true faith."

    You've given us no justification for your assertions. You don't justify the formulas you're using, and you don't justify the numbers you put into the formulas. If you can take every issue involved in your reasoning - whether Jesus existed, whether He was the Messiah, whether a statement like Matthew 16:18 was said by Him, how that saying would be fulfilled, etc. - and claim that only "one goal" is involved, then Protestants can do the same with the Bible. The books all go toward one goal, whether you call that goal "the Bible", "the rule of faith", or something else.

    You write:

    "Worse for Epiphanis from an Orthodox point of view is that he opposed Chrysostom, one of the most highly thought of saints. Yet strangely he doesn't appear to have criticized Chrysostom's use of, nor veneration of icons. Isn't that interesting?"

    Would you tell us why Epiphanius should be expected to have commented on Chrysostom's view of venerating images? And how would his not commenting on the subject change what Epiphanius wrote against venerating images? Should we expect Chrysostom to have commented on Epiphanius' view of venerating images? Did he do so? If not, then is that also "interesting"?

    And I wonder why you keep dismissing the bishop Epiphanius while not dismissing Tertullian, whom you've cited on multiple issues. Tertullian wasn't a bishop, and he became a Montanist. Yet, you haven't been dismissing him like you've been dismissing Epiphanius.

    You write:

    "'Many' other? Is this again where you cite a citation of someone citing a citation? I don't recall any number that I would regard as many."

    Maybe you'd know the answer if you had read the article in which I discussed the subject, an article you admitted having not read after I linked you to it earlier. As I've said repeatedly, we have comments from non-Christian ante-Nicene sources regarding how Christians in general viewed images. We also have comments about Christians in general from early Christian sources. And the council of Elvira, which I discussed earlier, was attended by dozens of church leaders, including nineteen bishops, among them the prominent Nicene bishop Hosius of Cordova. I cited two non-Protestant scholars, the Eastern Orthodox John McGuckin and the Roman Catholic Ludwig Ott, referring to widespread opposition to the veneration of images, not just something like one or two sources. I've repeatedly given you this sort of documentation, and you've repeatedly failed to reconcile it with your false claims about church history, and you've repeatedly failed to give us any comparable evidence in support of the veneration of images in the earliest centuries. Instead, you've focused on the later church fathers.

    You write:

    "I put more stock in the deafening silence of criticism about a practice that came to be practiced from East to West."

    The council of Elvira ordered that images of Christ not be placed in churches. That's "deafening silence"? Epiphanius took down an image in a church and wrote against such use of images. That's "deafening silence"? Were the actions of the later iconoclasts, including their own council prior to Second Nicaea, equivalent to "deafening silence"?

    You write:

    "I know of no evidence that Justin Martyr liven in Israel subsequent to his conversion, which is all that matters to us."

    Why is that "all that matters"? As if non-Christians never hear anything about Judaism or Christianity until they become Christians? As if Justin wouldn't have heard from people, both Christian and non-Christian, who lived in Israel and other places outside of Italy? Thomas Halton, in the introduction to a recent edition of Justin's Dialogue With Trypho, translated by Thomas Falls and edited by Michael Slusser (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003), summarizes the conclusions of A. Hamman regarding where Justin lived. He places Justin "in the Roman colony of Flavia Neapolis, in Palestine (modern Nablus), surrounded by Samaritans and Palestinians" for the first forty years of his life (p. xii). He then has Justin in Italy around 140, then back in Israel from 151-155, then back in Italy (ibid.). Eusebius of Caesarea, in his church history (4:18:6), places Justin's debate with Trypho in Ephesus, not in Italy. Justin seems to have traveled widely. And when he comments on the Jewish opponents of Christianity, he doesn't limit his comments to Jews in Italy. To the contrary, he specifically refers to what Jews had done in Israel and were doing worldwide (for example, see Dialogue With Trypho, 108).

    As I said, if there had been a wide acceptance of the books you want to add to the Jewish Old Testament, and the Jewish people removed those books in opposition to Christianity, it's highly unlikely that somebody like Justin Martyr would be unaware of it. It's even more unlikely that other early sources would fail to mention it as well.

    You write:

    "I see no reason to believe the Jews Justin came into contact with weren't using the LXX just the same as Justin used."

    Our extant versions of the Septuagint are Christian versions and are relatively late versions. They contain different books from copy to copy, and we don't know that every book included in each copy was considered canonical. You don't know what books Justin had, much less do you know that the Jews Justin came into contact with had the same. And Justin addresses Jews in general, not just some minority group of Jews in Italy who disagreed with how other Jews viewed the canon. The assumptions you're making are unreasonable.

    You write:

    "As we both know, at the very least, many of the early Christians believed in the more extensive canon. Protestants would have us believe this is because those poor ignorant Christians were ignorant of the Jews. But now you say it is implausible for Christians to be ignorant of the Jews."

    What is "the more extensive canon"? The people who accepted Apocryphal books accepted different ones in different cases. Tertullian accepted 1 Enoch. Do you?

    I haven't argued that "those poor ignorant Christians were ignorant of the Jews", nor have I argued that "it is implausible for Christians to be ignorant of the Jews". Those aren't the only options. Different Christians would have had different degrees of knowledge and different degrees of interest. But given the widespread disgust with Jewish rejection of Christianity in early Christian circles, it's highly unlikely that something like a Jewish rejection of a canon that they (the Jewish people) had widely accepted at the time of Jesus and the apostles would go unmentioned by the early sources. It's also highly unlikely that the early Christians would have failed to remember that earlier canon or that sources like Athanasius and Jerome would then speak highly of the Jewish preservation of the canon. Melito of Sardis, the earliest Christian source to list an Old Testament canon, seems to have gotten his canon from a church (or churches) in Israel, not from a Jewish source (Roger Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon Of The New Testament Church [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1986], pp. 183-185). Yet, his canon is almost identical to the Protestant one. (His mention of "Wisdom" is a reference to an alternate name for Proverbs, not a reference to an Apocryphal book.) Christian sources seem to have sometimes misunderstood how the Jews were arranging their books. They sometimes mistakenly included Baruch with Jeremiah, for example. But such misunderstandings on lesser details are more plausible than the suggestion that several books were removed in opposition to Christianity with so little trace of that removal left in the historical record.

    You write:

    "What other kind of unity has significance?"

    Scripture repeatedly refers to people who aren't part of the same denomination as united (Luke 9:49-50) or refers to disunity among people who attended the same local assembly (1 Corinthians 1:11-13, 11:18, Philippians 4:2-3). If such unity doesn't have significance, why does scripture address it? As the third century bishop Firmilian put it:

    "For even as the Lord who dwells in us is one and the same, He everywhere joins and couples His own people in the bond of unity, whence their sound has gone out into the whole earth, who are sent by the Lord swiftly running in the spirit of unity; as, on the other hand, it is of no advantage that some are very near and joined together bodily, if in spirit and mind they differ, since souls cannot at all be united which divide themselves from God's unity." (Cyprian's Letter 74:3)

    You write:

    "In your invisible church theory, everyone who agrees with the important points are the Church. So what's the point of Jesus' prayer that the Church should be one? If you define Church and its unity as the unity of those who agree with the core propositions, then you've just defined a tautology."

    John 17:20-21 doesn't use the term "the church". Believers make up the church, but Jesus doesn't say that He's addressing how believers can constitute the church. That's one type of unity, but not the only type.

    You write:

    "Because you just told me they don't prove 2 Peter canonical."

    No, I didn't.

    You write:

    "The problem of liberals is their adversion to accepting supernatural claims of any description. That rules out any hope of them accepting Orthodox claims to authority. However who wrote what book is a mere matter of history that even athiests can agree on if the evidence exists."

    The "history" in question has implications for the occurrence of miracles. If a document like the gospel of John is acknowledged to be written by an eyewitness of Jesus' life, then dismissing what that document reports becomes more difficult than dismissing the testimony of a non-eyewitness.

    You write:

    "You can't be sure of scripture's purity because it comes to you surrounded by a host of problems and questions as to its status via 'traditions' that are impure in your system."

    And the lexicons, archeological data, patristic scholars, Bible translators, etc. that you rely on to identify and interpret your Traditions are "impure in your system". Your own fallible mind is "impure".

    And why do you keep using terms like "sure" and "certain"? As I've explained to you many times, certainty isn't needed. A probability is enough. If probabilities are sufficient for you, then why not for Protestants?

    You keep using self-defeating arguments. Your objections to sola scriptura would defeat your own rule of faith if you applied your reasoning consistently.

    You write:

    "So where is the big 2nd century argument against the monarchial episcopate? There is nothing so divisive as church polity because it relates to power, and power is always controversial. Everyone wants it, and no one wants to give it up. But there is no blip in history."

    As I told you before, I believe that the apostles allowed freedom on some issues of church government, as they did on some other issues. If one acceptable form of church government gradually became more popular than other acceptable forms, I wouldn't expect people to be particularly upset over it. We do see a variety of forms of church government in the early sources, including something other than a monarchical episcopate in some second century sources. The fact that the monarchical episcopate became the popular form of government doesn't contradict anything I've argued.

    And your claim that the apostles must have commanded the acceptance of the monarchical episcopate at some later date is dubious. Why would they initially allow other forms of church government, then tell people to only have a monarchical episcopate later? Why does the shift to the monarchical episcopate seem to be at different times in different places? Did the apostles command different people to make the change at different times in the future? That doesn't seem to make much sense. Can you cite a single early source who claims that the apostles commanded that everybody use the monarchical episcopate, but only after a particular date?

    You write:

    "But if you don't trust say 4th century sources who tell us who Ignatius was and basic facts about who he knew among the apostles, why do you trust the transmission of history concerning who these ECFs were who attest to apostolic approval of Mark? How do you know history doesn't exaggerate their position and links to the apostles? I'll bet whoever you will cite for Mark won't be as early as Ignatius, and thus wouldn't have the same simple plausibility."

    Your last comment is unclear to me. You seem to be comparing the timing of sources commenting on Mark to the timing of Ignatius himself. Wouldn't the more proper comparison be between the timing of sources commenting on Mark and the timing of sources commenting on Ignatius? Or are you comparing the acceptance of Mark as scripture to Ignatius' advocacy of the monarchical episcopate? If so, then you're ignoring what I explained to you in an earlier thread. I consider the monarchical episcopate one acceptable form of church government among others. And it seems that while Ignatius advocated it among some of the churches he wrote to, he refrained from doing so when writing to Rome, probably because Rome had another form of government at the time (as documents like The Shepherd Of Hermas suggest). If Ignatius advocated one of the forms of church government that I consider acceptable, why is that supposed to be problematic for me? And if you think so highly of the earliness of a source like Ignatius, then do you accept what Papias wrote, such as his comments on premillennialism? Do you accept what Hermas wrote about the forgiveness of sins? No, you don't.

    Regardless, you're once again being overly simplistic. There are a lot of factors involved other than what you've mentioned above. We have to consider the consistency of the claim in question with other known facts, the credibility of the sources involved, etc. Just referring to "fourth century sources" isn't enough. Are you suggesting that you agree with everything reported by any fourth century source? I don't deny that Ignatius knew one or more of the apostles. He might have. But I don't affirm it either. There's early, widespread, and credible testimony for such a status for men like Clement of Rome, Papias, and Polycarp. We don't have the same quality of evidence for Ignatius. Early sources who mention the apostolic ties of men like Clement and Polycarp don't mention such apostolic ties when discussing Ignatius.

    By the way, much of what I'm saying here about the monarchical episcopate's being a gradual development, some later sources on Ignatius being unreliable, etc. can also be found in Eastern Orthodox scholarship, such as John McGuckin's Westminster Handbook To Patristic Theology (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), pp. 177-178, for example.

    ReplyDelete
  15. >a Protestant could claim to have experienced a
    >miracle in relation to the Bible and interpret that
    >miracle as support for the authority of the Bible.

    On what basis? You have steadfastly refused to provide a basis to regard your bible as a single unit that can be taken as a final authoritative canon.

    >Why should we trust your judgment about how the
    >average Protestant and the average Eastern
    >Orthodox would respond?

    Don't believe me. Go ask a random protestant to prove 2 Peter.

    >Is an Eastern Orthodox factory worker in Russia,
    >for example, going to be significantly familiar
    >with Chalcedonian Christology or how Acts 15
    >has historically been interpreted in relation to
    >ecumenical councils, for instance? If not, should
    >you refrain from discussing such issues when
    >arguing for Eastern Orthodoxy?

    ????

    As I keep saying, if you take the whole religion in one, not like your smorgasboard religion, you can approach it from any number of angles, and ignoring others. If something is true it is true.

    >If you're suggesting that the average Protestant
    >would need to know how to respond to every
    >objection that might be raised against the
    >canonicity of a document like 2 Peter, then you
    >ought to apply the same standard to the average
    >Eastern Orthodox

    The problem is not whether you can respond to every objection, the problem is whether you have adequate reasons to accept it in the first place. Protestants generally don't.

    >Why did you cut off your quote of what I said just
    >before I mentioned that my article did cite
    >patristic passages?

    There's nothing there.

    >You're appealing to Paul again, as you did with 1
    >Timothy 3:15. You'll need, then, to address the
    >questions I've been asking you about 1 Timothy,
    >questions that you've refused to answer so far.

    No I don't need to answer those questions because I'm not involved in your smorgasboard Christianity. I can believe in 1 Timothy for reasons completely unrelated to Paul or the bible.

