Posted on 08/30/2009 2:03:16 PM PDT by NYer
Updated August 18, 2008 (first published June 4, 2008) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
Many people have walked into the Roman Catholic Church through the broad door of the “church fathers,” and this is a loud warning today when there is a widespread attraction to the “church fathers” within evangelicalism.
The Catholic apologetic ministries use the “church fathers” to prove that Rome’s doctrines go back to the earliest centuries. In the book Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic, David Currie continually uses the church fathers to support his position. He says, “The other group of authors whom Evangelicals should read ... is the early Fathers of the Church” (p. 4).
The contemplative prayer movement is built on this same weak foundation. The late Robert Webber, a Wheaton College professor who was one of the chief proponents of this back to the “church fathers” movement, said:
“The early Fathers can bring us back to what is common and help us get behind our various traditions ... Here is where our unity lies. ... evangelicals need to go beyond talk about the unity of the church to experience it through an attitude of acceptance of the whole church and an entrance into dialogue with the Orthodox, Catholic, and other Protestant bodies” (Ancient-Future Faith, 1999, p. 89).
The fact is that the “early Fathers” were mostly heretics!
This term refers to various church leaders of the first few centuries after the apostles whose writings have been preserved.
The only genuine “church fathers” are the apostles and prophets their writings that were given by divine inspiration and recorded in the Holy Scripture. They gave us the “faith ONCE delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). The faith they delivered is able to make us “perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). We don’t need anything beyond the Bible. The teaching of the “church fathers” does not contain one jot or tittle of divine revelation.
The term “church fathers” is a misnomer that was derived from the Catholic Church’s false doctrine of hierarchical church polity. These men were not “fathers” of the church in any scriptural sense and did not have any divine authority. They were merely church leaders from various places who have left a record of their faith in writing. But the Roman Catholic Church exalted men to authority beyond the bounds designated by Scripture, making them “fathers” over the churches located within entire regions and over the churches of the whole world.
The “church fathers” are grouped into four divisions: Apostolic Fathers (second century), Ante-Nicene Fathers (second and third centuries), Nicene Fathers (fourth century), and Post-Nicene Fathers (fifth century). Nicene refers to the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 that dealt with the issue of Arianism and affirmed the doctrine of Christ’s deity. Thus, the Ante-Nicene Fathers are so named because they lived in the century before this council, and the Post-Nicene, because they lived in the century following the council.
All of the “church fathers” were infected with some false doctrine, and most of them were seriously infected. Even the so-called Apostolic Fathers of the second century were teaching the false gospel that baptism, celibacy, and martyrdom provided forgiveness of sin (Howard Vos, Exploring Church History, p. 12). And of the later “fathers”--Clement, Origen, Cyril, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Theodore, and John Chrysostom--the same historian admits: “In their lives and teachings we find the seed plot of almost all that arose later. In germ form appear the dogmas of purgatory, transubstantiation, priestly mediation, baptismal regeneration, and the whole sacramental system” (Vos, p. 25).
In fact, one of the Post-Nicene “fathers” is Leo the Great, the first Roman Catholic Pope!
Therefore, the “church fathers” are actually the fathers of the Roman Catholic Church. They are the men who laid the foundation of apostasy that produced Romanism and Greek Orthodoxy.
The New Testament Scriptures warns frequently that there would be an apostasy, a turning from the faith among professing Christians. The apostles and prophets warned said this apostasy had already begun in their day and warned that it would increase as the time of Christ’s return draws nearer.
Paul testified of this in many places, giving us a glimpse into the vicious assault that was already plaguing the work of God. Consider his last message to the pastors at Ephesus (Acts 20:29-30). Paul warned them that false teachers would come from without and would also arise from within their own ranks. Consider his second epistle to Corinth (2 Cor. 11:1-4, 12-15). The false teachers who were active at Corinth were corrupting three of the cardinal doctrines of the New Testament faith, the doctrine of Christ, Salvation, and the Holy Spirit; and the churches were in danger of being overthrown by these errors. Consider Paul’s warnings to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:1-6 and 2 Timothy 3:1-13 and 4:3-4.
Peter devoted the entire second chapter of his second epistle to this theme. He warned in verse one that there would be false teachers who hold “damnable heresies,” referring to heresies that damn the soul to eternal hell. If someone denies, for example, the Virgin Birth, Deity, Humanity, Sinlessness, Eternality, Atonement, or Resurrection of Jesus Christ he cannot be saved. Heresies pertaining to such matters are damnable heresies. The corruption of the “doctrine of Christ” results in a “false christ.”
John gave similar warnings in his epistles (1 John 2:18, 19, 22; 4:1-3; 2 John 7-11).
In addressing the seven churches in Revelation 2-3, the Lord Jesus Christ warned that many of the apostolic churches were already weak and were under severe stress from heretical attacks (Rev. 2:6, 14-15, 20-24; 3:2, 15-17).
Thus the New Testament faith was being attacked on every hand in the days of the apostles by Gnosticism, Judaism, Nicolaitanism, and other heresies.
And the apostles and prophets warned that this apostasy would increase.
Paul said, “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13). This describes the course of the church age in terms of the spread of heresy!
Therefore it is not surprising to find doctrinal error rampant among the churches even in the early centuries.
