For the time being I will set aside the epistemological arguments since they had already been shown yet unanswered by The Skeptic. As Van Til pointed out and kosta manifested later:
But so soon as you claim that your God has revealed himself in creation, in providence, or in your Scripture, so soon I shall put that revelation to a test by the principle of rational coherence.”“And by that test none of your doctrines are acceptable. All of them are contradictory. No rational man can accept any of them. If your God is eternal, then he falls outside of my experience and lives in the realm of the ‘Beyond,’ of the unknowable. But if he is to have anything to do with the world, then he must himself be wholly within the world. I must understand your God throughout if I am to speak intelligently of any relationship that he sustains to my world and to myself. Your idea that God is both eternal and unchangeable and yet sustains such relationships to the world as are involved in your doctrine of creation and providence, is flatly contradictory.”
All this amounts to saying that the skeptic, the lover of a Chance philosophy, the indeterminist, is at the same time an out-and-out determinist or fatalist. It is to say that the skeptic, the irrationalist, who said that nobody knows what is in the “Beyond,” is at the same time a flaming rationalist. For him only that can be which—so he thinks—he can exhaustively determine by logic must be. He may at first grant that anything may exist, but when he says this he at the same time says in effect that nothing can exist and have meaning for man but that which man himself can exhaustively know. Therefore, for the skeptic, the God of Christianity cannot exist. For him the doctrine of creation cannot be true. There could be no revelation of God to man through nature and history. There can be no such thing as the resurrection of Christ.
Thus our skeptic friends are caught in the their logical positivists tautologies and when asked by several Christians to use their empirical acumen to prove God's existence they run like the devil runs from the cross. Not that I am without sympathy since our Eastern friends have long been indoctrinated by atheistic principles. Be that as it may, since the foolishness of the cross infuriates the natural man, perhaps a more edifying area of discussion lies in the realm of historical theology. Because the canard of Tradition is the weapon of choice of the Greeks and Romanists perhaps we can find some fruit for the Christian in responding to these canards.
The Reformation was a renewal back to the what the early Church fathers believed about the relationship between Scripture and Church, that Scripture and tradition coinhere with the Body of Christ. It was not simply on the level of source (Scripture) and interpretation (tradition) but that Scripture and tradition flow from the same source, the word of God, and both the work of the Holy Spirit. The early fathers held no delusions that tradition was on the same level as revelation and explicitly denied any extra-scriptural traditon. In essence, the early fathers saw the oral traditions as the rule of faith of the Apostles and were keepers of that until such time as canonization was complete. They held no delusions that the rule of faith was the definitive interpretation of Scripture. In summary, the early fathers saw tradition as evidence of God working in his Church not as an extra source of revelation.
As the Catholic theologian George Tavard points out this was the Churches understanding up until around the 14th century when the bastardiztion of tradition started to gain footing. It was around this time the concept of post-apostolic tradition as revelation came to the fore and raised the papal oligarchy as supreme judge of these post-apostolic revelations. This was a view that would be foreign to Aquinas as can be seen when he quotes Augustine as an authority:
“sacred doctrine... properly uses the authority of the canonical Scriptures as an incontrovertible proof, and the authority of the doctors of the Church as one that may properly be used, yet merely as probable. For our faith rests upon the revelation made to the apostles and prophets who wrote the canonical books, and not on the revelations (if any such there are) made to other doctors. Hence Augustine says (Epis. ad Hieron. xix, 1): ‘Only those books of Scripture which are called canonical have I learned to hold in such honor as to believe their authors have not erred in any way in writing them. But other authors I so read as not to deem everything in their works to be true, merely on account of their having so thought and written, whatever may have been their holiness and learning’” (ST I, q. 1, art. 8, ad 2).
In summary, the late medieval bastardization of Scripture and tradition lead to the privatizing of the Holy Spirit to the papal oligarchy, the denial that all doctrinal truths are found in Scripture and the addition of extra-scriptural post apostolic tradition on the same level as revelation in opposition to what the early fathers believed.
Unfortunately this is not the end of the story. As can be seen by the attitudes of our Greek and Romanist friends the relation between Scripture and tradition is now evolving to the point where neither is a final source but now the magisterium can rewrite it's own official (infallible) dogma overriding both Scripture and tradition. (As we see going on with the low view of Scripture being promoted)
No, just a realist who understands that the world is as it is even if we don't understand it, and that our inability to comprehend is filled with our fancy to "make sense" of it.
