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Nothing like telling people their most closely held religious beliefs are irrelevant. Tsk.

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You mistake lack of materiality for irrelevance. Tsk tsk.

Please show me where I have said other's beliefs are unimportant, or that they are minutiae?

Disagreement isn't the same thing as saying the discussion isn't even worth having.

Not sure that's such a good defense, there.

Relevant and material, or irrelevant and immaterial, or frequently incorrectly used as synonyms, but they are not.

Relevant:

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Applying to the matter in question; affording something to the purpose. Iu Scotch law, good in law, legally sufficient; as, a "relevant" plea or defeuse.

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What is RELEVANT? definition of RELEVANT (Black's Law Dictionary) (thelawdictionary.org)

vs. Material:

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What is MATERIAL?

Important; more or less necessary; having influence or effect; going to the merits; having to do with matter, as distinguished from form. An allegation is said to be material when it forms a substantive part of the case presented by the pleading. Evidence offered in a cause, or a question propounded, is material when it is relevant and goes to the substantial matters in dispute, or has a legitimate and effective influence or bearing on the decision of the case.

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What is MATERIAL? definition of MATERIAL (Black's Law Dictionary) (thelawdictionary.org)

In other words, something can be relevant to an issue but not material to its resolution. Thus, the fact that one of your particular beliefs may be deeply held and dear to you does not make it material. In fact, upon further reflection, it does not necessarily make it relevant to the issue of salvation or Christianity either. Your emotional attachment to a particular belief is both irrelevant and immaterial to the question as to the essentials of the Christian faith.

So you are saying it is irrelevant then? Again, nothing like telling people their most closely held religious beliefs are irrelevant.

You also mistake an appeal to Apostolic teaching as an emotional attachment.

Tell me, counselor, why do you get to decide what is relevant and material to the essentials of the Christian faith?

Zobel said:

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So you are saying it is irrelevant then? Again, nothing like telling people their most closely held religious beliefs are irrelevant.

You also mistake an appeal to Apostolic teaching as an emotional attachment.

Tell me, counselor, why do you get to decide what is relevant and material to the essentials of the Christian faith?

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Nope, I'm saying it's immaterial. We all may have closely held religious beliefs, but that does not make all such beliefs essential to the faith.

And, regarding emotional attachment, your own words described your belief as your "most closely held religious belief". That sounds more like a personal emotional attachment rather than an objective statement of materiality to the faith.

And the reason that I get to decide, just like you do, is that God made me an independent agent with a mind of my own and free will. You also made such a decision - you decided to leave the Southern Baptists and Protestantism for the EO. That was your decision and yours alone. When God finally judges all believers, it will not be a defense to our errors that "we were simply following orders." We, individually, are all responsible to God for our individual decisions and actions. The individual members of the Inquisition will all be held individually accountable by God despite the fact that they were in full compliance with the orders and teachings of the RCC.

But you are implying that, once you made your initial decision, some higher authority (the Fathers, Church Councils?) made all subsequent decisions of faith for you. What is the argument and evidence in support of those sources as being authoritative? For someone who is not a member of the EO, what evidence or argument is there that one should submit one's own rationale and relationship with God, and the plain reading of the Scriptures, to the Fathers or the EO Church Councils? Please don't refer to the Fathers themselves or the Councils since they are not persuasive to someone outside the EO and they are not self-authenticating .

I think that this gets to one of the biggest problems that devout evangelicals have with the EO and the RCC - over time, they have confused the pointy hats and incense burners with the essentials of Christianity. Their devotion to the Fathers and Church Councils has not prevented them from making grievous error. Your perspective would make Paul, the original protestant, in error when he confronted Peter and James in Jerusalem.

You've joined a pretty interesting set of statements here.

• one of your particular beliefs may be deeply held...does not necessarily make it relevant to the issue of salvation or Christianity either
• We all may have closely held religious beliefs, but that does not make all such beliefs essential to the faith.
  