Further, we only have a very partial record of the early centuries and the surviving writings have been heavily filtered by Rome. The Roman Catholic Church was in power for a full millennium and its Inquisition reached to the farthest corners of Europe and beyond. Rome did everything in its power to destroy the writings of those who differed with her. Consider the Waldenses. These were Bible-believing Christians who lived in northern Italy and southern France and elsewhere during the Dark Ages and were viciously persecuted by Rome for centuries. Though we know that the Waldenses have a history that begins in the 11th century if not before, their historical record was almost completely destroyed by Rome. Only a handful of Waldensian writings were preserved from all of those centuries.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the extant writings from the early centuries are ones that are sympathetic to Rome’s doctrines. This does not prove that most of the churches then held to Roman Catholic doctrine. It proves only that those writings sympathetic to Rome were allowed to survive. We know that there were many churches in existence in those early centuries that did not agree with Roman doctrine, because they were persecuted by the Romanists and are mentioned in the writings of the “church fathers.”
A LOOK AT SOME OF THE CHURCH FATHERS
Ignatius (c. 50-110)
Ignatius was the bishop of Antioch in the early second century. He was arrested in about A.D. 110 and sent to Rome for trial and martyrdom.
1. He taught that churches should have elders and a ruling bishop; in other words, he was exalting one bishop over another, whereas in scripture the terms “bishop” and “elder” refer to the same humble office in the assembly (Titus 1:5-7).
2. He taught that all churches are a part of one universal church.
3. He claimed that a church does not have authority to baptize or conduct the Lord’s Supper unless it has a bishop.
These relatively innocent errors helped prepare the way for more error in the next century.
Justin Martyr (c. 100 – c. 165)
When Justin embraced Christianity, he held on to some of his pagan philosophy.
1. He interpreted the Scriptures allegorically and mystically.
2. He helped develop the idea of a “middle state” after death that was neither heaven nor hell. Eventually this doctrine became Rome’s purgatory.
Irenaeus (c. 125-202)
Irenaeus was a pastor in Lyons, France, who wrote a polemic titled Against Heresies in about A.D. 185.
1. He supported the authority of the bishop as a ruler over many churches.
2. He defended church tradition beyond what the Scripture allows. For this reason he is claimed by the Roman Catholic Church as one of their own.
3. He taught the Catholic heresy of “real presence,” saying, “The Eucharist becomes the body of Christ.”
Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 230)
1. Clement headed the allegorizing school of Alexandria from 190 to 202. This school was founded by Pantaenus.
2. Clement intermingled the philosophy of Plato with Christianity.
3. He helped develop the doctrine of purgatory and believed that most men would eventually be saved.
Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 255)
Tertullian lived in Carthage in North Africa (located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in modern Tunisia, between Libya and Algeria).
1. Though he fought against Gnosticism, he also exalted the authority of the church beyond that allowed by Scripture. He taught that the church’s authority comes through apostolic succession.
2. He believed that the bread of the Lord’s Supper was Christ and worried about dropping crumbs of it on the ground.
3. He adopted Montanism, believing that Montanus spoke prophecies by inspiration of God.
4. He taught that widows who remarried committed fornication.
5. He taught that baptism is for the forgiveness of sins.
6. He classified sins into three categories and believed in confession of sins to a bishop.
7. He said that the human soul was seen in a vision as “tender, light, and of the colour of air.” He claimed that all human souls were in Adam and are transmitted to us with the taint of original sin upon them.
8. He taught that there was a time when the Son of God did not exist and when God was not a Father.
9. He taught that Mary was the second Eve who by her obedience remedied the disobedience of the first Eve.
Cyprian (? – 258)
Cyprian was the “bishop of Carthage” in Africa.
1. He was tyrannical and wealthy and he wrote against the Novatian churches for their efforts to maintain a pure church membership.
2. Cyprian defended the unscriptural doctrine that certain bishops had authority over many churches and that all pastors must submit to them.
3. He supported the heresy of infant baptism.
No wonder Cyprian was made one of the “saints” of the Catholic Church.
Origen (185-254)
Though he endured persecution and torture for the cause of Christ under the emperor Decius in 250, Origen was loaded with false teachings. Origen’s character is described by the Lutheran historian Mosheim as “a compound of contraries, wise and unwise, acute and stupid, judicious and injudicious; the enemy of superstition, and its patron; a strenuous defender of Christianity, and its corrupter; energetic and irresolute; one to whom the Bible owes much, and from whom it has suffered much.”
We do not agree that the Bible owes Origen much, but there is no doubt that it suffered much at his hands.
Following are some of the strange heresies of Origen:
1. He denied the infallible inspiration of Scripture.
2. He rejected the literal history of the early chapters in Genesis and of Satan taking the Lord Jesus up to a high mountain and offering him the kingdoms of the world (Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Vol. III, p. 614). Durant quotes Origen: “Who is so foolish as to believe that God, like a husbandman, planted a garden in Eden, and placed in it a tree of life ... so that one who tasted of the fruit obtained life?”