    >How so? And what is "succession"? The term
    >"apostolic succession" can be defined in more
    >than one way. How do you know what the correct
    >definition is?

    Pick any definition, and protestants don't have it.

    >Saying that an infallible church is involved
    >doesn't change the fact that you identify and
    >interpret that church through fallible means. If
    >my doing so with scripture makes my situation
    >unacceptable, then your doing so with your rule
    >of faith makes your situation unacceptable.

    Again, and you refuse to interact with the argument, there is a fundamental difference between my personal fallibility and having access to the infallible chain of the faith from God. If you want to equate the two, then scripture becomes superfluous.

    >If you're saying that the whole church is
    >infallible, then how is that relevantly different
    >from my belief that the whole Bible is infallible?

    Again, because you don't have the infallible source to tell you it is infallible. And your bible is reliant on the fallible decision of textual critics, bible translators and lexicon writers.

    >If you can reliably perceive what the ecumenical
    >councils taught, despite the fallibility of the
    >copies of their rulings that we have, then the
    >same is true of scripture for Protestants.

    How do you know? Do you have a proof that your denomination or even you yourself have been led by the Spirit into the true faith? If not, you're just guessing.

    >You don't justify the formulas you're using

    Junior high school probability.

    >and you don't justify the numbers you put into
    >the formulas

    Pick any numbers you like.

    >then Protestants can do the same with the Bible.
    >The books all go toward one goal, whether you
    >call that goal "the Bible", "the rule of faith", or
    >something else.

    You've refused to do that in this discussion. And what bible are you going to test? You pick your own bible smorgasboard style and test that?

    >Would you tell us why Epiphanius should be
    >expected to have commented on Chrysostom's
    >view of venerating images?

    Why wouldn't he? He had an agenda against Chrysostom.

    >Should we expect Chrysostom to have
    >commented on Epiphanius' view of venerating
    >images?

    Don't know. You seem seem to think you have a hotline to what everyone is expected to do.

    >And I wonder why you keep dismissing the
    >bishop Epiphanius while not dismissing
    >Tertullian, whom you've cited on multiple issues.
    >Tertullian wasn't a bishop, and he became a
    >Montanist. Yet, you haven't been dismissing him
    >like you've been dismissing Epiphanius.

    I could give you a number of reasons but at the end of the day, I have an authority, you have smorgasboard Christianity. Why do you reject the opinion of those who rejected Revelation from the canon but accept those who had Revelation in the canon? It's not because you are lady blind justice, that's for sure.

    >And the council of Elvira, which I discussed
    >earlier, was attended by dozens of church
    >leaders, including nineteen bishops, among
    >them the prominent Nicene bishop Hosius of
    >Cordova. I cited two non-Protestant scholars, the
    >Eastern Orthodox John McGuckin and the Roman
    >Catholic Ludwig Ott, referring to widespread
    >opposition to the veneration of images, not just
    >something like one or two sources.

    Yes we know about Spain, and a couple of ECFs, and your favourite scholars. Your scholars versus my scholars, let's give them boxing gloves and let them duke it out.

    >The council of Elvira ordered that images of
    >Christ not be placed in churches. That's
    >"deafening silence"? Epiphanius took down an
    >image in a church and wrote against such use of
    >images. That's "deafening silence"? Were the
    >actions of the later iconoclasts, including their
    >own council prior to Second Nicaea, equivalent to
    >"deafening silence"?

    Are you seriously arguing that prior to 2nd Nicea the Church were iconoclasts, and then suddenly the church changed resulting in the disturbance of 2nd Nicea? I hope you're smart enough to know that is nonsense. 2nd Nicea is irrelevant to the question of whether there was a 4th century struggle over icons.

    Spain and Epiphanius? Yes that is deafening silence in church history compared to any of the significant disputes in church history, it just doesn't rate. And yet it now seems to be the #1 objection of protestants against the Church. It just doesn't make sense.

    >Our extant versions of the Septuagint are
    >Christian versions and are relatively late
    >versions. They contain different books from copy
    >to copy, and we don't know that every book
    >included in each copy was considered canonical.

    Irrelevant. All copies contain deutero-canonicals, and they are not tagged on the end, they are interspersed with the books you consider canonical. No serious scholar that I know of suggests that the Christians inserted the deutero canonicals into an LXX containing a previous Jewish canon.

    >You don't know what books Justin had, much
    >less do you know that the Jews Justin came into
    >contact with had the same.

    No I don't know! And neither do you! But we can guess they both used the LXX and that they both therefore contained deuterocanonicals. That would be what the evidence points us to. If you want to dispute the most likely scenario, I can't help you.

    >What is "the more extensive canon"? The people
    >who accepted Apocryphal books accepted
    >different ones in different cases. Tertullian
    >accepted 1 Enoch. Do you?

    The people who accepted a more limited canon accepted different ones in different cases! Don't try and pretend the shorter canon group had its act together and the longer canon group was in disarray. Both groups didn't agree! THERE IS NO LIST.

    >They sometimes mistakenly included Baruch with
    >Jeremiah, for example. But such
    >misunderstandings on lesser details are more
    >plausible than the suggestion that several books
    >were removed in opposition to Christianity with
    >so little trace of that removal left in the historical
    >record.

    The argument cuts both ways. Where is the furor in the historical record about the addition of books?

    Yes we know the later Jews had a lessor canon. I've suggested possible reasons peculiar to the mindset of later Judaism for adopting that canon (e.g. lack of Hebrew copies). That Christians could be influenced by these Jews is undeniable. But that doesn't mean they are right. Because you belong to a particular tradition that has its own apologetic turf to defend, you'll defend anyone who agrees with you. I assume the Church got it right in the end. If you can't assume that you could just as easily take the scissors to the NT as well.

    >Scripture repeatedly refers to people who aren't
    >part of the same denomination as united (Luke
    >9:49-50)

    No mention of unity here, and I can quote Mt 12:30.

    >or refers to disunity among people who attended
    >the same local assembly (1 Corinthians 1:11-13,
    >11:18, Philippians 4:2-3). If such unity doesn't
    >have significance, why does scripture address it?

    Of course it has significance. All disunity is sin. That these events didn't result in a full blown schism is no excuse.

    >"For even as the Lord who dwells in us is one and
    >the same, He everywhere joins and couples His
    >own people in the bond of unity, whence their
    >sound has gone out into the whole earth, who
    >are sent by the Lord swiftly running in the spirit
    >of unity; as, on the other hand, it is of no
    >advantage that some are very near and joined
    >together bodily, if in spirit and mind they differ,
    >since souls cannot at all be united which divide
    >themselves from God's unity." (Cyprian's Letter
    >74:3)

    There's no help for you in this quote nor Cyprian generally.

    >John 17:20-21 doesn't use the term "the
    >church". Believers make up the church, but Jesus
    >doesn't say that He's addressing how believers
    >can constitute the church. That's one type of
    >unity, but not the only type.

    I thought you'd be too ashamed to bring up John 17:20. Jesus here says that he wants all those who believe in him to become one. In your invisible church theory they already are one. And this also refutes anything you hope to get out of Lk 9.

    >If a document like the gospel of John is
    >acknowledged to be written by an eyewitness of
    >Jesus' life, then dismissing what that document
    >reports becomes more difficult than dismissing
    >the testimony of a non-eyewitness.

    Well we can all claim that. You don't want Ignatius to have known the apostles because it would mean you are wrong.

    >And the lexicons, archeological data, patristic
    >scholars, Bible translators, etc. that you rely on
    >to identify and interpret your Traditions are
    >"impure in your system".

    Which doesn't matter because I can resort to the living church.

    >And why do you keep using terms like "sure" and
    >"certain"? As I've explained to you many times,
    >certainty isn't needed. A probability is enough.

    I don't see probability as the apostolic message. I demonstrated mathematically why I don't have the same probability problem you have.

    >We do see a variety of forms of church
    >government in the early sources

    No you don't.

    >And your claim that the apostles must have
    >commanded the acceptance of the monarchical
    >episcopate at some later date is dubious. Why
    >would they initially allow other forms of church
    >government, then tell people to only have a
    >monarchical episcopate later?

    Firstly I didn't claim they did it later, I said that had they done it later you are not off the hook. Why might they have done it later? Because the age of the monarchial rule by the apostles was ending.

    >Why does the shift to the monarchical episcopate
    >seem to be at different times in different places?

    It doesn't. There is no solid evidence for anything other than the monarchial episcopate.

    >Did the apostles command different people to
    >make the change at different times in the future?

    I don't think so, but if it did play out that way, because the apostolic era ended in different places at different times, you are not off the hook.

    >You seem to be comparing the timing of sources
    >commenting on Mark to the timing of Ignatius
    >himself. Wouldn't the more proper comparison
    >be between the timing of sources commenting
    >on Mark and the timing of sources commenting
    >on Ignatius?

    Not necessarily. If the two primary truths are the book of Mark compared to the apostolic tradition passed onto the Church, then the first witnesses to those things are whoever you have in mind concerning the book of Mark, and Ignatius (and others) for the apostolic tradition.

    But everyone's going to look at that differently, resulting in more opinions, more schisms in the church.

    >As I told you before, I believe that the apostles
    >allowed freedom on some issues of church
    >government

    If you were going to allow freedom in something, issues related to the community and power would be the worst possible choice, as it is an issue you simply can't agree to disagree on and still have unity.

    Besides which we know the apostles set up churches and thus they must have had some polity. It would be just plain wrong to state they didn't decide these things one way or the other.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Orthodox said:

    ">If you're saying that the whole church is
    >infallible, then how is that relevantly different
    >from my belief that the whole Bible is infallible?

    Again, because you don't have the infallible source to tell you it is infallible. And your bible is reliant on the fallible decision of textual critics, bible translators and lexicon writers."

    You also do not have the infallible source to tell you that your church or bible is infallible. Your church and bible are also reliant on the fallible decisions of textual critics, bible translators and lexicon writers and many others.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Orthodox writes:

    "On what basis? You have steadfastly refused to provide a basis to regard your bible as a single unit that can be taken as a final authoritative canon."

    If a miracle related to icons is enough of a basis for you to accept the veneration of icons, as you argued earlier, then a miracle related to the Bible is enough of a basis for a Protestant to accept the Bible. If the miracle in question is related to a Bible that includes all 66 books, then, using your reasoning, I don't need to make a case for each book. The miracle has attested to all 66 together.

    You write:

    "Go ask a random protestant to prove 2 Peter."

    How would asking "a random Protestant" about something justify a conclusion about Protestants in general? Do polling organizations go find "a random person", then publish their findings as representative of people in general?

    You write:

    "As I keep saying, if you take the whole religion in one, not like your smorgasboard religion, you can approach it from any number of angles, and ignoring others."

    You don't initially take Eastern Orthodoxy "as one". You've acknowledged that you first have to believe in Jesus, then you have to form a conclusion about what Jesus taught about the church, then you have to consult what one patristic source said about a subject such as the authority of bishops or apostolic succession, then you have to consult what another patristic source said on such subjects, etc. Only after examining a long series of such factors can you come to the conclusion that Eastern Orthodoxy has the authority you think it has. And you have to make further judgments about what is and isn't Tradition. Eastern Orthodox disagree with each other about what does and doesn't qualify. If your individual judgments involved in whether Eastern Orthodoxy is what it claims to be and what is Tradition and what isn't can be considered one entity because your end result is one rule of faith (all of the Traditions collectively), then I can say the same about my rule of faith. My end result is one Bible.

    You write:

    "I can believe in 1 Timothy for reasons completely unrelated to Paul or the bible."

    Such as?

    And whether you would appeal to Paul with regard to 1 Timothy doesn't change the fact that you appealed to Paul by name with regard to 2 Thessalonians 2:15 (or some other Pauline passage) in a post yesterday. Why did you appeal to the authority of Paul? You suggested earlier that Protestants couldn't make a historical case for accepting the apostleship of Paul (though you ignored the evidence I cited), and you suggested that we can't make a case for the authority of any individual statement Paul made, such as his own references to his apostleship. Yet, here you are appealing to the authority of Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 (if that's the Pauline passage you had in mind). Why the inconsistency?

    You write:

    "Pick any definition, and protestants don't have it."

    Saying that Protestants don't have apostolic succession doesn't prove that your Eastern Orthodox definition of apostolic succession is correct. Why should we think that yours is correct?

    Some Protestants do claim an apostolic succession, such as Anglicans and some Lutherans. And all Protestants could claim a succession in the sense of tracing themselves back through Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, or some other system, all the way back to the time of the apostles. The only way you could object to such definitions of succession is by adding further qualifiers, and you would then have to justify those qualifiers.

    And much as you might argue that the apostolic succession claims of other organizations are invalid, I would argue the same about Eastern Orthodoxy, since your bishops fail to meet the moral and doctrinal requirements set down by the apostles. As men like Irenaeus and Cyprian told us, bishops are only to be followed if they meet moral and doctrinal standards.

    Protestants don't have to "have it" (have apostolic succession) in order to accept the concept as normative. For example, if a source like Clement of Rome tells us that the normal course of church life is for the church leaders appointed by the apostles to be replaced with other men when they leave office for whatever reason, no knowledgeable Protestant should object to such a concept. It doesn't therefore follow that there are never any circumstances in which a church can exist without having a line of bishops going back to the time of the apostles. As Tertullian mentions in the passage I cited in our earlier discussion, new churches are being founded on an ongoing basis. The fact that churches that existed during the time of the apostles have had a continuous succession of leadership doesn't prove that all future churches must have a line of bishops going back to the time of the apostles or that they must be in good relationship with some church that does have such a lineage. You're making a series of assumptions that you aren't justifying.

