There isn’t one Catholic in a hundred - and probably a thousand - who has actually READ the Church Fathers deeply. It is the project of a lifetime...thousands and thousands of pages, involving controversies most of us have never thought about.
Mad Dawg made a point on another thread about devotional language vs logical language. That is another challenge in reading the Church Fathers. They were Fathers, not writers of Systematic Theology.
Please don’t tell me Catholics immerse themselves in the Church Fathers and read them in unbiased fashion. Neither do Protestants. No one who cares enough to spend years in research does it ‘just because’, or in a dispassionate curiosity.
Schaff gives lots of examples on both sides, and sometimes on 3 or 4 sides. That is about as good as it gets.
Are they here trying to tell me what the Church Fathers said? No, and I wouldn't listen to them if they did.
Schaff gives lots of examples on both sides, and sometimes on 3 or 4 sides.
And he definitely picks and chooses, and definitely has an axe to grind, and definitely has a point of view, and definitely wants to justify his own Protestant POV.
Excellent good. Thanks for posting.