3. He accepted infant baptism.
4. He taught baptismal regeneration and salvation by works. “After these points, it is taught also that the soul, having a substance and life proper to itself, shall, after its departure from this world, be rewarded according to its merits. It is destined to obtain either an inheritance of eternal life and blessedness, if its deeds shall have procured this for it, or to be delivered up to eternal fire and punishment, if the guilt of its crimes shall have brought it down to this” (Origen, cited by W.A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers).
5. He believed the Holy Spirit was possibly a created being of some sort. “In His case [that of the Holy Spirit], however, it is not clearly distinguished whether or not He was born or even whether He is or is not to be regarded as a Son of God” (Origen, cited by W.A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers).
6. He believed in a form of purgatory and universalism, denying the literal fire of hell and believing that even Satan would be saved eventually. “Now let us see what is meant by the threatening with eternal fire. ... It seems to be indicated by these words that every sinner kindles for himself the flame of his own fire and is not plunged into some fire which was kindled beforehand by someone else or which already existed before him. ... And when this dissolution and tearing asunder of the soul shall have been accomplished by means of the application of fire, no doubt it will afterwards be solidified into a firmer structure and into a restoration of itself” (Origen, cited by W.A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers).
7. He believed that men’s souls are preexistent and that stars and planets possibly have souls. “In regard to the sun, however, and the moon and the stars, as to whether they are living beings or are without life, there is not clear tradition” (Origen, cited by W.A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers).
8. He believed that Jesus was a created being and not eternal. “He held an aberrant view on the nature of Christ, which gave rise to the later Arian heresy” (Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, “Origen”). That Origen believed Jesus Christ had an origin is evident from this statement: “Secondly, that Jesus Christ Himself, who came, was born of the Father before all creatures; and after He had ministered to the Father in the creation of all things,--for through Him were all things made” (Origen, quoted by W.A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers).
9. He denied the bodily resurrection, claiming that the resurrection body is spherical, non-material, and does not have members. “He denied the tangible, physical nature of the resurrection body in clear contrast to the teaching of Scripture” (Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, “Origen”). He was condemned by the Council of Constantinople on this count.
10. Origen allegorized the Bible saying, “The Scriptures have little use to those who understand them literally.” In this he was one of the fathers of the heretical amillennial method of prophetic interpretation, which was given further development by Augustine and later adopted by the Roman Catholic Church. This destroyed the apostolic doctrine of the imminency of the return of Christ (Mt. 24:42, 44; 25:13; Mk. 13:33) and the literal Tribulation and Millennial Kingdom. It also did away with a literal fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel and set the stage for the persecution of the Jews by the Roman Catholic Church.
Eusebius of Caesarea (270-340)
1. Eusebius collected the writings of Origen and promoted his erroneous teachings. “Whatever proof exists that Origen and his school deteriorated the correctness of the text, it is to the same extent clear that Eusebius accepted and perpetuated that injury” (Discussions of Robert Lewis Dabney, I, p. 387).
2. Constantine the Great, who had joined church and state in the Roman Empire and had thereby laid the foundation for the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church, hired Eusebius to produce some Greek New Testaments. Frederick Nolan and other authorities have charged Eusebius with making many changes in the text of Scripture. “As it is thus apparent that Eusebius wanted not the power, so it may be shewn that he wanted not the will, to make those alterations in the sacred text, with which I have ventured to accuse him” (Nolan, Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, p. 35).
3. Many of the noted omissions in the modern versions can be traced to this period, including Mark 16:9-20 and John 8:1-11. After intensive investigation, Frederick Nolan concluded that Eusebius “suppressed those passages in his edition” (Nolan, p. 240). In fact, many textual authorities have identified Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, the manuscripts so revered by modern textual critics, as two of the copies of the Greek New Testament made by Eusebius. These manuscripts also contained the spurious apocryphal writings, Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas. Origen had considered these two uninspired and fanciful books as canonical Scripture (Goodspeed, The Formation of the New Testament, p. 103).
Jerome (Sophronius Eusebius Hieronymus) (340-420)
Jerome was called upon by Damasus, the Bishop of Rome, to produce a standard Latin Bible. This was completed between A.D. 383 and 405 and became the Bible adopted by the Roman Catholic Church. It is commonly called the Latin vulgate (meaning common).
Modern textual critic Bruce Metzger says that the Greek manuscripts used by Jerome “apparently belonged to the Alexandrian type of text” (Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, p. 76). This means they were in the same family as those underlying the modern versions. Kenyon and Robinson also affirm this (Kenyon, The Text of the Greek Bible, p. 88; Robinson, Ancient Versions of the English Bible, p. 113).
This means that the Jerome Latin vulgate adopted by Rome represents the same type of text as the critical Greek text underlying the modern versions. These commonly remove “God” from 1 Timothy 3:16 and contain many other corruptions.
Jerome was deeply infected with false teaching:
1. Jerome followed the false teaching of asceticism, believing the state of celibacy to be spiritually superior to that of marriage, and demanding that church leaders be unmarried. James Heron, author of The Evolution of Latin Christianity, observed that “no single individual did so much to make monasticism popular in the higher ranks of society” (Heron, 1919, p. 58).
2. Jerome believed in the veneration of “holy relics” and the bones of dead Christians (Heron, pp. 276, 77).
3. Jerome “took a leading and influential part in ‘opening the floodgates’ for the invocation of saints,” teaching “distinctly and emphatically that the saints in heaven hear the prayers of men on earth, intercede on their behalf and send them help from above (Heron, pp. 287, 88).