    As I documented in our earlier discussion (http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/unity-apostolic-succession-and.html), there are some aspects of the early patristic concepts of apostolic succession that you reject. Your vague appeals to apostolic succession don't address the detailed problems that I documented.

    You write:

    "Again, and you refuse to interact with the argument, there is a fundamental difference between my personal fallibility and having access to the infallible chain of the faith from God."

    I don't deny that. What I reject is your refusal to apply the same standards to the Protestant rule of faith. Just as you as a fallible individual can identify and interpret your Tradition through fallible means, yet still have a link to that allegedly infallible Tradition, the same is true of me with regard to scripture.

    You write:

    "Again, because you don't have the infallible source to tell you it is infallible."

    If an infallible source is needed to identify something infallible, then you have an infinite regress.

    You write:

    "And your bible is reliant on the fallible decision of textual critics, bible translators and lexicon writers."

    Likewise, your Bible, your copies of the church fathers, your copies of ecumenical council rulings, etc. are dependent on such fallible sources.

    You write:

    "Why do you reject the opinion of those who rejected Revelation from the canon but accept those who had Revelation in the canon?"

    Why do you accept some things that other Eastern Orthodox have considered Tradition while rejecting other things that other Eastern Orthodox have considered Tradition? You can't say that it's because "the church" has told you what to accept, since the issue under dispute is what "the church" has and hasn't taught. As you've acknowledged, Eastern Orthodox disagree with each other on such issues. They're "fuzzy" on such things, as you put it. Your denomination hasn't even settled on an Old Testament canon. Perhaps you should wait until your denomination has decided on a canon before criticizing Protestants so much for their decision about a canon.

    You write:

    "Yes we know about Spain, and a couple of ECFs, and your favourite scholars."

    I cited much more than what you've just described. And you've failed to explain even the sources you mention above. Even if I had only mentioned those sources above, they would constitute more early evidence against the veneration of images than what you've cited to support the practice. If my sources are too little, then what should we think of your even smaller sources from that same timeframe? The reason why you've been focusing on later church fathers is because the evidence pertaining to earlier generations isn't in your favor.

    But even in those later centuries, let's consider Hosius of Cordova as another example. He was part of the council of Elvira, which opposed the use of images of Christ in churches, and he was prominent at the Council of Nicaea. Is he to be dismissed in the same manner in which you've dismissed Epiphanius? Why didn't your denomination discipline Hosius for what he and dozens of other church leaders did at the council of Elvira? Why was he unaware of the apostolic tradition of venerating images in the first place?

    You write:

    "Are you seriously arguing that prior to 2nd Nicea the Church were iconoclasts, and then suddenly the church changed resulting in the disturbance of 2nd Nicea?"

    No, that's not what I said. Either you're a poor reader or you're being dishonest, if not both.

    You write:

    "All copies contain deutero-canonicals, and they are not tagged on the end, they are interspersed with the books you consider canonical."

    Our copies are later Christian copies. I have a Bible in the desk I'm sitting at as I type, and that Bible includes Apocryphal books without "tagging them on the end". It doesn't therefore follow, from my use of that Bible, that I accept the canonicity of those Apocryphal books.

    The diversity of books included in different Septuagint manuscripts is relevant to the issue under discussion. I was addressing whether the Jews at the time of Jesus and the apostles had a widely accepted canon that included whatever books you would want to add to the modern day Jewish canon. If, instead, they had a variety of canons that included different Apocryphal books, as we see in later Christian copies of the Septuagint, then there wasn't any one widely accepted canon that included your books. That's the issue I was addressing. I understand that you sometimes appeal to the possibility that there was no one widely held canon. You're inconsistent. I was addressing one of your inconsistent positions.

    Are you saying that having different Old Testament canons in different Bibles represents your view of the Old Testament? Do you believe in one Old Testament when you're reading one Bible and another Old Testament when reading another? How can you claim that Tradition has handed down one Old Testament canon under such circumstances? And how do you supposedly know that each of these different Old Testament canons in late Christian copies of the Septuagint represents what ancient Jews believed about the canon? You keep making assumptions that you don't justify.

    You write:

    "The argument cuts both ways. Where is the furor in the historical record about the addition of books?"

    I addressed that issue in my last post, and you ignored much of what I said. Again, the early Christians were disgusted with the early Jewish response to Christ and to early Christianity. Many of the early Christians had a highly negative reaction to the Jewish nation and Jews in general. Some Christians held a higher view of the Jewish people and were more concerned with how the Jews viewed the canon, as we see in Athanasius and Jerome, for example. But in an atmosphere of so much opposition to Judaism and what non-Christian Jews had done to Christianity, Christians are going to tend to be more critical of Jewish errors than their own errors. When somebody like Justin Martyr is writing a work against Judaism, such as his Dialogue With Trypho, we wouldn't expect him to be criticizing Christians for having a wrong Old Testament canon, even if he did disagree with some Christians on the subject. (Given the wide variety of canons that existed under your scenario, Justin would have to have disagreed with some Christians on the subject, yet he doesn't mention that fact.) However, if the Judaism Justin was writing against had rejected several books they had previously widely accepted, we would expect Justin to mention such a fact. And we would expect other sources to mention it. You haven't given us a single historical source who claims that the Jewish people had initially accepted the specific Old Testament books you want to include. You haven't even told us what your Old Testament canon is.

    You write:

    "I assume the Church got it right in the end."

    How has "the church gotten it right" when Eastern Orthodox haven't yet decided on an Old Testament canon? Eastern Orthodox disagree with each other about what the Old Testament should be. An ancient Jewish consensus, supported by some ancient Christian sources, is better than the indecision of your denomination.

    You write:

    "No mention of unity here, and I can quote Mt 12:30."

    So, when Luke 9:49-50 refers to a person as "for" the apostles and Jesus says not to hinder such people, we're to conclude that those people didn't have unity with the apostles? People can be "for" the apostles, and Jesus can want us to not hinder them, while they don't have unity with the apostles? And how would Matthew 12:30 establish your position that unity can only be defined denominationally?

    You write:

    "All disunity is sin. That these events didn't result in a full blown schism is no excuse."

    Then you're admitting what you denied earlier. There are multiple types of unity. People can have denominational unity, yet not have other types of unity, as we see in the passages I cited. And you still haven't proven that denominational unity is necessary.

    You write:

    "I thought you'd be too ashamed to bring up John 17:20. Jesus here says that he wants all those who believe in him to become one. In your invisible church theory they already are one."

    All that you're doing is repeating your earlier assertion without interacting with what I said about John 17. You need to interact with what I said.

    You write:

    "Firstly I didn't claim they did it later, I said that had they done it later you are not off the hook. Why might they have done it later? Because the age of the monarchial rule by the apostles was ending."

    Your unargued speculations about what the apostles "might have done" don't demonstrate that the monarchical episcopate is the only acceptable form of church government.

    You write:

    "I don't think so, but if it did play out that way, because the apostolic era ended in different places at different times, you are not off the hook."

    How do you know that the monarchical episcopate took effect when "the apostolic era ended" in each region? You don't. You're just assuming that the eventual popularity of the monarchical episcopate must have been the result of apostolic command. That assumption isn't equivalent to a proof.

    You write:

    "Besides which we know the apostles set up churches and thus they must have had some polity. It would be just plain wrong to state they didn't decide these things one way or the other."

    Are you saying that every office that has ever existed in an Eastern Orthodox church is an office the apostles commanded? Is every aspect of what occurs in Eastern Orthodox church government something that was commanded by the apostles? And if the apostles allowed freedom on issues like the ones in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8, then how do you supposedly know that they wouldn't do so on some issues related to church government?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Such as the dozens of references in the margin of your NA-27 or the original KJV's cross references. Such as the reference in Heb 11:35 to the events of 2 Maccabees.


    >>So, Orthodox' criterion for canoncity of the deutero-canonicals is the mention of events in something known to be canonical. Leaving aside his previous claim that apostles (plural) quoted from those books, this criterion proves far too much for Orthodox.

    A. A mere mention of an event does not prove the canonicity of the whole volume. Lack of canoncity does not equate to a lack of truth altogether.

    B. Jude quotes from the Book of Enoch. Unless Orthodox is Ethiopian Orthodox, he's put himself in a pickle with his criterion, for Eastern Orthodoxy does not recognize the canonicity of the Book of Enoch. So, if we are to accept 2 Macabees on the basis of a mention in Hebrews, why are we not to accept the Book of Enoch?

    C. Is Orthodox criterion the criterion for canonicity of the Eastern Orthodox church?

    ReplyDelete
  19. >So, Orthodox' criterion for canoncity of the
    >deutero-canonicals is the mention of events in
    >something known to be canonical.

    Please don't take what I said out of context and overlay your own argument onto mine.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Pardon, I'm merely following your own logic, you said:

    Given the clear use of the apostles of the deutero-canonicals, it is reasonable to assume they "approved" of them as edifying and useful to the Church: they must be since they were useful to them.

    When asked for examples, you gave one, and only one, and this argument is part of your argument for the canonicity of the deutero-canonicals.

    It happened to correspond to 2 Macabees, which you believe to be canonical.

    So, your unspoken argument isn't merely that they are useful, but they are canonical, since the one definite example you gave references 2 Macabees.

    But if that's true, it proves too much for you. If true, it would mean that Enoch is canonical.

    So, your logic is spurious, for if valid it proves far too much.

    Is your criterion the criterion of Orthodoxy itself? Where is the infallible tradition? Where is the infallible method for you to know what the true Church is? How do you know that Enoch is not canonical but 2 Macabees is? Why are the Ethiopian Orthodox wrong and your communion correct, particularly when Tertullian accepted it? Please, tell us, what is your criterion for canonicity?

    ReplyDelete
  21. >If the miracle in question is related to a Bible that
    >includes all 66 books, then, using your reasoning, I
    >don't need to make a case for each book. The
    >miracle has attested to all 66 together.

    I don't think the analogy applies because you don't have a theory by which God approving one part of something might make it applicable to all. Besides which our canon is a superset of yours, so God approving 66 does not mean he doesn't approve more.

    >How would asking "a random Protestant" about
    >something justify a conclusion about Protestants
    >in general? Do polling organizations go find "a
    >random person", then publish their findings as
    >representative of people in general?

    So go take a random sample. I predict the answer will be as I said.

    >You don't initially take Eastern Orthodoxy "as
    >one". You've acknowledged that you first have to
    >believe in Jesus, then you have to form a
    >conclusion about what Jesus taught about the
    >church, then you have to consult what one
    >patristic source said about a subject such as the
    >authority of bishops or apostolic succession,
    >then you have to consult what another patristic
    >source said on such subjects, etc. Only after
    >examining a long series of such factors can you
    >come to the conclusion that Eastern Orthodoxy
    >has the authority you think it has.

    There's a fundamental difference between examining issues separately and between considering them as evidence towards a single result. I can do the former with a view to proving the latter.

    >>"I can believe in 1 Timothy for reasons
    >>completely unrelated to Paul or the bible."
    >
    >Such as?

    Such as belief in the church.

    >Yet, here you are appealing to the authority of
    >Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 (if that's the Pauline
    >passage you had in mind). Why the
    >inconsistency?

    Because I'm not into smorgasboard Christianity. I can believe in the whole body of truth on the witness to just one part.

    >Saying that Protestants don't have apostolic
    >succession doesn't prove that your Eastern
    >Orthodox definition of apostolic succession is
    >correct. Why should we think that yours is
    >correct?

    Because I'm not into smorgasboard religion. And on this issue there is only one definition on the menu.

    >Some Protestants do claim an apostolic
    >succession, such as Anglicans and some
    >Lutherans.

    But they have experienced a fundamental and violent break with Tradition that makes their succession worthless.

    >And all Protestants could claim a succession in
    >the sense of tracing themselves back through
    >Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, or some other
    >system, all the way back to the time of the
    >apostles.

    But since you repudiate a major point of succession: holding to the Traditions, then it is worthless.

    >The only way you could object to such
    >definitions of succession is by adding further
    >qualifiers, and you would then have to justify
    >those qualifiers.

    Look to ECFs that discuss succession. I don't need to add qualifiers beyond what is in the tradition.

    >And much as you might argue that the apostolic
    >succession claims of other organizations are
    >invalid, I would argue the same about Eastern
    >Orthodoxy, since your bishops fail to meet the
    >moral and doctrinal requirements set down by
    >the apostles.

    Even your own source of authority is something that was passed down through eastern orthodoxy. You have to believe we have passed on the traditions, you're just picking and choosing which parts you like smorgasboard style. Who told you to pick just that one part? When you took the scriptures from us, we didn't tell you that. The scriptures themselves don't tell you that. Now you are judging us based on not having the full picture. And yet your own denomination quotes approvingly famous figures like John Chrysostom, whom I would submit is clearly Eastern Orthodox. But now you say he fails the moral and doctrinal standards to be a bishop? Why does your denomination give his quote pride of place heading up your list of beliefs? There's complete inconsistency on the part of protestants in how they approach the early church.