It seems that you're now dividing faith, belief, salvation, and Christianity into different buckets. I can't see how this would work on any level. To begin with, there is one Faith, passed down once for all to the saints, connected to one Lord, and one baptism. There is accordingly one salvation, through this one faith. There are not, for a Christian, a multiplicity of faiths any more than there are a multiplicity of Lords or baptisms or salvations.

Belief and Faith are scripturally identical - they are literally the same word. The symbol of Faith of Nicaea begins with the verb "pisteuo" - belief, faith. Christians have since the time of Nicaea used these words to represent the one faith we hold in common - the symbol is that which implies the other. When we confess the symbol of faith, we are confessing a commonality of experience as represented by these words - the unity of the faith, which St Paul ties closely to the knowledge of the Son of God. This is one reason why they are said before communion.

As there is only one faith, and one salvation, there is only one Christianity. Separating faith, knowledge, understanding is dividing intellectual assent from grace-filled faith, as we come to know the Lord. This is not a set of logical claims which are ratified by the tightness of the argument - although the fathers have taken great care to not say logical falsehoods - it is experience which informs faith, and as St Gregory the Theologian said, it is faith which completes our argument.

This connection between knowledge and faith is why these things that we Christians believe about the Trinity - the Son is the Word and unique Son of God, and that the Son is the express image of the Father, and the Spirit is the Spirit of the Son, that proceeds from the Father through the Son - are the bedrock of the faith, and are the bedrock of the words which Christians use to describe their faith. The confession of who Christ Is is Christianity. The mystery that was hidden before all ages is who He Is, and this is fundamentally the Gospel. And as St Paul says, this knowledge of Truth is what leads to godliness.

Now, our own particular intellectual grasp of these things may vary. The words we use to describe reality are not in fact reality, and model it, underrepresent it. This is why the symbol of faith is after all a symbol. The words we use to describe the Trinity are not true in this sense, but they point toward eternal truths. So it is important that we not suggest that salvation is tied to formulas. At the same time, errors are errors. Untruths are untruths. Arius saying that Christ was a creation was not true, and therefore represents a different faith.

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But you are implying that, once you made your initial decision, some higher authority (the Fathers, Church Councils?) made all subsequent decisions of faith for you

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You are not reading closely enough. Go back and read what I wrote here on page 1. The Faith is not subject to human decisions. It was passed on to the Apostles from Christ. St Paul says his doctrine is ratified by the words of the Lord, that he received the Gospel from the Lord directly, as he well as his eucharistic teaching. There is no decision here. Christ is the Truth, the Spirit guided the Apostles into all the truth, this is the Faith passed down once for all to the saints, and it was not established by any human authority or council. The question of authority is only one of affirmation that what is being taught is in harmony with the teaching of the Apostles. And this of course is exactly what the councils say. As I said, the test of "one true faith" is the continuous, unbroken adherence to the faith of the Apostles. Nothing more, nothing less.

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For someone who is not a member of the EO, what evidence or argument is there that one should submit one's own rationale and relationship with God, and the plain reading of the Scriptures, to the Fathers or the EO Church Councils? Please don't refer to the Fathers themselves or the Councils since they are not persuasive to someone outside the EO and they are not self-authenticating .

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First you tell me what the scriptures are, and how you know that they are reliable, and perhaps you can begin this discussion. I know exactly where the scriptures came from. It doesn't seem like you do.

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I think that this gets to one of the biggest problems that devout evangelicals have with the EO and the RCC - over time, they have confused the pointy hats and incense burners with the essentials of Christianity.

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How do you know what the essentials of Christianity are? Evangelicals can't even agree amongst themselves what these essentials are.

It's amazing how you EO guys can see the speck in others' eyes but not the beam in your own. Sure, the evangelical church has problems, but you ignore how God has used it in incredible ways and ignore the problems of your own church.

Zobel, it's hard to respond to you - you're a completely different person on this board than you are on others. On others, you are succinct, to the point, and logical. On this board, you're vague and use EO liturgical-type language (that's not a good way to express it but I don't know of any other) to try to persuade non-EO types. I asked you for something outside the EO so-called Fathers and church councils in support of your position and you completely failed to provide anything meaningful.