4. Jerome taught that Mary was the counterpart of Eve, as Christ was the counterpart of Adam, and that through her obedience Mary became instrumental in helping to redeem the human race (Heron, p. 294). He also taught that Mary was a perpetual virgin (Heron, pp. 294, 95).
5. Jerome believed in the blessing of water (Heron, p. 306).
6. Jerome justified the death penalty for “heretics” (Heron, The Evolution of Latin Christianity, p. 323).
As for his spirit and character, Jerome is described, even by a historian who had high respect for him, with these words: “such irritability and bitterness of temper, such vehemence of uncontrolled passion, such an intolerant and persecuting spirit, and such inconstancy of conduct” (Schaff, History of the Christian Church, III, p. 206).
It is obvious that Jerome had imbibed many of the false teachings and attitudes that eventually became the entrenched dogmas and practices of the Roman Catholic Church.
Ambrose (339-397)
Ambrose was bishop of Milan, in Italy, from 374-397. Because of his commitment to many early doctrinal heresies, his writings have been appealed to by popes and Catholic councils. Ambrose had a strong influence upon Augustine. The Catholic Church made him a saint and a doctor of the church.
1. Ambrose used the allegorical-mystical method of Bible interpretation, having been influenced by Origen and Philo.
2. He taught that Christians should be devoted to Mary, encouraged monasticism, and believed in prayers to the saints.
3. He believed the church has the power to forgive sins.
4. He believed the Lord’s Supper is a sacrifice of Christ.
5. He taught that virginity is holier than marriage and whenever possible he encouraged young women not to marry. His teaching in this helped pave the way for the Catholic monastic system.
6. He offered prayers for the dead.
Augustine (354-430)
Augustine was polluted with many false doctrines and helped lay the foundation for the formation of the Roman Catholic Church. For this reason Rome has honored Augustine as one of the “doctors of the church.”
1. He was a persecutor and the father of the doctrine of persecution in the Catholic Church.
The historian Neander observed that Augustine’s teaching “contains the germ of the whole system of spiritual despotism, intolerance, and persecution, even to the court of the Inquisition.” Augustine instigated persecutions against the Bible-believing Donatists who were striving to maintain pure churches after the apostolic faith. He interpreted Luke 14:23 (“compel them to come in”) to mean that Christ required the churches to use force against heretics.
2. He was the father of a-millennialism, allegorizing Bible prophecy and teaching that the Catholic Church is the kingdom of God.
3. He taught that the sacraments are the means of saving grace.
4. He was one of the fathers of infant baptism. The ‘council’ of Mela, in Numidia, A.D. 416, composed of merely fifteen persons and presided over by Augustine, decreed: “Also, it is the pleasure of the bishops in order that whoever denies that infants newly born of their mothers, are to be baptized or says that baptism is administered for the remission of their own sins, but not on account of original sin, delivered from Adam, and to be expiated by the laver of regeneration, BE ACCURSED” (Wall, The History of Infant Baptism, I, 265). Augustine thus taught that infants should be baptized and that the baptism took away their sin. He called all who rejected infant baptism “infidels” and “cursed.”
5. He taught that Mary did not commit sin and promoted her worship. He believed Mary played a vital role in salvation (Augustine, Sermon 289, cited in Durant, The Story of Civilization, 1950, IV, p. 69).
6. He believed in purgatory.
7. He accepted the doctrine of “celibacy” for “priests,” supporting the decree of “Pope” Siricius of 387 that ordered that any priest that married or refused to separate from his wife should be disciplined.
8. He exalted the authority of the church over that of the Bible, declaring, “I should not believe the gospel unless I were moved to do so by the authority of the Catholic Church” (quoted by John Paul II, Augustineum Hyponensem, Apostolic Letter, Aug. 28, 1986, www.cin.org/jp2.ency/augustin.html).
9. He believed that the true interpretation of Scripture was derived from the declaration of church councils (Augustine, De Vera Religione, xxiv, p. 45).
10. He interpreted the early chapters of Genesis figuratively (Dave Hunt, “Calvin and Augustine: Two Jonahs Who Sink the Ship,” Debating Calvinism: Five Points, Two Views by Dave Hunt and James White, 2004, p. 230).
11. He taught that God has pre-ordained some for salvation and others for damnation and that the grace of God is irresistible for the true elect. By his own admission, John Calvin in the 16th century derived his TULIP theology on the “sovereignty of God” from Augustine. Calvin said: “If I were inclined to compile a whole volume from Augustine, I could easily show my readers, that I need no words but his” (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book III, chap. 22).
12. He taught the heresy of apostolic succession from Peter (Hunt, ibid., p. 230).
John Chrysostom (347-407)
Chrysostom was a leader in Antioch, in the Greek part of the Catholic church of that day, and became “patriarch” of Constantinople in 398.
1. He believed in the “real presence” of the mass, that the bread literally becomes Jesus Christ.
2. He taught that church tradition can be equal in authority to the Scriptures.
Cyril (376-444)
Cyril was the “patriarch” of Alexandria and supported many of the errors that led to the formation of the Catholic Church.