    >The fact that churches that existed during the
    >time of the apostles have had a continuous
    >succession of leadership doesn't prove that all
    >future churches must have a line of bishops
    >going back to the time of the apostles

    How do you know? You're assuming your subset of the truth, your unscriptural sola-scriptura doctrine is the source of authority. Who told you that?

    >As I documented in our earlier discussion
    >(http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/unity-
    >apostolic-succession-and.html), there are some
    >aspects of the early patristic concepts of
    >apostolic succession that you reject.

    I didn't see anything I reject.

    >What I reject is your refusal to apply the same
    >standards to the Protestant rule of faith. Just as
    >you as a fallible individual can identify and
    >interpret your Tradition through fallible means,
    >yet still have a link to that allegedly infallible
    >Tradition, the same is true of me with regard to
    >scripture.

    My infallible tradition is a link back to the apostles via the conduit of an infallible church. You don't have an infallible conduit so you have no perfect conduit for preserving the truth. You only have things you consider infallible on the basis of fallible traditions.

    >If an infallible source is needed to identify
    >something infallible, then you have an infinite
    >regress.

    God is always the first cause beyond which there is no more regress. That's why you need the infallibility of the body of Christ as a link to Christ to have an infallible truth.

    >Likewise, your Bible, your copies of the church
    >fathers, your copies of ecumenical council
    >rulings, etc. are dependent on such fallible
    >sources.

    But we preserve the truth apart from them all. If someone burnt all the bibles and fathers and councils we would still have the Tradition, through which the Church thrived before NT scripture or councils existed.

    >I cited much more than what you've just
    >described.

    Not that I noticed.

    >Even if I had only mentioned those sources
    >above, they would constitute more early evidence
    >against the veneration of images than what
    >you've cited to support the practice.

    And so? Evidence here has been cited in favour of apostolic succession, but I've seen no evidence against apostolic succession. I've seen no evidence cited against the monarchial episcopate apart from a theory Jerome had. I could list off a dozen issues which are peculiarly protestant I have seen no evidence for in the early church.

    The issue is what is your authority, the dim portal through which scholars peer at the early church, or a living body of Christ? Looking at the early church is useful up to a point, but there is a point beyond which you cannot venture.

    If we're going to have a cut off point in early history beyond which we will not accept evidence, what point will it be? Firstly, as soon as you pick a point, it will be unscriptural and against sola scriptura. Secondly it will be a source of schism. And what are date are you going to pick? No matter what date you pick you are either going to (a) get a church with a different canon to yourself. Your canon will be in tatters or (b) going to be referring to the icon venerating church that you so detest. All you are left with is a completely arbitrary smorgasboard Christianity, not any kind of consistently defendable position.

    >But even in those later centuries, let's consider
    >Hosius of Cordova as another example. He was
    >part of the council of Elvira, which opposed the
    >use of images of Christ in churches, and he was
    >prominent at the Council of Nicaea. Is he to be
    >dismissed in the same manner in which you've
    >dismissed Epiphanius?

    Oh dear, why are you defending that anti-semitic neo-nazi council of Elvira?

    Have you actually read all the canons of Elvira from top to bottom? It is inordinately obsessed with preventing the intermingling of paganism, Judaism and Christianity. At the very least, one ought to conceed it likely that at least the fact of banning images was not the universal practice of the church due to the other archeological evidence. The question is, did they specifically ban it here because the landscape of paganism was resulting in the images being subjected to pagan worship? It seems quite possible to me. Again, we're peering into the gloom of ancient history of a remote corner of Christendom. I don't know what was going on there. Can you prove this wasn't a special case canon to deal with the pagan atmosphere? It's only a few decades later we find images referred to all over the empire in the explosion of writings from the now-legal Christianity. Why didn't the canons ban images from Christian homes?

    >Our copies are later Christian copies.

    Naturally.

    >I have a Bible in the desk I'm sitting at as I type,
    >and that Bible includes Apocryphal books
    >without "tagging them on the end". It doesn't
    >therefore follow, from my use of that Bible, that I
    >accept the canonicity of those Apocryphal books.

    That's probably because you've got some bible from the Orthodox tradition. But the bibles your actual church uses wouldn't do that right?

    >If, instead, they had a variety of canons that
    >included different Apocryphal books, as we see
    >in later Christian copies of the Septuagint, then
    >there wasn't any one widely accepted canon that
    >included your books.

    There wasn't a widely accepted canon FULL STOP. At least as far as the evidence tells us. All the canon lists that adhere to a canon of the shorter variety, closer to yours than mine also differ. THERE IS NO LIST.

    >I understand that you sometimes appeal to the
    >possibility that there was no one widely held
    >canon. You're inconsistent. I was addressing one
    >of your inconsistent positions.

    My position is THERE IS NO LIST. As far as the evidence says, you cannot say what pre-Christian canon was, or even the early post Christian canon. There is a reason why the Jews could have influenced some early Christians in accepting a shorter canon. I can't see why Christians would without reason start adding books.

    >How can you claim that Tradition has handed
    >down one Old Testament canon under such
    >circumstances? And how do you supposedly
    >know that each of these different Old Testament
    >canons in late Christian copies of the Septuagint
    >represents what ancient Jews believed about the
    >canon?

    I didn't say that the early evidence is for one precise canon which is my canon. My position is that the church is led into truth over time. Your position is that the truth started out plain and the church was led away from the truth. That the church was led into truth is a matter of faith. That the church started out with the truth as you contend is fiction.

    >Some Christians held a higher view of the Jewish
    >people and were more concerned with how the
    >Jews viewed the canon, as we see in Athanasius
    >and Jerome, for example.

    >But in an atmosphere of so much opposition to
    >Judaism and what non-Christian Jews had done
    >to Christianity, Christians are going to tend to be
    >more critical of Jewish errors than their own
    >errors.

    I see the evidence differently. It was only when Christians came into contact with the post-Christian Jews that people came to doubt the otherwise undisputed LXX canon that they had received.

    Here's the problem. You continue to have a viewpoint as if the church needed the Jews as a continual reference point so that we know what the real canon is and don't get led off astray into some false canon. But if the Jews were true Israelites following Christ they would have been in the church in the first place and not acting as some external reference point. Supposedly people like Jerome were better informed because they had contact with the Jews. But the idea that the Jews continue to act as a reference point for truth is a false doctrine.

    As for the thesis that Justin Martyr was going easy on his brethren whilst using his ammo on the Jews, this assumes that Justin knew of the larger canon but was going easy on his brethren. So having assumed this, you now assume what you have to prove that Justin's view of the canon (if it was his view, we assume it for a moment it was yours) was correct.

    >You haven't given us a single historical source
    >who claims that the Jewish people had initially
    >accepted the specific Old Testament books you
    >want to include.

    And you havn't given us a single historical source that the Jews DIDN'T accept them.

    >So, when Luke 9:49-50 refers to a person as
    >"for" the apostles and Jesus says not to hinder
    >such people, we're to conclude that those people
    >didn't have unity with the apostles?

    How can they have unity when Jesus prays in Jn 17 that they may obtain unity?

    >There are multiple types of unity. People can
    >have denominational unity, yet not have other
    >types of unity, as we see in the passages I cited.
    >And you still haven't proven that denominational
    >unity is necessary.

    The passage cited about following Apollos etc is by its nature denominational.

    >How do you know that the monarchical
    >episcopate took effect when "the apostolic era
    >ended" in each region? You don't.

    Exactly, I don't. I'm saying nobody knows exactly how it played out, but the church witnesses that the monarchial episcopate is an apostolic teaching. Exactly what when and how that came to be is something we may not know, but that it so is what we do know.

    >You're just assuming that the eventual popularity
    >of the monarchical episcopate must have been
    >the result of apostolic command. That
    >assumption isn't equivalent to a proof.

    No I'm not assuming it. It is an apostolic teaching passed down through the tradition.

    'Some things we have from written teaching' said St Basil, 'others we have received from the Apostlic Tradition handed down to us in a mystery, and both these things have the same force for piety'"

    >Is every aspect of what occurs in Eastern
    >Orthodox church government something that
    >was commanded by the apostles?

    Just the parts that the Tradition says were commanded.

    >And if the apostles allowed freedom on issues
    >like the ones in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8,
    >then how do you supposedly know that they
    >wouldn't do so on some issues related to church
    >government?

    Because the Tradition says so.

    How do you know that tons of stuff in scripture might not be applicable any more because the apostles would have allowed more freedom in different circumstances?

    ReplyDelete
  22. Orthodox said:
    "God is always the first cause beyond which there is no more regress. That's why you need the infallibility of the body of Christ as a link to Christ to have an infallible truth."

    So, the infallibility of the word of God is not enough. The infallible body/ church is necessary. See how you despise God's word.

    You wrote:
    ">How do you know that the monarchical
    >episcopate took effect when "the apostolic era
    >ended" in each region? You don't.

    Exactly, I don't. I'm saying nobody knows exactly how it played out, but the church witnesses that the monarchial episcopate is an apostolic teaching. Exactly what when and how that came to be is something we may not know, but that it so is what we do know."

    "Because I'm not into smorgasboard Christianity. I can believe in the whole body of truth on the witness to just one part.

    Because I'm not into smorgasboard religion. And on this issue there is only one definition on the menu."


    This is what Christ has to say to your infallible church.

    Rev 2:5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. ESV
    Rev 3:1 .....but you are dead. ESV
    Rev 3:16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. ESV

    Or is it applicable only to the fallible church and not your infallible church.

    I apologise if using the ESV is offensive to you. Did your infallible church that gave you the canon give you the exact words of scripture in totallity? I mean from among all the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek variants.

    You wrote:
    "My position is that the church is led into truth over time. "

    When? Now? But you are still uncertain about your canon. Maybe, your infallible church will end up exactly like the position of the Reformed Baptists just before the second coming. You had better not believe anything it says for the time being.
    I read that it allowed people to oppose veneration of images. Maybe it is allowing you to hold on to all the doctrines/ positions that are wrong. How do you know which of your doctrines/ positions are right or wrong? Maybe all of them are wrong? Again, you had better not believe anything it says for the time being.


    I came to this site to learn. I had always been fearful when the Roman Catholics say that they have pedigree. I don't know much about the EO beliefs. But both of you seem to say about the same thing about pedigree and the canon. I am more sure now that both of you are wrong! I thank you for all that you have written. I thank Mr. Engwer, Mr. Hays and others from Triablogue who had patiently interacted with you.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Orthodox writes:

    "I don't think the analogy applies because you don't have a theory by which God approving one part of something might make it applicable to all. Besides which our canon is a superset of yours, so God approving 66 does not mean he doesn't approve more."

    If a miracle attests to all 66 books together, then what would the "all" be? You're assuming that more is involved, but how would you know that? If I don't have a miracle attesting to anything else, then I don't need to be concerned with anything else. You're the one who appealed to such "personal experience" of miracles. Now you're trying to distance yourself from the implications of your own argument.

    You write:

    "So go take a random sample. I predict the answer will be as I said."

    Your "prediction" proves nothing. And you've changed your argument from asking one Protestant about these matters to asking more than one ("a random sample"). Are you acknowledging, then, that your initial appeal to one Protestant was erroneous, that you were careless in using such an argument? Why is it that so many of your arguments are of such a careless nature?

    You write:

    "There's a fundamental difference between examining issues separately and between considering them as evidence towards a single result. I can do the former with a view to proving the latter."

    So can I. I can examine Biblical books individually with a view toward proving a rule of faith that wouldn't be limited to that one book.

    You write:

    "Such as belief in the church."

    As we've explained to you many times, you can't tell us that you believe in 1 Timothy because of "belief in th church" is you're using 1 Timothy to justify belief in the church. The fact that you keep repeating your erroneous argument, even after being corrected many times, reflects either a large amount of carelessness or a large amount of dishonesty on your part, if not both.

    And, as I said earlier, your recent appeal to 2 Thessalonians 2:15 cited the authority of Paul by name. Again, how do you know that Paul had such authority if only the church can tell you that he had such authority? You can't cite a passage like 2 Thessalonians 2:15 as a justification for believing in the church, then tell us that you know that 2 Thessalonians 2:15 is to be followed because of the authority of the church.

    You write:

    "But they [Anglicans and Lutherans who claim apostolic succession] have experienced a fundamental and violent break with Tradition that makes their succession worthless."

    That's an assertion, not an argument. And any Protestant, Roman Catholic, etc. could use the same argument against Eastern Orthodoxy. Your Traditions contradict apostolic teaching, so your succession of bishops is to be rejected.

    You write:

    "But since you repudiate a major point of succession: holding to the Traditions, then it is worthless."

    A group like the Anglicans would say that they accept the Traditions. They would argue that Eastern Orthodoxy defines Tradition wrongly. And all Evangelicals would say that they hold to apostolic tradition in the form of scripture. They would deny that your extra-Biblical traditions are apostolic.

    You write:

    "Look to ECFs that discuss succession. I don't need to add qualifiers beyond what is in the tradition."

    Another assertion without supporting argumentation. Why should anybody believe that you know much about "what is in the tradition"? You've repeatedly demonstrated that you're highly ignorant of the church fathers. That's why you've repeatedly used, and misused, material from Catholic Answers tracts, for example, instead of drawing from your knowledge from your own reading of the fathers or patristic scholarship. As I demonstrated in multiple discussions we had previously, the church fathers repeatedly defined apostolic succession in ways that contradict what you believe. For example:

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/unity-apostolic-succession-and.html

    You write:

    "Why does your denomination give his quote pride of place heading up your list of beliefs? There's complete inconsistency on the part of protestants in how they approach the early church."