I'm theoretically open to the idea that the EO is the one true church. But rather than providing any meaningful support for your position, you both constantly resort to attacking evangelicals. Just because evangelicals may and do have many faults does not make the EO the one true church.

Specifically, what evidence is that the EO itself has not strayed from the "true faith"? It seems to me that one of the biggest arguments against that claims is that it is dead. It is consumed with liturgy, doctrine, history and the like, but has no relevance to today. It has no indication that the Holy Spirit fills it or is working through it. Of course incense is referenced in the Bible - it's just not supposed to be the central aspect of our faith. Christ called out the Pharisees for majoring on the minor, on the irrelevant, and ignoring the core aspects and truths of God's word.

And, as usual, you guys ignore any points that make you uncomfortable. If the Church is the source of all truth, and individual decision making is irrelevant, then how did you decide to leave the evangelical church and join the EO? On what basis do we view the Inquisition as evil and contrary to God's word? Was the selling of indulgences OK?

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But you are implying that, once you made your initial decision, some higher authority (the Fathers, Church Councils?) made all subsequent decisions of faith for you

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You are not reading closely enough. Go back and read what I wrote here on page 1. The Faith is not subject to human decisions. It was passed on to the Apostles from Christ. St Paul says his doctrine is ratified by the words of the Lord, that he received the Gospel from the Lord directly, as he well as his eucharistic teaching. There is no decision here. Christ is the Truth, the Spirit guided the Apostles into all the truth, this is the Faith passed down once for all to the saints, and it was not established by any human authority or council. The question of authority is only one of affirmation that what is being taught is in harmony with the teaching of the Apostles. And this of course is exactly what the councils say. As I said, the test of "one true faith" is the continuous, unbroken adherence to the faith of the Apostles. Nothing more, nothing less.

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Maybe you are not writing clearly enough? Quit being so condescending.

If there is a disagreement today about the Faith, who decides what it is? Surely there were disagreements throughout Church history. How were those disagreements resolved? Or is each individual supposed to make his or her own decision based on the writings of the Church Fathers? You're being evasive and disingenuous here.

Clement wrote positively about Phoenixes. Does that mean that we all have to believe in the literal reality of the mythical Phoenix?

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It's so funny to me that Protestants believe the earliest Christians and immediate generations had no idea what they were talking about

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Which evangelical scholar believes that? Every one I know of has studied the writings of the early Christians extensively and quotes from them frequently. Unlike you guys, however, we don't view the early church writers as inspired or authoritative. We turn to the Bible for that.

You have created a caricature of Evangelicals based on selective examples.

Jabin said:

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Specifically, what evidence is that the EO itself has not strayed from the "true faith"? It seems to me that one of the biggest arguments against that claims is that it is dead. It is consumed with liturgy, doctrine, history and the like, but has no relevance to today. It has no indication that the Holy Spirit fills it or is working through it. Of course incense is referenced in the Bible - it's just not supposed to be the central aspect of our faith. Christ called out the Pharisees for majoring on the minor, on the irrelevant, and ignoring the core aspects and truths of God's word.

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The true faith as you put it, suffers from the same problem as continually measuring the original meter. There's a rod in france that is the original meter, vacuum sealed. How do you measure it that it has changed over time? All other meters derive from that one meter. There are a half dozen or so other meters made from it and preserved as well. You can measure it against one another, but how do you know who has changed? A measurement cannot be objectively known, it can only be comparatively known. I think your question begs the same style of answer and can lead you down the wrong path.

I fail to see how liturgy, doctrine, and history have no relevance today. What is left? Your using a time and cultural appeal to a God outside of our time and culture.

Protestants like to go, 'this is major important this is minor important.' The orthodox is going to tell you its all important. I don't think Zobel or Orthodox Texan stakes their faith in burning of incense. But probably just view it as historically how God has wanted his holy sites to have. Protestants like calling any physical practice or display as pharisaical. Yes, their are people who can wrongly view themselves as more pious or righteous through doing the prescriptive actions of a church gathering. That does not mean to get rid of those things. And protestants, while continually on the lookout to not be seen as pharisaical find new ways to become so.

Source: Am protestant.

