Posted on 05/05/2015 8:10:20 AM PDT by RnMomof7
A commenter wrote:
I was not aware that Newman concedes the point that there was no bishop in Rome during that period and I am surprised to hear that! Could you possibly reference that for me?
I’m working with the 1989 edition, published by the University of Notre Dame Press. Newman (p. 12) in discussing the Rule of Vincent of Lerins (what was believed always, everywhere, by all — which he single-handedly dismissed) is quoting an imaginary Anglican interlocutor on the discrepancies in teaching from the time of the early church to his time in the 19th century:
I shall admit that there are in fact certain apparent variations in teaching, which have to be explained; thus I shall begin, but then I shall attempt to explain them to the exculpation of that teaching in point of unity, directness, and consistency. (7)
Here then I concede to the opponents of historical Christianity, that there are to be found, during the 1800 years through which it has lasted, certain apparent inconsistencies and alterations in its doctrine and its worship, such as irresistibly attract the attention of all who inquire into it. (p. 9)
He is speaking of those Anglicans who “maintain that history first presents to us a pure Christianity in East and West, and then a corrupt;” (10), and then suggests that “their duty is to draw the line between what is corrupt and what is pure, to determine the dates at which the various changes from good to bad were introduced.” He brings up Vincent’s rule, “quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus”.
He then mockingly cites this imaginary interlocutor: “What there is not the shadow of a reason for saying that the Fathers held, what has not the faintest pretensions of being a Catholic truth, is this, that St. Peter or his successors were and are universal Bishops, that they have the whole of Christendom for their one diocese in a way in which other Apostles and Bishops had and have not.” (13)
He says this is “Most true, if, in order that a doctrine be considered Catholic, must be formally stated by the Fathers generally from the first. He also allows “But on the same understanding, the doctrine also of the apostolical succesion in the episcopal order “has not the faintest pretensions of being a Catholic truth.” (13)
Newman’s theory takes for granted these “certain apparent inconsistencies and alterations in [the church’s] doctrine and its worship.” (9) That’s why he has to articulate this “theory.” As a Presbyterian, I’m not a person who holds that the “development” of “apostolical succession in the episcopal order” is a “catholic truth” in the first place.
This same commenter suggested, in response to my long posting on recent historical studies of the early papacy that, “The burden of proof lies with the party who’s making the assertion, does it not? Without providing a “proof” or “clear/conclusive demonstration” that your assessment of things is indeed accurate, your position is just that- your position. My conscience cannot be bound by what I understand to be another man’s opinion.”
Newman’s theory is that it is safe to assume that “the Christianity of the second, fourth, seventh, twelfth, sixteenth, and intermediate centuries is in its substance the very religion which Christ taught in the first, whatever may be the modifications for good or for evil which lapse of years, or the vicissitudes of human affairs, have impressed upon it.” (5) But what evidence does he himself have for this assertion? What “burden of proof” is required to keep this “safe assumption” alive?
The rest of Newman’s work seems to be “after-the-fact” explanations of how, one “doctrine” or another was changed and yet remains the same. In fact, his response to the lack of historical evidence for a historical papacy is, “no doctrine is defined till it is violated.” (151)
Is it ok for this commenter, (and for Newman), simply to make an assumption, and then to assert that that assumption is correct without any burden of proof to show that somehow, development of the episcopacy was somehow “divinely instituted.” And further, for Rome to “bind the consciences” of all its adherents. (And by extension, to claim that those outside its fold are somehow lacking in “the fullness of the faith.”)
But when any historical underpinnings for this very assumption are removed, is there not reason for those making this assumption to really give some evidence on their own behalf? Are you willing to “bind your conscience” on an opinion and an assumption that has no historical foundation?
That’s is the gist of Newman’s great theory, his answer for why the early papacy was invisible during the earliest centuries.
“No one had challenged it, and therefore it hadn’t been clearly defined.”
That, frankly, doesn’t hold any water, especially not in the light of the historical evidence that I’ve cited below.
I’ll remind you, too, that we are not asked to make any allowances for “development” in the life and death of Christ. That the resurrection was being preached by the apostles in the year that it happened is no longer in question by any scholars — Evangelical or Catholic or hostile and atheist. All agree to this historical fact. And it is a fact that Peter preached:
“Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. … Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. … Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
Here we have history and doctrine rolled all into one. And yet, there is not a word, from Peter or any of the others that “And I have been left in charge.” One would think that, if it were true, such a statement would have been important.