    We can't quote somebody unless he was a member of our denomination? Why?

    And I've repeatedly given examples of John Chrysostom contradicting what you believe. You've repeatedly left the discussions without reconciling his beliefs with yours. For example:

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/interpreting-church-fathers.html

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/in-another-thread-orthodox-wrote.html

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/04/unity-of-one-true-church.html

    You write:

    "My infallible tradition is a link back to the apostles via the conduit of an infallible church. You don't have an infallible conduit so you have no perfect conduit for preserving the truth."

    Again, all fallible humans have to identify and interpret an allegedly infallible entity by means of a fallible "conduit", to use your term. Increasing the number of allegedly infallible entities doesn't change that fact. If you add one, two, or more allegedly infallible entities to scripture, you still have to identify and interpret all of those allegedly infallible entities by means of your fallible mind, the fallible testimony of other fallible individuals, etc. Increasing the number of allegedly infallible entities outside of yourself doesn't remove the fallible conduit you're mentioning.

    You write:

    "God is always the first cause beyond which there is no more regress. That's why you need the infallibility of the body of Christ as a link to Christ to have an infallible truth."

    The infinite regress doesn't go in the direction of God. It goes in your direction. If you need something infallible as a means of accepting something else infallible, then the process never ends unless you make yourself out to be infallible.

    Just as you claim God as the source of your infallible rule of faith, Protestants make the same claim about their rule of faith. If you can fallibly make a judgment about your rule of faith through fallible means (archeological data, church fathers, lexicons, etc.), then why can't Protestants do the same?

    You write:

    "If someone burnt all the bibles and fathers and councils we would still have the Tradition, through which the Church thrived before NT scripture or councils existed."

    The Old Testament scriptures, which you don't mention, predate your denomination. (So do the New Testament scriptures.) If your rule of faith consists of scripture and extra-Biblical material, then eliminating the scriptures would change your rule of faith. But the issue at hand isn't what would happen if all of the relevant writings were burned. Rather, the issue is whether you have relied upon fallible copies of scripture, ecumenical councils, and such to make your judgments. And you have. Yet, you criticize Protestants for relying on fallible means to arrive at their conclusions. You're not being consistent.

    You write:

    "If we're going to have a cut off point in early history beyond which we will not accept evidence, what point will it be? Firstly, as soon as you pick a point, it will be unscriptural and against sola scriptura. Secondly it will be a source of schism. And what are date are you going to pick?"

    As I've explained to you many times, earliness isn't the only issue involved. There is no "cut off point". I've repeatedly given you examples of the earliest patristic sources disagreeing with you. You've repeatedly ignored those examples.

    You write:

    "Oh dear, why are you defending that anti-semitic neo-nazi council of Elvira?"

    You're missing the point again. I didn't cite Elvira as an expresion of my beliefs. I cited it as a contradiction fo yours.

    You write:

    "Have you actually read all the canons of Elvira from top to bottom? It is inordinately obsessed with preventing the intermingling of paganism, Judaism and Christianity. At the very least, one ought to conceed it likely that at least the fact of banning images was not the universal practice of the church due to the other archeological evidence."

    So much for your previous claims about early church unity.

    You write:

    "Can you prove this wasn't a special case canon to deal with the pagan atmosphere?"

    Since the council didn't mention such an atmosphere, and we have no evidence to the effect that the canon was meant in the way you're suggesting, why would I assume that it was meant in such a way? If you're going to argue that we should add qualifications to the council's ruling that the council itself doesn't mention, then you bear the burden of proof. And how would images that were specifically Christian in a specifically Christian location (a church) be unacceptable in a "pagan atmosphere"? Their location in a church would have communicated the fact that they weren't images of pagan entities. If you agree with the council's ruling, then are you saying that Eastern Orthodox churches shouldn't have images if there are any false religions in the area that use images?

    You write:

    "It's only a few decades later we find images referred to all over the empire in the explosion of writings from the now-legal Christianity."

    I've already responded to your "explosion of writings" argument, and you never interacted with my response. Again, we have thousands of pages of material from the ante-Nicene sources. Your suggestion that we know so little about the ante-Nicene Christians is ridiculous. And if we don't know much about them, then how can you know that they were Eastern Orthodox? And what about the post-Nicene sources who opposed the veneration of images, leading up to the Second Council of Nicaea and beyond? How do you know that the council of Elvira didn't agree with them?

    You write:

    "There wasn't a widely accepted canon FULL STOP. At least as far as the evidence tells us. All the canon lists that adhere to a canon of the shorter variety, closer to yours than mine also differ. THERE IS NO LIST."

    There doesn't have to be a list among the earliest Jewish sources in order for it to be reasonable to conclude that the later lists probably were accepted earlier. I explained these things to you earlier. You need to interact with the large amount of material I wrote that you ignored. You keep combining Jewish and Christian sources and assuming that Christian inconsistencies must reflect a parallel situation among the relevant Jewish sources. You keep making these assumptions that you never justify.

    You write:

    "I can't see why Christians would without reason start adding books."

    Who argued that Christians added books "without reason"? I didn't. The reasons can be bad, yet still be reasons. As I mentioned earlier, you don't agree with all of the books that were added either, such as Tertullian's addition of 1 Enoch. Even where you agree with the adding of a book, what if the same source doesn't add other books you want added? Where is this Tradition of the Old Testament canon that you've repeatedly referred to? The fact that some Christians include one or more of the Apocryphal books doesn't prove that the entirety of your Old Testament canon was a Tradition always held by the church.

    You write:

    "I didn't say that the early evidence is for one precise canon which is my canon. My position is that the church is led into truth over time."

    No, that's what you've said sometimes, but not all of the time. You've been inconsistent.

    Is your denomination still ignorant of the truth regarding the Old Testament canon? If not, then where has it given us an Old Testament canon?

    You write:

    "It was only when Christians came into contact with the post-Christian Jews that people came to doubt the otherwise undisputed LXX canon that they had received."

    Now you're claiming that there was an "undisputed canon" at first. But you said, above, that the church would only gradually be guided into the truth about the Old Testament canon. Which is it? Are you saying that the church knew the truth at first, then departed from it for centuries and still hasn't yet discerned just what that original truth was? And how do you know that somebody like Melito of Sardis was mistaken because he "came into contact with the post-Christian Jews"? You don't know that.

    You write:

    "But the idea that the Jews continue to act as a reference point for truth is a false doctrine."

    As we've explained to you repeatedly, we cite non-Christian Jews as far as they offer us evidence of an earlier Jewish canon. You need to interact with what we've already told you on this subject instead of repeatedly ignoring it.

    You write:

    "As for the thesis that Justin Martyr was going easy on his brethren whilst using his ammo on the Jews, this assumes that Justin knew of the larger canon but was going easy on his brethren. So having assumed this, you now assume what you have to prove that Justin's view of the canon (if it was his view, we assume it for a moment it was yours) was correct."

    You keep contradicting yourself. Earlier, you said that Justin would have used the same Septuagint that you have in mind. And you've repeatedly argued that using that Septuagint is equivalent to agreeing with its canon. But now you're arguing that Justin might not have agreed with it.

    You write:

    "How can they have unity when Jesus prays in Jn 17 that they may obtain unity?"

    Where does Jesus say that the people He's praying for don't yet have any unity of any sort? He doesn't.

    You write:

    "The passage cited about following Apollos etc is by its nature denominational."

    But Paul refers to the Corinthians as one church. Can they be one church while consisting of multiple denominations?

    You write:

    "Exactly, I don't. I'm saying nobody knows exactly how it played out, but the church witnesses that the monarchial episcopate is an apostolic teaching."

    Where does "the church" witness that the apostles taught that the monarchical episcopate is the only acceptable form of church government?

    You write:

    "How do you know that tons of stuff in scripture might not be applicable any more because the apostles would have allowed more freedom in different circumstances?"

    We make case-by-case judgments, along the lines of what we've explained previously. You keep ignoring what we've already said.

    ReplyDelete
  24. >If a miracle attests to all 66 books together, then
    >what would the "all" be? You're assuming that more
    >is involved, but how would you know that? If I don't
    >have a miracle attesting to anything else, then I
    >don't need to be concerned with anything else.

    Really. How does a miracle attest to NOT something else?

    >Now you're trying to distance yourself from the
    >implications of your own argument.

    No, you're engaged in reductio ad absurdum again.

    >Are you acknowledging, then, that your initial
    >appeal to one Protestant was erroneous, that you
    >were careless in using such an argument? Why is
    >it that so many of your arguments are of such a
    >careless nature?

    You're talking nonsense now. Apparently you've lost the plot.

    >So can I. I can examine Biblical books individually
    >with a view toward proving a rule of faith that
    >wouldn't be limited to that one book.

    You can never prove a rule of faith without knowing for sure if the evidence for your rule of faith includes everything. Without an authority for saying so, that is impossible.

    >As we've explained to you many times, you can't
    >tell us that you believe in 1 Timothy because of
    >"belief in th church" is you're using 1 Timothy to
    >justify belief in the church.

    Again, go research the difference between spiral assurance and circular.

    >That's an assertion, not an argument. And any
    >Protestant, Roman Catholic, etc. could use the
    >same argument against Eastern Orthodoxy. Your
    >Traditions contradict apostolic teaching, so your
    >succession of bishops is to be rejected.

    Roman Catholics wouldn't use that argument. (a fat lot you obviously know about it). Our traditions don't contradict apostolic teaching, so you assume what you havn't proven.

    >A group like the Anglicans would say that they
    >accept the Traditions. They would argue that >Eastern Orthodoxy defines Tradition wrongly.

    The subset of Anglicans who argue they do have succession probably really DO accept the traditions. They often end up joining Orthodoxy to remain true to their theory. The ones who don't are crypto orthodox.

    >And all Evangelicals would say that they hold to
    >apostolic tradition in the form of scripture. They
    >would deny that your extra-Biblical traditions are
    >apostolic.

    They would be ignoring the un-inscripturated traditions in contradiction to Paul.

    >As I demonstrated in multiple discussions we
    >had previously, the church fathers repeatedly
    >defined apostolic succession in ways that
    >contradict what you believe. For example:

    Nothing here but the ravings of your favourite scholars. Continually linking to old failed postings won't cut it.

    >We can't quote somebody unless he was a
    >member of our denomination? Why?

    The question is why your denomination quotes these icon venerating fellows so approvingly but you won't offer me the common decency you should give to every human being.

    >If you add one, two, or more allegedly infallible
    >entities to scripture, you still have to identify and
    >interpret all of those allegedly infallible entities
    >by means of your fallible mind

    You already conceded that personal infallibility is a different problem not comparable to the infallibility of the source truth. Don't trot out arguments you already conceeded.

    >the fallible testimony of other fallible individuals

    Wrong because the sum total of the church ceases to be merely fallible individuals but is the body of Christ.

    >Increasing the number of allegedly infallible
    >entities outside of yourself doesn't remove the
    >fallible conduit you're mentioning.

    Yes it does. We are both reliant on tradition, you conceeded already. Only in my system is tradition infallible to provide real truth.

    >The infinite regress doesn't go in the direction of
    >God. It goes in your direction.

    Whatever that is supposed to mean.

    >If you need something infallible as a means of
    >accepting something else infallible, then the
    >process never ends unless you make yourself out
    >to be infallible.

    Wrong, it ends at God.

    >So do the New Testament scriptures.)

    No they don't.

    >If your rule of faith consists of scripture and
    >extra-Biblical material, then eliminating the
    >scriptures would change your rule of faith.

    It wouldn't change the faith, it would just change the ratio of written to unwritten.

    >Rather, the issue is whether you have relied upon
    >fallible copies of scripture, ecumenical councils,
    >and such to make your judgments.

    The church's understanding of these documents is infallible and I have access to that church.

    >As I've explained to you many times, earliness
    >isn't the only issue involved. There is no "cut off
    >point". I've repeatedly given you examples of the
    >earliest patristic sources disagreeing with you.
    >You've repeatedly ignored those examples.

    In other words you have no source of authority but always your own opinion. One minute an early source is right, the next it is wrong, all according to your own presuppositions and traditions (which you are blind to) but supposedly you end up with the smorgas board true faith at the end of the day, contrary to a thousand years of understanding.

    >So much for your previous claims about early
    >church unity.

    I fail to see what the pagan environment has to do with church unity.

    >Since the council didn't mention such an
    >atmosphere, and we have no evidence to the
    >effect that the canon was meant in the way
    >you're suggesting

    The canons of the council themselves are a clear evidence to the atmosphere to anyone with eyes to see.

    >If you're going to argue that we should add
    >qualifications to the council's ruling that the
    >council itself doesn't mention, then you bear the
    >burden of proof.

    It's not a "qualification", it is an examination of the cultural context: something you seem loath to do lest you find something contrary to your a-priori thesis.

    >And how would images that were specifically
    >Christian in a specifically Christian location (a
    >church) be unacceptable in a "pagan
    >atmosphere"?

    They could result in pagans in the area worshipping the images in ignorance.

    >Their location in a church would have
    >communicated the fact that they weren't images
    >of pagan entities.

    Not to pagans.

    >If you agree with the council's ruling, then are
    >you saying that Eastern Orthodox churches
    >shouldn't have images if there are any false
    >religions in the area that use images?