1. He promoted the veneration of Mary and called her the Theotokos, or bearer of God.
2. In 412, Cyril instigated persecution against the Donatist Christians.
A WARNING OF THE POWER OF THE CHURCH FATHERS TO LEAD TO ROME
Having seen some of the heresies that leavened the “church fathers,” it is not surprising that a non-critical study of their writings can lead to Rome. That is where they were all headed! And for the most part we have only looked at the more doctrinally sound “church fathers”!
In the late nineteenth century JOHN HENRY NEWMAN (1801-90) walked into the Roman Catholic Church through the door of the church fathers. Newman, an Anglican priest and one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement in the Church of England, is one of the most famous of the Protestant converts to Rome. He said that two of the factors in his conversion were his fascination with the church fathers and his study of the lives of the “English saints,” referring to Catholic mystics such as Joan of Norwich. He converted to Rome in 1845 and was made a Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in 1879.
In more recent days many are following Newman’s lead.
SCOTT AND KIMBERLY HAHN, Presbyterians who joined the Roman Catholic Church, were influenced by the church fathers. In their influential autobiography, Rome Sweet Rome, Kimberly recalls how that Scott studied the “church fathers” when he was still a Presbyterian minister.
“Scott gained many insights from the early Church Fathers, some of which he shared in his sermons. This was rather unexpected for both of us, because we had hardly ever read the early Church Fathers when we were in seminary. In fact, in our senior year we had complained loudly to friends about possible creeping Romanism when a course was offered by an Anglican priest on the early Church Fathers. Yet here was Scott quoting them in sermons! One night Scott came out of his study and said, ‘Kimberly, I have to be honest. I don’t know how long we are going to be Presbyterians. We may become Episcopalians’” (Rome Sweet Rome, p. 56).
In fact, they became Roman Catholics, and the influence of the “church fathers” on that decision is obvious.
In 1985 THOMAS HOWARD became another famous Protestant convert to Rome. In his 1984 book Evangelical Is Not Enough Howard had called upon evangelicals to study the church fathers. Howard was a professor at Gordon College for 15 years and is from a family of prominent evangelicals. His father, Philip, was editor of the Sunday School Times; his brother David Howard was head of the World Evangelical Fellowship; and his sister Elizabeth married the famous missionary Jim Elliot, who was martyred by the Auca Indians in Ecuador.
The church fathers were also instrumental in the conversion of PETER KREEFT to Rome from the Dutch Reformed denomination. Kreeft, a very influential Catholic apologist, studied the church fathers as a student at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He writes:
“My adventurous half rejoiced when I discovered in the early Church such Catholic elements as the centrality of the Eucharist, the Real Presence, prayers to saints, devotion to Mary, an insistence on visible unity, and apostolic succession. Furthermore, THE CHURCH FATHERS JUST ‘SMELLED’ MORE CATHOLIC THAN PROTESTANT, especially St. Augustine, my personal favorite and a hero to most Protestants too. It seemed very obvious that if Augustine or Jerome or Ignatius of Antioch or Anthony of the Desert, or Justin Martyr, or Clement of Alexandria, or Athanasius were alive today they would be Catholics, not Protestants” (“Hauled Aboard the Ark,” http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/hauled-aboard.htm).
Kreeft is absolutely right. Many of the “church fathers” do smell more Catholic than Protestant!
The books Surprised by Truth edited by Patrick Madrid and The Road to Rome edited by Dwight Longenecker and Journeys Home edited by Marcus Grodi contain many examples of this phenomenon. One of the testimonies is by SHARON MANN, who says,
“I started reading the early Church Fathers and realized that whatever they believed, they surely were not Protestant. Catholic themes peppered the landscape of Church history. I couldn’t deny it...” (Journeys Home, 1997, p. 88).
This is true, of course. Catholic themes do pepper the landscape of the “church fathers.” What she should have understood is that they were not doctrinally sound and they have absolutely no authority. Whatever they were, they are not our examples and guides. She should have compared them to the infallible truth in the Bible and rejected them as heretics.
Instead, she allowed the “church fathers” to stir up her curiosity about Roman Catholicism and she ended up at a Mass. There she had a powerful emotional experience when the crowd knelt to idolatrously “adore” the blessed host as it passed by in its “monstrance.” She began weeping and her throat tightened and she couldn’t swallow. She said:
“If the Lord was truly passing by, then I wanted to adore and worship Him, but if He wasn’t, I was afraid to be idolatrous. That weekend left a very powerful imprint on my heart, and I found myself running out of good arguments to stay Protestant. My heart was longing to be Catholic and be restored to the unity with all Christendom” (Journeys Home, p. 89).
When she speaks of the Lord passing by, she is referring to the Catholic doctrine that the wafer or host of the Mass becomes the actual body and blood of Jesus when it is blessed by the priest and thereafter it is worshipped as Jesus Himself. Following the Mass the host is placed in a box called the tabernacle and Catholics pray to it. The host is the Catholic Jesus.