Again, as I’ve posted below, Newman’s “theory” has a defeater: “the one essential question is whether the recognized organ of teaching, the Church herself, acting through Pope or Council as the oracle of heaven, has ever contradicted her own enunciations. If so, the hypothesis which I am advocating is at once shattered.” (121)
ping
Darn, I thought this was a Seinfeld thread...
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“1989 edition” of what? What exactly is he citing?
I believe he is citing “Essay on the Development of Doctrine”, that is what he cites in this post that seems to be where the commentary began:
https://reformation500.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/the-papacy-neither-biblical-nor-historical/
It does not seem possible, then, to avoid the conclusion that, whatever be the proper key for harmonizing the records and documents of the early and later Church, and true as the dictum of Vincentius must be considered in the abstract, and possible as its application might be in his own age, when he might almost ask the primitive centuries for their testimony, it is hardly available now, or effective of any satisfactory result. The solution it offers is as difficult as the original problem. — John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., reprinted 1927), p. 27.
Roman Catholicism, unable to show a continuity of faith and in order to justify new doctrine, erected in the last century, a theory of "doctrinal development."
Following the philosophical spirit of the time (and the lead of Cardinal Henry Newman), Roman Catholic theologians began to define and teach the idea that Christ only gave us an "original deposit" of faith, a "seed," which grew and matured through the centuries. The Holy Spirit, they said, amplified the Christian Faith as the Church moved into new circumstances and acquired other needs.
Consequently, Roman Catholicism, pictures its theology as growing in stages, to higher and more clearly defined levels of knowledge. The teachings of the Fathers, as important as they are, belong to a stage or level below the theology of the Latin Middle Ages (Scholasticism), and that theology lower than the new ideas which have come after it, such as Vatican II.
All the stages are useful, all are resources; and the theologian may appeal to the Fathers, for example, but they may also be contradicted by something else, something higher or newer.
On this basis, theories such as the dogmas of "papal infallibility" and "the immaculate conception" of the Virgin Mary (about which we will say more) are justifiably presented to the Faithful as necessary to their salvation. http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/ortho_cath.html
“Christians have never gone to Scripture for proof of their doctrines until there was actual need, from the pressure of controversy...” — Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey" contained in Newman's "Difficulties of Anglicans" Volume II, Dignity of Mary; http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/newman-mary.asp
..in all cases the immediate motive in the mind of a Catholic for his reception of them is, not that they are proved to him by Reason or by History, but because Revelation has declared them by means of that high ecclesiastical Magisterium which is their legitimate exponent.” — John Henry Newman, “A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation.” 8. The Vatican Council lhttp://www.newmanreader.org/works/anglicans/volume2/gladstone/section8.html
In addition to the above, is this confession from Newman:
In a later age the worship of images was introduced [Note 11]. {371} 4. The principle of the distinction, by which these observances were pious in Christianity and superstitious in paganism, is implied in such passages of Tertullian, Lactantius, and others, as speak of evil spirits lurking under the pagan statues. It is intimated also by Origen, who, after saying that Scripture so strongly “forbids temples, altars, and images,” that Christians are “ready to go to death, if necessary, rather than pollute their notion of the God of all by any such transgression,” assigns as a reason “that, as far as possible, they might not fall into the notion that images were gods.”
...the rulers of the Church from early times were prepared, should the occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the existing rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of the educated class...
In the course of the fourth century two movements or developments spread over the face of Christendom, with a rapidity characteristic of the Church; the one ascetic, the other ritual or ceremonial. We are told in various ways by Eusebius [Note 16], that Constantine, in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to which they had been accustomed in their own. It is not necessary to go into a subject which the diligence of Protestant writers has made familiar to most of us.
The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison [Note 17], are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church. {374}
The introduction of Images was still later, and met with more opposition in the West than in the East. John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Chapter 8. Application of the Third Note of a True Development—Assimilative Power; www.newmanreader.org/works/development/chapter8.html
May we have a God night.
The Catholic Church is simply a conglomeration of paganism and many other religions.
For your education.
It is the Lord’s day, correct? Why the response you gave?
If you wish to comment on other threads, go to those threads.
So not bring one poster’s posts to other threads, that is making it personal.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
In one sense, every single day is the Lord's day.
Yet the sabbath was made for man, not man made for the sabbath. Mark 2:23
Why the response you gave?
Why wait nearly 3 weeks to then only give the rather rude reply to me that the links were "for my instruction"?
Who are you to attempt to instruct me as to anything?
Attacking a belief system is allowed on ‘open’ Religion Forum threads. Following a poster from thread to thread to mention previous threads is ‘making it personal.’. Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
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