    The church there made a decision for their own circumstances. What other people might or might not do is irrelevant.

    >Your suggestion that we know so little about the
    >ante-Nicene Christians is ridiculous.

    And yet you keep trying to quote anti image ECFs when it has been demonstrated that the church generally wasn't anti-image.

    >And what about the post-Nicene sources who
    >opposed the veneration of images, leading up to
    >the Second Council of Nicaea and beyond? How
    >do you know that the council of Elvira didn't
    >agree with them?

    What if, what if, what if. This is why I have a living church to end the endless "what ifs" that lead to never satisfied scholars.

    >There doesn't have to be a list among the
    >earliest Jewish sources in order for it to be
    >reasonable to conclude that the later lists
    >probably were accepted earlier.

    More obfuscation. THERE IS NO LIST.

    >I explained these things to you earlier. You need
    >to interact with the large amount of material I
    >wrote that you ignored

    More baloney references to non-existent material.

    >You keep combining Jewish and Christian
    >sources and assuming that Christian
    >inconsistencies must reflect a parallel situation
    >among the relevant Jewish sources. You keep
    >making these assumptions that you never justify.

    We have to refer to Christian sources because the Jews HAVE NO LIST.

    To quote one scholar, the Formation of the Biblical canon, McDonald P50, "I suggest however, that the matter was settled within Judaism not before the Jamnia gathering but later in the second century and possibly later than that. Discussion about what goes into the biblical canon was still going on among the rabbis some 200 to 400 years after Jamnia.

    THERE IS NO LIST.

    > Where is this Tradition of the Old Testament
    >canon that you've repeatedly referred to? The
    >fact that some Christians include one or more of
    >the Apocryphal books doesn't prove that the
    >entirety of your Old Testament canon was a
    >Tradition always held by the church.

    [Yawn]. It doesn't prove it wasn't either. THERE IS NO LIST.

    >>"I didn't say that the early evidence is for one
    >>precise canon which is my canon. My position is
    >>that the church is led into truth over time."
    >
    >No, that's what you've said sometimes, but not
    >all of the time. You've been inconsistent.

    I can present all the alternatives. Our canon could have been always believed. It may not have been. It could be somewhere in between. I don't care I have an infallible church. You on the other hand have to prove your position and only your position. And this is something you cannot do. THERE IS NO LIST.

    >Now you're claiming that there was an
    >"undisputed canon" at first.

    It could be that a longer canon was undisputed whilst there was still questions on the fringes.

    >And how do you know that somebody like Melito
    >of Sardis was mistaken because he "came into
    >contact with the post-Christian Jews"? You don't
    >know that.

    I see a pattern among those influenced by post Christian Jews. But you're right I don't know because THERE IS NO LIST.

    >You keep contradicting yourself. Earlier, you said
    >that Justin would have used the same Septuagint
    >that you have in mind. And you've repeatedly
    >argued that using that Septuagint is equivalent
    >to agreeing with its canon. But now you're
    >arguing that Justin might not have agreed with it.

    I let you have your little hypothetical to demonstrate you lose either way.

    >Where does Jesus say that the people He's
    >praying for don't yet have any unity of any sort?
    >He doesn't.

    He uses future tense so these believers don't yet have unity.

    >But Paul refers to the Corinthians as one church.
    >Can they be one church while consisting of
    >multiple denominations?

    They are heading down the denominational path without having full schism. Denominational means named groups, one following Apollos etc.

    >Where does "the church" witness that the
    >apostles taught that the monarchical episcopate
    >is the only acceptable form of church
    >government?

    In the Tradition.

    >>"How do you know that tons of stuff in
    >>scripture might not be applicable any more
    >>because the apostles would have allowed more
    >>freedom in different circumstances?"
    >
    >We make case-by-case judgments, along the
    >lines of what we've explained previously. You
    >keep ignoring what we've already said.

    Ahh yes, sola self.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Orthodox writes:

    "How does a miracle attest to NOT something else?"

    You're misrepresenting what I said. I didn't say that a miracle "attests to not something else". Rather, I said that if I have a miracle attesting to a first entity, whereas I don't have a miracle attesting to a second entity, then I have a reason for accepting the first that I don't have for accepting the second.

    You write:

    "No, you're engaged in reductio ad absurdum again."

    Would you explain what you think that is and how I allegedly did it?

    You write:

    "You can never prove a rule of faith without knowing for sure if the evidence for your rule of faith includes everything."

    You've said that probabilities are acceptable for you (though you initially denied that they would be acceptable), so why would you deny that they're acceptable for me? I don't need to "know for sure". The possibility that another letter of Paul exists in a jar in a cave I don't know about doesn't give me any reason to think that it's probable that such a letter exists or to reject my current rule of faith.

    If we need to "know for sure" that the evidence for our rule of faith includes everything, then your own system fails by your own standard. You've acknowledged that your historical judgment about Eastern Orthodoxy is a probability, not something you "know for sure". And since Eastern Orthodox disagree with each other over what is and isn't Tradition, then how do you know that you're accepting everything you should accept? Where has Eastern Orthodoxy listed all Traditions for you? If Eastern Orthodoxy has done so, then why do Eastern Orthodox disagree with each other on the subject?

    You write:

    "Again, go research the difference between spiral assurance and circular."

    Explain how your treatment of 1 Timothy allegedly is a spiral rather than circular.

    You write:

    "Roman Catholics wouldn't use that argument."

    Why are we supposed to believe that?

    You write:

    "Our traditions don't contradict apostolic teaching, so you assume what you havn't proven."

    Given how little effort you make to prove your assertions, your professed concern for evidence doesn't have much credibility. But let me remind you of some of the evidence you've been given:

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/08/perry-robinsons-claims-about-what.html

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/in-another-thread-orthodox-wrote.html

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/papacy-and-eucharist.html

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/perpetual-virginity-of-mary.html

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/unity-apostolic-succession-and.html

    You write:

    "The subset of Anglicans who argue they do have succession probably really DO accept the traditions. They often end up joining Orthodoxy to remain true to their theory. The ones who don't are crypto orthodox."

    You keep changing your arguments. And you offer us no documentation. You just give us more assertions. Why don't you document that all Anglicans who claim apostolic succession agree with your concept of Tradition? Why would they be Anglican if they defined Tradition as Eastern Orthodoxy defines it?

    You write:

    "They would be ignoring the un-inscripturated traditions in contradiction to Paul."

    How do you know that contradicting Paul is bad? If you're going to appeal to what "the church" has said about Paul, then how do you know that your denomination, which you erroneously call "the church", has the authority you claim it has?

    You write:

    "You already conceded that personal infallibility is a different problem not comparable to the infallibility of the source truth. Don't trot out arguments you already conceeded."

    The fact that the infallibility of a rule of faith is a different issue than the infallibility of an individual doesn't prove that the two can't both be relevant to the matter I was addressing. Both of us claim to have a rule of faith that's infallible. But you've objected to my position on the basis that I identify and interpret my rule of faith through fallible means. What I'm saying is that you identify and interpret your rule of faith through fallible means as well. Identifying and interpreting the church through fallible means, as opposed to doing the same with scripture, doesn't change the fact that you're relying on fallible means.

    You write:

    "Wrong because the sum total of the church ceases to be merely fallible individuals but is the body of Christ."

    As I explained to you before, you've acknowledged that you identify and interpret the church through fallible means (church father writings, lexicons, etc.). Telling us that the church in question supposedly is infallible when viewed in "sum total" doesn't change the fact that you're identifying and interpreting that church through fallible means. Something like a document written by Tertullian or a lexicon isn't part of your church. A fallible document written by Tertullian can't be considered part of your church just because you (erroneously) consider the man Tertullian part of your church. If such a fallible document (and archeological data, lexicons, etc.) are to be considered part of your church, then your church can't be infallible. As I explained before, lexicons include data from non-Christian sources like Josephus, and patristic documents are often discovered, translated, etc. by non-Eastern-Orthodox sources, so you're relying on such fallible non-Eastern-Orthodox sources in the process of identifying and interpreting the church. Yet, you criticize Protestants for relying on fallible means to identify and interpret their rule of faith. You're contradicting yourself.

    You write:

    "We are both reliant on tradition, you conceeded already. Only in my system is tradition infallible to provide real truth."

    Again, fallible sources like a document of Tertullian or a lexicon aren't Tradition in Eastern Orthodoxy. You need to document where your denomination has defined sources like Tertullian's writings and lexicons as Tradition.

    You write:

    "The church's understanding of these documents is infallible and I have access to that church."

    How do you know what the church's understanding is? By reading something like a translation of the rulings of an ecumenical council? That translation is fallible. And you have to rely on your own fallible interpretation of it.

    Your judgment that the church is infallible depends on making decisions about church history. And how do you know what happened in history? You know through sources like documents and archeological discoveries. Those documents are transmitted fallibly. The copies of the church fathers' writings that you cite (though you apparently don't read them much) are fallible translations of fallible documents fallibly transmitted, and they've often been discovered, translated, etc. by non-Eastern-Orthodox sources.

    You write:

    "It's not a 'qualification', it is an examination of the cultural context: something you seem loath to do lest you find something contrary to your a-priori thesis."

    The fact that a council occurred in a pagan atmosphere doesn't prove that the use of images was forbidden by that council only because of the pagan atmosphere. You keep making unwarranted assumptions.

    You write:

    "They could result in pagans in the area worshipping the images in ignorance."

    Why should we think that there was a problem with non-Christians going into Christian churches to venerate Christian images in a non-Christian manner?

    Elvira's canon 36 reads:

    "There shall be no pictures in the church, lest what is worshipped and adored should be depicted on the walls." (note 257 at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc2.txt)

    The council doesn't give the reason you're giving for its ruling. Rather, it opposes images because of what images are by their nature: a depiction of that which is worshipped and adored.

    I had written:

    "Their location in a church would have communicated the fact that they weren't images of pagan entities."

    And you wrote in response:

    "Not to pagans."

    Why would pagans think that images in a Christian church were images of pagan entities? Did the Christians base their images on pagan entities, so that the two looked similar? That doesn't make sense. On the other hand, if the Christian images weren't based on pagan images that looked similar, then why would pagans mistake them for images of pagan entities? You're proposing a highly unlikely reading of Elvira.

    You write:

    "The church there made a decision for their own circumstances. What other people might or might not do is irrelevant."

    What "other people" like you might do is relevant, since I was addressing whether you would agree with doing what Elvira did. Again, do you think that an Eastern Orthodox church should forbid images if there are people in that church's surrounding society who misuse images? Is that what Eastern Orthodoxy does today?

    You write:

    "What if, what if, what if. This is why I have a living church to end the endless 'what ifs' that lead to never satisfied scholars."

    Your judgment that you have a "living church" with the authority to make such decisions is a historical judgment. You depend on scholars to translate documents, tell you when the sources in question lived, tell you what their historical circumstances were, etc.

    You write:

    "Our canon could have been always believed. It may not have been. It could be somewhere in between. I don't care I have an infallible church."

    In other words, you don't know what the Old Testament canon should be, and you don't know what canon was followed by the earliest Christians, despite the claims you made to the contrary earlier. You keep contradicting yourself.

    You write:

    "He uses future tense so these believers don't yet have unity."

    You keep ignoring what you've already been told. Again, as you've acknowledged at times, while denying at other times, there are multiple types of unity. I've given you examples from 1 Corinthians and elsewhere in scripture. Two people can be Christians, and thus have unity in that sense, yet have disunity in some other context, such as we see in Philippians 4:2-3. If Paul would pray for the unity of the women in Philippians 4, it would be absurd to suggest that the two women therefore can't be considered to have unity in any other sense, such as unity in the gospel (which Paul refers to in verse 3). Similarly, Jesus can pray for unity on secondary issues among people who already have unity in salvation, for example.

    Your reference to a future tense in John 17 is irrelevant. Jesus is referring to what will happen in the future as people come to believe through the testimony of the disciples. The reference to the future does nothing to refute anything I've said.

    ReplyDelete
  26. >Rather, I said that if I have a miracle attesting to a
    >first entity, whereas I don't have a miracle attesting
    >to a second entity, then I have a reason for
    >accepting the first that I don't have for accepting
    >the second.

    Then you'll have to start a lifetime of hunting for miracles to see if you've missed out on some revelation. You would be compelled to investigate miracles on our side of the fence.

    >Would you explain what you think that is and
    >how I allegedly did it?

    You're arguing over stupid details when you and I both know that a typical protestant has no idea how to defend a particular book of the bible like 2 Peter.

    >I don't need to "know for sure". The possibility
    >that another letter of Paul exists in a jar in a cave
    >I don't know about doesn't give me any reason to
    >think that it's probable that such a letter exists
    >or to reject my current rule of faith.

    How probable is it that every single early church tradition was NOT taught by the apostles? As far as I see, that is a long shot.

    >And since Eastern Orthodox disagree with each
    >other over what is and isn't Tradition, then how
    >do you know that you're accepting everything
    >you should accept?

    Because in a Spirit led church the things I need to accept will be clear.

    >Explain how your treatment of 1 Timothy
    >allegedly is a spiral rather than circular.

    Go back to the math previously discussed. When working towards proving a single truth, even little bits of evidence can all accumulate towards the one locus.

    In your case, every fact is potentially a completely independent unit of knowledge, leading to circularity.