Roger Oakland describes an experience he had in Rome at the feast of Corpus Christi when Pope Benedict XVI worshipped at the Major Mary basilica:
“Finally, after almost three hours of standing and waiting, the pope and his entourage arrived. The pope was carrying the Eucharistic Jesus in a monstrance. Earlier that day during a mass at St. Peter’s, this Eucharistic Jesus had been created from a wafer that had been consecrated. Later in the say, the same Jesus was transported to St. John’s for another ceremony. Finally, for a finale, the pope transported Jesus to the Major Church of Mary. The pope took the monstrance, ascended the stairs of the church, and held Jesus up for the masses to see. Then this Jesus was placed on an altar temporarily erected at the top of the steps. A cardinal then opened the glass window of the monstrance, removed the consecrated wafer (Jesus), and hustled him inside the church where he placed Jesus in a tabernacle. This experience gave me a sobering reminder of this terrible apostasy” (Faith Undone, p. 126).
Mother Teresa exemplified this. She stated plainly that her Christ was the wafer of the Mass. Consider the following quotes from her speech to the Worldwide Retreat for Priests, October 1984, in Vatican City:
“I remember the time a few years back, when the president of Yeman asked us to send some of our sisters to his country. I told him that this was difficult because for so many years no chapel was allowed in Yemen for saying a public mass, and no one was allowed to function there publicly as a priest. I explained that I wanted to give them sisters, but the trouble was that, without a priest, without Jesus going with them, our sisters couldn’t go anywhere. It seems that the president of Yemen had some kind of a consultation, and the answer that came back to us was, ‘Yes, you can send a priest with the sisters!’ I was so struck with the thought that ONLY WHEN THE PRIEST IS THERE CAN WE HAVE OUR ALTAR AND OUR TABERNACLE AND OUR JESUS. ONLY THE PRIEST CAN PUT JESUS THERE FOR US” (Mother Teresa, cited in Be Holy: God’s First Call to Priests Today, edited by Tom Forrest, C.Ss.R., 1987, p. 109).
“One day she [a girl working in Calcutta] came, putting her arms around me, and saying, ‘I have found Jesus.’ ... ‘And just what were you doing when you found him?’ I asked. She answered that after 15 years she had finally gone to confession, and received Holy Communion from the hands of a priest. Her face was changed, and she was smiling. She was a different person because THAT PRIEST HAD GIVEN HER JESUS” (Mother Teresa, Be Holy, p. 74).
It is a great spiritual blindness to think that the Lord Jesus Christ can be worshipped legitimately in the form of a piece of bread!
A more recent convert to Rome is FRANCIS BECKWITH, former president of the Evangelical Theological Society. In May 2007 he tendered his resignation from this organization after converting to Rome. His journey to Rome was sparked by reading the church fathers. He said, “In January, at the suggestion of a dear friend, I began reading the Early Church Fathers as well as some of the more sophisticated works on justification by Catholic authors. I became convinced that the Early Church is more Catholic than Protestant...” (“Evangelical Theological Society President Converts,” The Berean Call, May 7, 2007).
Again, he is correct in observing that the church fathers were very Catholic-like, but that proves nothing. The truth is not found in the church fathers but in the Bible itself.
This is a loud warning to those who have an ear to hear the truth. We don’t need to study the “church fathers.” We need to make certain that we are born again and have the indwelling Spirit as our Teacher (1 John 2:27), then we need to study the Bible diligently and walk closely with Christ and become so thoroughly grounded in the truth that we will not be led astray by the wiles of the devil and by all of the fierce winds of error that are blowing in our day.
“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” (Ephesians 4:14).
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That’s simply wrong. There are modernist Catholics who follow the liberals hook, line and sinker. Which is our problem:they conceal their real views behind a veil of pious words, while in the biblical scholarship they aim to deconstruct the Scriptures. My assessment is that the pope is closer to Machem than he is to many in the Vatican.
That doesn't matter around here.
Here is the preferred version of history as portrayed by most anti-Catholic/Orthodox:
In the early Church, they all read their Bibles every day. The Epistles and Gospels were widely reproduced and Saint Timothy (who some here believe wrote the Epistle addressed to him) told them what order to put everything in and then they were bound together.
On Sundays, they would eat crackers and grape juice while thinking about Jesus. Sometimes, they would jump in the water and this was called baptism, but this really wasn't that important. They ALL understood that Jesus really didn't care all that much for His mother and simply told John to look after her as an afterthought. They also knew that Jesus enjoyed mocking his Disciples, He did this by switching from Aramaic to Greek in order to confuse them.
During this time, the city of Babylon was actually the greatest threat to Christianity, not Rome. So Peter went to Babylon.
Everything was going well and everyone knew how to interpret Scripture until the year 325 when the Emperor Constantine declared himself pope and incorporated the ROMAN Catholic church. He then held a council where he said that everything the "Bible-believing" Christians was wrong and he said they were heretics.
Nonsense! Rudolph Bultmann, the father of the modern Catholic/Orthodox interpretation of the Bible, said these were pre-modern fantasies that must be rejected by Modern Scientific Man. What are you, some sort of creationist?
but let's forget about that minor detail so we can join together to blame the errors of Wellhausen, Baur, von Harnack, and Darwin on the Pope of Rome.
Just what did Wellhausen, Baur, von Harnack, or Darwin teach that you disagree with?