Locust is not a wrath of God; it happens every year all over the world. To ancient Jews earthquakes and lightening and thunder were all "signs from heavens" that God was "angry." Ignorance is great, because it allows one to make whatever he or she wants to make of it.
The Reformation was a renewal back to the what the early Church fathers believed about the relationship between Scripture and Church
Dream on. You couldn't per chance provide some examples?
They held no delusions that the rule of faith was the definitive interpretation of Scripture
Definitive, ey? One would think that if you have faith you don't need anything else, including the scriptures. The early Christians didn't have the New Testament and yet died for their faith.
At which point does the "definitive interpretation of Scripture" become essential to one's faith? Are you saying that the early Christians who couldn't read and write didn't understand their faith correcty? Or did they get just "enough" when +Paul wrote his epistles? Or perhaps when +Mark came out with his gospel? Or maybe when the synoptic gospels were written? Or did it have to wait another 30 years until +John finished his?
At which point did this "rule of faith" become fulfilled for the Christians? Or did they not have faith until Martin Luther came along?
It was around this time the concept of post-apostolic tradition as revelation came to the fore and raised the papal oligarchy as supreme judge of these post-apostolic revelations. This was a view that would be foreign to Aquinas
Yes it is and it is foreign to the Orthodox as well, and has been always. The Catholic Church has since scaled down most of the imperial papacy element and is no doubt once again becoming more patristic. That's ecclesiology, not necessarily theology.
The point is that our (Orthodox and Catholic) Trinitarian and Christological dogmas are the same. How they discipline their Church and what roles they assign to different people in it, is none of our concern. We are only interested in sharing the same faith (if possible), not how they arrange their furniture.
As can be seen by the attitudes of our Greek and Romanist friends the relation between Scripture and tradition is now evolving to the point where neither is a final source but now the magisterium can rewrite it's own official (infallible) dogma overriding both Scripture and tradition
First of all, the Holy Tradition is seen as parallel with the Scriptures in the Catholic Church; the Sciptures are considered the central element of the Holy Tradition in the Orthodox Church. Second, the final source of authority in the Church is Christ Himself. We all recognize that. Third, it was the Church that made infallible decision to canonize the infallible word of God into a bible that you read.
I can't speak for others, but our liturgy and what we believe (because we believe what we pray) is from that same period of time and mindset when the Church canonized the Bible, and remains the same liturgy and mindset to this day.
That makes us confident that what we Orthodox have been teaching and believed for the past 1700 years is what the Church believed everywhere and always, and is the same Church that canonized the Bible. We have not changed in that respect.
the late medieval bastardization of Scripture and tradition lead to the privatizing of the Holy Spirit to the papal oligarchy, the denial that all doctrinal truths are found in Scripture and the addition of extra-scriptural post apostolic tradition on the same level as revelation in opposition to what the early fathers believed.
Unfortunately this is not the end of the story. As can be seen by the attitudes of our Greek and Romanist friends the relation between Scripture and tradition is now evolving to the point where neither is a final source but now the magisterium can rewrite it's own official (infallible) dogma overriding both Scripture and tradition. (As we see going on with the low view of Scripture being promoted)
Great post, tc! Posts like that are why I come to learn at the Free Republic Religion Forum.
East influenced by atheism? Atheism is a product of Western Protestant angry wrathful tyrant God, whom no one can love but only fear (if you confuse fear with love, there is a medical term for that). Atheism was born in the West and seems to flourish in the Western, Protestant Europe, and is growing in America.
That has to be the one of the silliest things I have ever seen written on any religious forum.
If that were the case than you would all believe that Eucharist is literally the Body and Blood of Christ and living a sacramental life.... Thus being united.
The reformation and the reformers did not unite anything, including themselves
What the reformation has lead to is -divisions upon divisions leading to thousands of protestant communities with various beliefs all claiming the Holy Spirit leads them.
The fruits of the reformation is the spirit of confusion.
The spirit of confusion is NOT the Holy Spirit!
The only thing protestants seem to be united in is attacks on the Catholic Church.
It was in the same fashion of those who wanted Christ crucified that the reformers in their pride sought out to TRY and divide and destroy the Catholic Church.
The gates of hell did not prevail as Christ promised and it is the protestant churches that ended up divided.