    >>"Roman Catholics wouldn't use that argument."
    >
    >Why are we supposed to believe that?

    Because RCs recognize EO succession? You don't know that?

    >>"Our traditions don't contradict apostolic
    >>teaching, so you assume what you havn't
    >>proven."
    >
    >Given how little effort you make to prove your
    >assertions, your professed concern for evidence
    >doesn't have much credibility. But let me remind
    >you of some of the evidence you've been given:

    Stuff like heos hou is your big argument? That the Greeks didn't understand Greek like Svendsen?

    Sorry, this is joke material.

    >Why don't you document that all Anglicans who
    >claim apostolic succession agree with your
    >concept of Tradition? Why would they be
    >Anglican if they defined Tradition as Eastern
    >Orthodoxy defines it?

    I'm not sure why you think they wouldn't be Anglican. From our point of view, the Church of England used to be an Orthodox Church. There was a hundred years ago great hopes they might rejoin Orthodoxy. While we consider they lack a certain amount in the fullness of truth, high Anglicans accept the most of the same traditions. I know an Anglican priest in a community, and their chapel looks like an EO chapel.

    >How do you know that contradicting Paul is bad? >If you're going to appeal to what "the church" has
    >said about Paul, then how do you know that your
    >denomination, which you erroneously call "the
    >church", has the authority you claim it has?

    To cut down a large topic into a single sentence: Because I find in Orthodoxy the church that reflects the faith I see in the early church.

    >Both of us claim to have a rule of faith that's
    >infallible. But you've objected to my position on
    >the basis that I identify and interpret my rule of
    >faith through fallible means. What I'm saying is
    >that you identify and interpret your rule of faith
    >through fallible means as well. Identifying and
    >interpreting the church through fallible means,
    >as opposed to doing the same with scripture,
    >doesn't change the fact that you're relying on
    >fallible means.

    No I don't identify the rule of faith through fallible means, I do it via the infallible church which infallibly identifies the rule of faith.

    >As I explained to you before, you've
    >acknowledged that you identify and interpret the
    >church through fallible means (church father
    >writings, lexicons, etc.).

    No, these are secondary sources. The primary source is the living church itself which is infallible.

    >How do you know what the church's
    >understanding is? By reading something like a t
    >ranslation of the rulings of an ecumenical
    >council? That translation is fallible. And you have
    >to rely on your own fallible interpretation of it.

    The fallibility of my own self is a different issue to the fallibility of the truth itself. If you can't see a difference, scripture is worthless.

    >Your judgment that the church is infallible
    >depends on making decisions about church
    >history. And how do you know what happened in
    >history?

    Again, the fallibility of me identifying the truth can't be compared to the fallibility of the truth itself. Otherwise scripture is worthless.

    >The fact that a council occurred in a pagan
    >atmosphere doesn't prove that the use of images
    >was forbidden by that council only because of
    >the pagan atmosphere. You keep making
    >unwarranted assumptions.

    You need to distinguish between what can be formally proven and what is a reasonable assumption. That I cannot formally prove it doesn't mean it isn't a reasonable assumption from the evidence. Again, you and I peering into dim history ought not to be a source of authority.

    BTW there are great problems with the textual transmission of the canons of elvira. Some scholars think only the first 21 canons are genuine ones from the council. The canon we are discussing is #36. Again, another problem trying to peer into the dim history to see what is and isn't true.

    >Why should we think that there was a problem
    >with non-Christians going into Christian
    >churches to venerate Christian images in a non-
    >Christian manner?

    A lot of the canons deal with Christianity and paganism mixing. It's often canon #1 of a council that sets the scene for the things its concerned with. Canon #1 is:

    "A baptized adult who commits the capital crime of sacrificing to the idols is not to receive communion even when death approaches."

    For whatever reason, there was a problem with the mixing of paganism and Christianity in this area.

    >Why would pagans think that images in a
    >Christian church were images of pagan entities?

    They could worship them like a pagan entity, which would be inappropriate.

    >What "other people" like you might do is
    >relevant, since I was addressing whether you
    >would agree with doing what Elvira did. Again,
    >do you think that an Eastern Orthodox church
    >should forbid images if there are people in that
    >church's surrounding society who misuse
    >images? Is that what Eastern Orthodoxy does
    >today?

    No I don't agree with what Elvira did, but then again I am not privy to the knowledge of what situation they were dealing with.

    >Your judgment that you have a "living church"
    >with the authority to make such decisions is a
    >historical judgment. You depend on scholars to
    >translate documents, tell you when the sources
    >in question lived, tell you what their historical
    >circumstances were, etc.

    But I'm not subservient to figuring out every minor theological question on the basis of correctly understanding every minor piece of history. I use what I can glean from history towards the single goal of finding the true church. If the history of say icons is too difficult or obscure I put it aside and figure out what is not obscure to find the true church. Then the true church can fill in the gaps.

    >In other words, you don't know what the Old
    >Testament canon should be, and you don't know
    >what canon was followed by the earliest
    >Christians, despite the claims you made to the
    >contrary earlier. You keep contradicting yourself.

    No, wrong. I know the canon is what the church says it is. What it was for the earliest Christians is disputed.

    >Similarly, Jesus can pray for unity on secondary
    >issues among people who already have unity in
    >salvation, for example.

    So how many types of unity does Jesus want for us? I say he wants us to have all types of unity. Not just "unity in salvation".

    >Your reference to a future tense in John 17 is
    >irrelevant. Jesus is referring to what will happen
    >in the future as people come to believe through
    >the testimony of the disciples.

    Wrong, he says that these people have already believed, past tense.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Orthodox writes:

    "Then you'll have to start a lifetime of hunting for miracles to see if you've missed out on some revelation. You would be compelled to investigate miracles on our side of the fence."

    Do you apply the same reasoning to your own belief system? What if there's a Tradition you're unaware of in the historical record? What about the writings of Irenaeus? What if there's a document he wrote that you don't know about? If you identify the church through the writings of men like Irenaeus, then how can you be confident that you have all of their writings? Or when historians refer to the writings of Josephus or the writings of Tacitus, do you conclude that you can't be confident in accepting a canon of their writings and that you must "start a lifetime of hunting to see if you've missed out on some"?

    You write:

    "You're arguing over stupid details when you and I both know that a typical protestant has no idea how to defend a particular book of the bible like 2 Peter."

    As I explained to you before, and you're apparently too careless or dishonest to interact with it, an Eastern Orthodox factory worker in Russia probably isn't going to know how to defend every Eastern Orthodox Tradition with the level of detail that you're demanding from every Protestant with regard to 2 Peter. If your argument is valid against Protestantism, then it's valid against Eastern Orthodoxy as well. You keep using self-defeating arguments.

    You write:

    "How probable is it that every single early church tradition was NOT taught by the apostles?"

    I haven't argued that "every single early church tradition" wasn't apostolic. Most of what was referred to as a "tradition" early on was a repetition of what we're told in scripture.

    You write:

    "Because in a Spirit led church the things I need to accept will be clear."

    You initially argued that Protestants need to know about every apostolic teaching, not just the most important ones. But now you're telling us that it's acceptable for you as an Eastern Orthodox to just know what you "need", even if you don't know what to believe about some Traditions. You keep changing your arguments in mid-discussion.

    If you can trust in God to make the most important issues clear to you in what's preserved in the church, then Protestants can do the same with regard to what's preserved in scripture. If you don't need to have confidence about every Tradition, then Protestants don't need to have confidence about everything that might be included in their rule of faith.

    You write:

    "Go back to the math previously discussed. When working towards proving a single truth, even little bits of evidence can all accumulate towards the one locus. In your case, every fact is potentially a completely independent unit of knowledge, leading to circularity."

    How is that independence equivalent to circularity? It isn't. And I answered your use of "math" in a previous response.

    You write:

    "Because RCs recognize EO succession? You don't know that?"

    They don't recognize it in the manner you've been referring to. They follow Roman Catholic succession rather than Eastern Orthodox succession, because they believe that Eastern Orthodox succession is accompanied by false teaching. I reject both forms of succession for the same reason.

    You write:

    "Stuff like heos hou is your big argument? That the Greeks didn't understand Greek like Svendsen?"

    As we explained to you in the previous thread, Eric Svendsen cites many Greek sources. What you criticized him for was his not agreeing with what some later Greek-speaking church fathers believed about the perpetual virginity of Mary. But since Eric Svendsen cites earlier Greek sources at length, Greek sources who lived closer to the time of the gospel of Matthew, your emphasis on some later sources doesn't make sense. You were refuted in that thread, and you left the discussion without interacting with our responses to your false claims.

    You write:

    "While we consider they lack a certain amount in the fullness of truth, high Anglicans accept the most of the same traditions."

    You keep changing your arguments. Earlier, you said that they agree with Eastern Orthodox Tradition. Now you tell us that they agree with you on "most" subjects, and you still offer us no documentation. The issue isn't whether you have a vague impression that some Anglicans agree with you on "most" issues. Go back and reread the original context of this discussion. You're far from that original context in your comments above.

    You write:

    "To cut down a large topic into a single sentence: Because I find in Orthodoxy the church that reflects the faith I see in the early church."

    Why should we agree with the early church? You're eventually going to have to justify your appeal to "the church".

    You write:

    "No I don't identify the rule of faith through fallible means, I do it via the infallible church which infallibly identifies the rule of faith."

    Earlier, you referred to your church as your rule of faith. Now you're distinguishing between your church and your rule of faith. Which is it?

    All that you're doing is attempting to move the question I've been asking you to a different entity. But moving it to a different entity doesn't change the result. How do you identify and interpret your allegedly infallible church? You do it through fallible means. Why, then, can't Protestants do the same with scripture?

    You write:

    "No, these are secondary sources. The primary source is the living church itself which is infallible."

    Protestants can say the same about scripture.

    You write:

    "BTW there are great problems with the textual transmission of the canons of elvira. Some scholars think only the first 21 canons are genuine ones from the council. The canon we are discussing is #36. Again, another problem trying to peer into the dim history to see what is and isn't true."

    Now that your reading of Elvira has been shown to be unlikely, you're trying to plant doubts in the readers' minds about the genuineness of the canon in question. You didn't do that earlier. Why the change?

    Would you explain to us whether you agree with the "some scholars" you've mentioned? If you do, then on what basis? If you don't, then what's the relevance of mentioning those scholars?

    You write:

    "They could worship them like a pagan entity, which would be inappropriate."

    That's not what you argued earlier. You keep shifting your arguments.

    Again, I've quoted the council itself. The council tells us why it was forbidding the use of images. The reason the council gives isn't the reason you're suggesting.

    You write:

    "No I don't agree with what Elvira did"

    Yet another example of your disunity with the early church.

    You write:

    "But I'm not subservient to figuring out every minor theological question on the basis of correctly understanding every minor piece of history. I use what I can glean from history towards the single goal of finding the true church. If the history of say icons is too difficult or obscure I put it aside and figure out what is not obscure to find the true church. Then the true church can fill in the gaps."

    The early opposition to the veneration of images isn't "obscure". That's why even Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox scholars will refer to it. Early enemies of Christianity, such as Celsus and Caecilius, mention it. There are many passages on the subject in the ante-Nicene fathers. We also know that the veneration of images continued to be opposed by many post-Nicene sources, leading up to the Second Council of Nicaea and beyond. Why would the historical record be so "obscure" on this subject if all Christians of the first millennium were Eastern Orthodox, as you've claimed, and your denomination always practiced the veneration of images?

    You write:

    "No, wrong. I know the canon is what the church says it is."

    List the Old Testament canon for us. And where has Eastern Orthodoxy infallibly taught that canon?

    You write:

    "So how many types of unity does Jesus want for us? I say he wants us to have all types of unity. Not just 'unity in salvation'."

    That's not the issue. Paul wanted the women in Philippians 4:2-3 to have more than just the unity in the gospel that he refers to in verse 3. But the fact that he wanted them to have more unity doesn't change the fact that they did have some unity already.

    Your admission that there are multiple types of unity is a contradiction of what you argued earlier. You're highly inconsistent.

    You write:

    "Wrong, he says that these people have already believed, past tense."

    Where? Are you saying that Jesus was only seeking unity for people who were believers at the time He was praying? If so, then why are you applying John 17 to our circumstances today?

    ReplyDelete
  28. >Do you apply the same reasoning to your own belief
    >system? What if there's a Tradition you're unaware
    >of in the historical record?

    I don't have to because the Spirit led church normatively has sufficient truth.

    >an Eastern Orthodox factory worker in Russia
    >probably isn't going to know how to defend every
    >Eastern Orthodox Tradition with the level of detail
    >that you're demanding from every Protestant with
    >regard to 2 Peter.

    We don't have to because we don't have smorgas board Christianity, we have a divine menu.

    >I haven't argued that "every single early church
    >tradition" wasn't apostolic.

    Then you've conceded that sola scriptura lacks truths.

    >You initially argued that Protestants need to
    >know about every apostolic teaching, not just the
    >most important ones. But now you're telling us
    >that it's acceptable for you as an Eastern
    >Orthodox to just know what you "need"

    Without the spirit led church you cannot know what the important apostolic teachings are until you know what ALL the apostolic teachings are. In the Spirit led church we by the Spirit know we have enough of importance.

    >If you can trust in God to make the most
    >important issues clear to you in what's preserved
    >in the church, then Protestants can do the same
    >with regard to what's preserved in scripture.