See http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2009/04/do-70-of-catholics-deny-real-presence.html
That being the case, why are 99.999999% of Catholics and Orthodox--and apparently 100% of those on Free Republic--evolutionists and higher critics? I assume you have a reason somewhere.
Then why do you condemn them for rejecting evolution and higher criticism?
The Church Fathers are important guides to be sure but their works are commentaries on the scripture not scripture itself. All individual men are fallible.
Well, well, well. I thought the whole purpose of the article at the head of this thread was to laugh at "fundies" for not accepting the church fathers as authoritative, but now you want to turn around and say they aren't authoritative--at least when it comes to the historicity of the "old testament," eh?
The Catholics and Orthodox on this thread are definitely engaging in the latter. No humor involved.
“15and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
16All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
17so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” - 2 Timothy 3
Since I don’t know Greek, please pardon a bit of expansion here...
“profitable” comes from “o-phelimos”. The NIV translates it useful. Profitable means “1. yielding profit; remunerative: a profitable deal. 2. beneficial or useful.” Unless one wants to apply this verse to TV evangelists, I think we can skip the idea that Paul means you can make money from scripture, and go to “beneficial or useful”.
What is it useful or beneficial for? “teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness”. Since doctrine is “something that is taught; teachings”, and one of the questions before us is how to correct bad doctrine, it seems scripture is useful or beneficial for the task.
And what is the result? “the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work”
Adequate comes from the greek “artios”, meaning “1) fitted; 2) complete, perfect: a) having reference apparently to “special aptitude for given uses”
So James White seems on solid ground when he said (lightly edited since I don’t have all the greek fonts):
“Because Scripture is God-breathed, and hence represents God’s very voice speaking, it is profitable for the work of the ministry in the Church of Jesus Christ. We are told that the work of teaching, and rebuking, and correcting, and training in righteousness, can be undertaken due to the nature of Scripture as God-breathed. What is Paul’s point?
The Church is not left without the voice of God. For when the Church listens to Scripture, she is hearing her Lord speaking to her. The authority of the Church then, in teaching, and rebuking, and instructing, is derived, despite Roman Catholic claims to the contrary, from Scripture itself.
Now, Mr. Madrid will certainly disagree for, in addressing this very passage less than fifty days ago in a debate on this topic, he said, speaking specifically of verse 16, “I defy you to show me where it says ‘sufficient,’ in your remarks you said, when you cited II Timothy 3:16, you said, ‘sufficient,’ but that is not what the Bible teaches.” Of course, no one asserts that the term, “profitable,” in verse 16, equates to “sufficiency” When his opponents referred him to verse 17, Mr. Madrid said, “Well, 17 doesn’t say ‘sufficient’ either! 17 says, ‘that, so the one that belongs to God may be competent and equipped for every good work.’ That does not teach sufficiency. Where does the Bible teach that it is sufficient?” Is Mr. Madrid correct here? Well, let’s see.
Verse 17 continues the thought of verse 16. The fact that the Church has God’s voice always present with her in God-breathed Scripture, means the man of God, specifically here, of course, Timothy, but I doubt anyone would disagree that these comments refer to all those who belong to Christ and who are a part of His body, the Church, might be complete, fully equipped for every good work.
The first term to examine, is the adjective translated, “complete,” the Greek term, artios. We note that it is related in its root to the second term we will examine, the verb which is translated, “fully equipped,” that being the verb, evxartivzw (exartizo). Paul is here providing us with a play on words—the verb compounding and emphasizing the meaning present in the adjective.
Now, the term, artios, Vine tells us means, “fitted, complete.” Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich and Danker tell us the term means, “complete, capable, proficient.” That is, as they say, “able to meet all demands,” giving the specific citation of II Timothy 3:17 as the reference. One of the newest lexical resources, Louw and Nida’s Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains, uses the term, “qualified” as well. The great Greek scholar, Richard Trench, in his Synonyms of the New Testament, said with reference to this term, “If we ask ourselves under what special aspects ‘completeness’ is contemplated in artios, it would be safe to answer that it is not as the presence only of all the parts which are necessary for that ‘completeness’, but involves, further, the adaptation and aptitude of these parts for the ends which they were designed to serve. The man of God, St. Paul would say, should be furnished and accomplished with all which is necessary for the carrying out of the work to which he is appointed.”...
...But, Paul was not satisfied to merely state that the man of God may be, “complete,” but, he goes on to define what he means. “Fully equipped for every good work.” The term is evxartivzw, here in the perfect-passive-participial form, the prefix, ex, having, as Robertson noted, the perfective force. Vine tells us that here in II Timothy, it means “to fit out, that is, to furnish completely.” Bauer, Arndt Gingrich and Danker expressed this with the term, “equip.” Hendrickson makes reference to a related term, katarti,zw (katartizo), and it’s use at Luke 6:40, where it is translated, “fully trained.” We see here, then, that Paul teaches that the man of God is thoroughly or completely equipped for every good work. Now, what does it mean to say that one “is fully equipped,” if not to say that one is sufficient for a task?