    But you don't know what the canon is. You've already admitted to a position of being willing to toss books out or add books in if the evidence leads you there. So you don't have any boundaries for the truth. And that's before we get to interpretation where some protestants make so much important that they draw a line around themselves that only they can stand in, whereas others see no differences between all denominations, protestant or otherwise.

    >How is that independence equivalent to
    >circularity? It isn't.

    Because each truth in protestantism is the pillar in a building that if shaken can bring down much or even all of the building. There is no glue holding the entirety together.

    >And I answered your use of "math" in a previous
    >response.

    By pretending you have the glue to hold it together, but you don't. One minute you're saying the history of each book makes it stand. The next you're saying that maybe we can consider the bible as a whole. But why? And whose bible? Whose canon? Just doesn't work sorry.

    >They don't recognize it in the manner you've
    >been referring to. They follow Roman Catholic
    >succession rather than Eastern Orthodox
    >succession, because they believe that Eastern
    >Orthodox succession is accompanied by false
    >teaching.

    No, they are completely satisfied with Orthodox succession. And they are even a bit fuzzy on whether they really believe we have false teaching. From Rome's point of view, Orthodox are allowed to commune in Catholic churches.

    >What you criticized him for was his not agreeing
    >with what some later Greek-speaking church
    >fathers believed about the perpetual virginity of
    >Mary.

    It's still bad joke scholarship. And that's before we even consider that heos hou Greek has been discovered that doesn't have the meaning he wants.

    >You keep changing your arguments. Earlier, you
    >said that they agree with Eastern Orthodox
    >Tradition. Now you tell us that they agree with
    >you on "most" subjects, and you still offer us no
    >documentation.

    Anglicanism can't be documented, it is too variable. There are some that are very close to Orthodoxy and there are others that are nearly baptists.

    >Why should we agree with the early church?

    Because the Church is the body of Christ.

    >>"No I don't identify the rule of faith through
    >>fallible means, I do it via the infallible church
    >>which infallibly identifies the rule of faith."
    >
    >Earlier, you referred to your church as your rule
    >of faith. Now you're distinguishing between your
    >church and your rule of faith. Which is it?

    I don't understand the question.

    >All that you're doing is attempting to move the
    >question I've been asking you to a different
    >entity. But moving it to a different entity doesn't
    >change the result. How do you identify and
    >interpret your allegedly infallible church? You do
    >it through fallible means. Why, then, can't
    >Protestants do the same with scripture?

    No I don't interpret through fallible means because the church is infallible and alive.

    No I don't identify the church from fallible evidence. The Tradition is the history of an infallible Church.

    Yes we both identify the truth through our fallible selves, but so do pagans. That doesn't put you and I on an equal truth footing with a pagan.

    >>No, these are secondary sources. The primary
    >>source is the living church itself which is
    >infallible."
    >
    >Protestants can say the same about scripture.

    a) You don't have an infallible tradition from which to identify scripture.
    b) You don't have an infallible source for interpreting scripture.

    >Now that your reading of Elvira has been shown
    >to be unlikely, you're trying to plant doubts in
    >the readers' minds about the genuineness of the
    >canon in question. You didn't do that earlier.
    >Why the change?

    Because I found more information.

    >Would you explain to us whether you agree with
    >the "some scholars" you've mentioned? If you do,
    >then on what basis? If you don't, then what's the
    >relevance of mentioning those scholars?

    I'm not familiar with all the issues surrounding this question.

    Would you explain if you disagree with these scholars? If you do, then what's the relevance of mentioning Elvira?

    >The council tells us why it was forbidding the use
    >of images. The reason the council gives isn't the
    >reason you're suggesting.

    How so?

    >Yet another example of your disunity with the
    >early church.

    This is not how the early church defined unity. No cigar.

    >List the Old Testament canon for us.

    The canon is whatever books all of Orthodoxy agrees on. You can look it up as well as I.

    >Where?

    Earlier in the paragraph.

    >Are you saying that Jesus was only seeking unity
    >for people who were believers at the time He was
    >praying?

    At that time, yes. And it's reasonable to assume he still wants that kind of unity with those around now.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Orthodox writes:

    "I don't have to because the Spirit led church normatively has sufficient truth."

    Prove it.

    And if you think that your denomination "normatively" has sufficient truth, then what about the non-normative times? If you just need to know the central elements of your rule of faith, whereas you can be undecided on lesser elements of it, then why can't Protestants do the same? You've said that Protestants need to be sure of every element of their rule of faith. Why doesn't the same standard apply to Eastern Orthodox, who disagree with each other about what is and isn't Tradition?

    Furthermore, you're ignoring part of what I said in my last post. If you make your judgment about the identity of the church by means of sources such as the church fathers, then what if there are some writings of the church fathers that you don't know about? What if there's some copy of a lost document of Irenaeus in a jar in a cave somewhere? If such a possibility with regard to the writings of the apostle Paul, for example, is supposed to cause a major problem for Protestants, then why doesn't such a scenario with the church fathers, for example, cause a major problem for you? You can't appeal to "the church" to give you confidence, since these church father documents allegedly are some of the sources that lead you to your identification of the church in the first place. If you don't yet know what the identity of the church is when you read a source like Irenaeus, then you can't accept whatever canon of Irenaeus' writings Eastern Orthodoxy gives you on the basis of the authority of Eastern Orthodoxy. Besides, Eastern Orthodoxy hasn't passed any allegedly infallible ruling on the canon of the church fathers' writings.

    You write:

    "We don't have to because we don't have smorgas board Christianity, we have a divine menu."

    Your response doesn't interact with what I said. Telling us that you have a "divine menu" doesn't explain why you expect Protestants to defend a document like 2 Peter in so much depth while you don't expect Eastern Orthodox to defend their Traditions in as much depth. Why the double standard?

    You write:

    "Then you've conceded that sola scriptura lacks truths."

    Are you saying that we should assume that every claim of apostolic tradition made in the early church should be accepted? If so, then do you agree with every claim of apostolic tradition made by Papias, Hermas, Irenaeus, etc.?

    You write:

    "Without the spirit led church you cannot know what the important apostolic teachings are until you know what ALL the apostolic teachings are. In the Spirit led church we by the Spirit know we have enough of importance."

    Prove it.

    You write:

    "You've already admitted to a position of being willing to toss books out or add books in if the evidence leads you there."

    You've done the same with Tradition. Eastern Orthodox disagree with each other over what is Tradition and what isn't, as you've acknowledged. Since both sides of those disputes can't both be right, then at least one side would have to "toss" or "add". And if your judgment that Eastern Orthodoxy is the true church is wrong (as it is), then you'd have to "toss" it. You could change your mind on the subject, as other people have in the past, thus leading to your "tossing" of much of what you now believe. If Protestant beliefs are unacceptable because Protestants could remove or add some beliefs in the future, then the same is true of Eastern Orthodox beliefs.

    You write:

    "Because each truth in protestantism is the pillar in a building that if shaken can bring down much or even all of the building. There is no glue holding the entirety together."

    Not only do you offer no evidence for your assertion, but you also fail to explain how it's even relevant to the issue you were addressing. I asked you how independence is equivalent to circularity. What you describe above has nothing to do with circularity. If a belief system would lose "much or even all" of its structure if one truth is removed, it doesn't therefore follow that the belief system involves circular reasoning. Apparently, you don't even know what a circular argument is.

    You write:

    "No, they are completely satisfied with Orthodox succession. And they are even a bit fuzzy on whether they really believe we have false teaching. From Rome's point of view, Orthodox are allowed to commune in Catholic churches."

    Again, the issue isn't whether they believe that Eastern Orthodox have a succession of bishops. The issue is whether they believe that Eastern Orthodox teachings are to be accepted because of such a succession. They don't. And, as I said before, I likewise reject Eastern Orthodox teaching, despite the succession.

    You write:

    "It's still bad joke scholarship. And that's before we even consider that heos hou Greek has been discovered that doesn't have the meaning he wants."

    You're not interacting with what I and others said in the other thread in response to the same claims you were making there. You were refuted, and you left the thread. Any interested readers can see the exchange at:

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/perpetual-virginity-of-mary.html

    You write:

    "Anglicanism can't be documented, it is too variable. There are some that are very close to Orthodoxy and there are others that are nearly baptists."

    Then you're not giving us any reason to accept your previous claims about Anglicanism.

    You write:

    "Because the Church is the body of Christ."

    Prove it. Just as you expect Protestants to prove that Paul was an apostle, that what the apostles taught was authoritative, etc., even though you agree with Protestants on such issues, I can also expect you to document assertions you make about the church. Why should we believe that the church has the authority you claim it has? How do you demonstrate that the church is what you think it is? If you appeal to a source like the church fathers, then why should we accept them as reliable? You can't appeal to "the church" on such matters, since I'm asking you for an argument for the church.

    You write:

    "I don't understand the question."

    You're now appealing to "the church" to identify your rule of faith for you. But earlier you referred to the church as your rule of faith. Which is it?

    You write:

    "No I don't interpret through fallible means because the church is infallible and alive. No I don't identify the church from fallible evidence. The Tradition is the history of an infallible Church."

    I gave you specific examples of how you rely on fallible means. Interact with those examples I gave you. The reason why you ignored those examples probably is that you know the examples prove my point.

    You write:

    "Yes we both identify the truth through our fallible selves, but so do pagans. That doesn't put you and I on an equal truth footing with a pagan."

    I already addressed that misleading argument in a previous reply. Why do you keep ignoring so much of what people write in response to you? As I said before, whether we're "on an equal truth footing" with "pagans" doesn't address the issue of the means by which we arrive at our conclusions. A Christian's conclusions on the relevant issues are true, whereas a non-Christian's conclusions aren't, but both arrive at their conclusions through fallible means. If a Christian and a non-Christian reach different conclusions about a document written by Tertullian, for example, then the fact that the Christian's conclusion is true, whereas the non-Christian's conclusion is false, doesn't change the fact that both relied on a fallible translation of Tertullian produced by a fallible scholar, etc. Christians and non-Christians both rely on fallible means, but that fact doesn't make their conclusions equally true. Likewise, Protestants and Eastern Orthodox both rely on fallible means to identify and interpret their rule of faith. If you're going to reject Protestant conclusions on such grounds, then consistency demands that you reject Eastern Orthodox conclusions on the same basis. But you aren't consistent.

    These issues have been explained to you many times. I see no excuse for your ongoing failure to acknowledge the obvious. It seems that you're being dishonest.

    You write:

    "a) You don't have an infallible tradition from which to identify scripture.
    b) You don't have an infallible source for interpreting scripture."

    And you don't have an infallible source to interpret your allegedly infallible church. Again, if it's unacceptable to interpret infallible scripture without an infallible church, then why isn't it also unacceptable to interpret an infallible church without another infallible source? To get to the conclusion of an infallible church in the first place, you need to produce arguments that don't depend on an infallible church. If those initial arguments are acceptable, then why are Protestant conclusions reached without dependence on an infallible church inherently unacceptable?

    You write:

    "Would you explain if you disagree with these scholars? If you do, then what's the relevance of mentioning Elvira?"

    Yes, I disagree with the scholars who reject Elvira. Those are the scholars I was referring to. Thus, your second question doesn't make sense. Once again, you've failed to follow an argument, so you end up asking irrelevant questions. How much time do you spend thinking about and composing your average post? Two minutes?

    You write:

    "How so?"

    I explained in a previous post, and you ignored what I said. Go back and reread what I wrote. I shouldn't have to keep repeating myself.

    You write:

    "The canon is whatever books all of Orthodoxy agrees on."

    Prove it. And after you prove that assertion, list the canon for us.

    You write:

    "At that time, yes."

    Prove it.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Epiphanius of Salamis, Doctor of Iconoclasm? Deconstruction of a Myth

    Amazon link

    Epiphanius of Salamis, Doctor of Iconoclasm? Deconstruction of a Myth represents a thorough examination of the dispute over the authenticity of five relevant texts of St. Epiphanius between iconoclasts and iconophiles in the 8th/9th century and between modern scholars in the 20th century: i) The postscript of a Letter of Epiphanius to John of Jerusalem; ii) The treatise of Epiphanius ... against those who make images of Christ, the Mother of God, the Angels and the Prophets; iii) The Dogmatic Letter; iv) The Letter to Epiphanius to the Emperor Theodosius; and v) The Will of Epiphanius addressed to the members of his Church. Following a brief introduction to Epiphanius' history, literary works, theology and the dispute over the alleged iconoclastic texts (ch.1), the author provides: an English translation of the above five documents (ch. 2); an analysis of the "Byzantine Controversy," which focuses on the arguments (against authenticity) of St. John Damascene, of the Seventh Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (787), of St. Nicephorus of Constantinople and of St. Theodore the Studite (ch.3); an analysis of the modern controversy focusing especially on the debate between Karl Holl (for authenticity) and George Ostrogorsky (against authenticity), including the reactions of several scholars (ch. 4); and, finally, a critical evaluation of the arguments for authenticity, which concludes that such arguments "are sufficient to justify their rejection." Fr. Bigham has convincingly argued that Epiphanius's so-called iconophobia, a notion that is present in the popular imagination and in scholarly works for nearly a century, is only a myth ... and, therefore, "the Christian tradition has been and remains fundamentally and essentially iconophile." This reexamination and reevaluation of the critical studies of the recent past is an excellent example of a post-modern criticism of criticism.

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