I have recently taken up long-distance bicycle riding, and I’ve found a lovely little bike shack, a bike store where they are able to give me everything that I need, the clothes and the gloves and the helmet and the bike and the tires and the tubes, which you need a lot—they are able to fully equip me for the task of riding a bike. Does that not mean then, that they are sufficient as equippers for their task? Most definitely it does! “Let us never abandon the firm foundation of God-breathed Scripture, the Word of God, the Bible.” We further see, the Scriptures can equip the man of God for every good work. Now, Mr. Madrid, do you not believe that it is a good work to pray to Mary? Yet, the Scriptures nowhere teach this. Do you not believe that it is good to believe and teach that Mary was bodily assumed into Heaven? Yet, the Bible does not teach this. Do you not believe that the man of God should teach, in the Church, that the pope, in Rome, is infallible in his teaching office? Yet, the Scriptures know nothing of such a concept.”
This came from a debate - both sides are available for reading here:
http://vintage.aomin.org/SolaTop.html
At a bare minimum, these verses mean that scripture teaches, reprooves, corrects and trains a man adequately for salvation and provides what he needs to live a life of good works. That sounds sufficient.
So if traditions conflict, it is they that are wrong. Unless, of course, you argue that traditions are also “God-breathed”...if so, please provide a list of what traditions, handed down by what Apostles or Prophets.
You'll forgive me, I'm sure, for not knowing this about you, seeing as how you join your evolutionist, higher critical Catholic and Orthodox brethren without rebuke in this little celebration of superiority.
You certainly behave like one, big happy family.
“An argument has no authority because it comes from James White, either, yet you cite him.”
I quote his ARGUMENT. Agree with it or not, it is his argument that I’m interested in. I don’t expect anyone to be impressed by a name, only by whatever valid thought lies in the argument.
I’m pretty sure James White would reject the idea that his words have authority, apart from their compliance with scripture.
So when Paul says “all Scripture” he is referring to the books of the Old and New testament, including Revelation which might not have been written yet, as compiled and declared canonical some time after he died?
Where may I go to find that this is what he meant?
It must have been that there were a lot of “Billy Bobs” in the days of St. Paul or Justin Martyr. In any case, The evangelical view of the Eucharist is far more elitist and abstract than the doctrine of transubstantiation. At least if they follow the likes of Zwingli, who was very much the rationalist. Calvin’s teaching his Institutes is a strained version of the Real Presence,placing the “power” of Our Lord to be present in the bread and wine while remaining Himself “in heaven.” Going by the his actual words, or at least my impression of them, he was closer to Trent than many present day Catholic theologians. Of course, most Calvinists—and most Lutherans—moved away from the actual beliefs of Calvin and Luther toward those of Zwingli. However, my guess is that the devout Southern Baptist approaches the reception of Holy Communion with much the same faith as he/she does when being dunked during Baptism. To them it seems to be more than a “sign”and that they get the meaning of Flannery O’Connor when she said, “if it is only a sign, than the hell with it. If it is a “sign” it must mean a sign of God’s presence.
It would be kind of nice if those few Catholics who aren't threatened by the historical truth of the "old testament" occasionally stood up to your much louder, more numerous brethren.
I doubt any evolutionist, higher critical Catholic or Orthodox on FR doubts the real presence. It's too important to disagree with "Billy Bob" about something.
Ever notice that these people never mind agreeing with liberal Protestants about anything?
It would be wonderful if we could discuss a religion subject on FR without resorting to disparaging words like “laughable”, “ridiculous”, “nonsense”, etc. when referring to another’s views. I've been called worse, too, and it does nothing but turn me off to responding to anything that person posts. It does get personal here, at times, and shouldn't.
Shhh! Don't tell anyone!
Oh, come now! You're one of the few around here with an original perspective. A guy's gotta keep on his toes with you around. :)
It's really kind of you to say that, though I doubt I articulate my beliefs very well.
I wish wideawake were here. Not only was he totally, consistently, and unashamedly literal, but he was one of the most intelligent posters on FR. He could duel with anyone about theology, philosophy . . . even hip hop. He was a true champion.
Here again, just as with the opposition between Physical and Spiritual, an opposition which steers directly past Catholic teaching on the Eucharist, we have a kind of hidden pre-definition of God-breathed which enhances the likelihood that the conversation will miss what we really teach.
I'm beginning to suspect there is some connection between these instances of talking past one another and the regrettable temporary triumph of Nominalism or Realism in western thought.
I DO know that when somebody confuses "substance" with the modern idea of the stuff things are made of that that person is not going to be reliable for a criticism of Catholic thought. I mean no offense. I just mean that the argument doesn't come near what we say. It's irrelevant. If somebody insists that I think something I know I don't think, I tend to quit listening.
Where may I go to find that this is what he meant?
Ping me when you get an answer to this one, I'd love to see how this gets spun.
I would also love to know why, in light of 2 Timothy 3:16, Luther dismissed the Epistle of St. James as the "gospel of straw", declared the Revelation (Apocalypse) of St. John to be "neither apostolic nor prophetic" and actually removed the Apocrpha from canon.
And I might ask how you can lump all Catholics with Loisy just because they find nothing in evolution as a secondary cause that is incompatible with Scripture. The original meaning of evolution after all is “unfolding,” as in the unfolding of a flower, or, the process that leads from seed to fruit. What happened, of course, is that infidels like Huxley attached a biological theory to the cause of unbelief, and a century of demotion of the Bible from history to myth.
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