Y'all just keep repeating your talking points without addressing any of the issues I've raised. Don't you understand that your talking points aren't persuasive to someone who isn't already persuaded?

I've never said here or anywhere that every man is his own Pope. In part, I suppose, because I don't believe in the office or authority of the Pope.

But every man is responsible before God. If the Inquisition had ordered you to participate in torture and burning of Jews, would you have acquiesced? Do you think it was right for the church to sell indulgences to raise money for St. Peter's Basilica? Was it right for the Popes to father illegitimate children, including from their own daughters? Would it have been wrong to question the extravagant luxury of the bishops and cardinals, living in mansions that rivaled kings, while the peasants of the Middle Ages were starving to death?

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I think we've got to back up here and explore some church history. The idea of a 'me and my bible in plain english' is a statement born out of technology. Before the printing press, you couldn't cleave the bible from the church. And even the best bible, by itself, struggles to convey context.

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Of course. That's why the invention of the printing press may have been one of God's great gifts to his people. It allowed them to see, with their own eyes for the first time, the horrible lies that were being taught to them by the RCC.

And no Protestant scholar that I know of asserts that we should study the Bible by itself without any context.

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The authority of the orthodox church comes from their unanimous agreeance about the nature of God, and their protection of how things were done. Their authority derives from being the counsels that discussed these concerns over 1500 years ago and maintains their authority through their refusal to change anything about their beliefs or practices since. Thats a lot better foundation than me or your or anyone on their own just reading a non study note version of the bible in english.

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Wait a second, Zobel just claimed above that the EO doesn't rely on councils. And I don't think that the EO is quite as unanimous as you claim. They may claim unanimity of some Church doctrines, but there's a lot of dissent on any number of other issues.

And your trust in the inerrancy of the Church is misplaced, it seems to me. Despite all of the love given to each other on here, the EO and the RCC still do not see eye-to-eye on many things. And the history of the RCC shows that it erred, and erred horribly, time and time again. Your faith in your Church counsels does not seem to have resulted in any better result than the individual reading his own Bible and allowing God to lead him to truth.

And Paul was a protestant. He protested at the first Church council that they were wrong about their treatment of non-Jews and their attempt to reimpose the law. The difference between them and the RCC with Luther is that Peter and James were not too proud to admit their faults.

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It seems that you're now dividing faith, belief, salvation, and Christianity into different buckets. I can't see how this would work on any level. To begin with, there is one Faith, passed down once for all to the saints, connected to one Lord, and one baptism. There is accordingly one salvation, through this one faith. There are not, for a Christian, a multiplicity of faiths any more than there are a multiplicity of Lords or baptisms or salvations.

Belief and Faith are scripturally identical - they are literally the same word. The symbol of Faith of Nicaea begins with the verb "pisteuo" - belief, faith. Christians have since the time of Nicaea used these words to represent the one faith we hold in common - the symbol is that which implies the other. When we confess the symbol of faith, we are confessing a commonality of experience as represented by these words - the unity of the faith, which St Paul ties closely to the knowledge of the Son of God. This is one reason why they are said before communion.

As there is only one faith, and one salvation, there is only one Christianity. Separating faith, knowledge, understanding is dividing intellectual assent from grace-filled faith, as we come to know the Lord. This is not a set of logical claims which are ratified by the tightness of the argument - although the fathers have taken great care to not say logical falsehoods - it is experience which informs faith, and as St Gregory the Theologian said, it is faith which completes our argument

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I have to say that I take issue with the above statement in its particulars. I agree on the statements as a whole, but I think you and I would mean completely different things despite using the exact same words. Regarding the multiplicity of faiths, I don't see how you get around the fact that Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans, Oriental Orthodox, and the Assyrians can all legitimately claim Apostolic Succession all the way back. And the early church easy consisted of all of these different strains simultaneously. So the entire church up to about 400 AD included all of these variations together, but now those variations all still exist but are separate. How is someone supposed to look at those options and say that one has a stronger claim? Are they not all Christian? Hasn't each persevered just like all the others with their rituals and beliefs intact and unchanged? Every argument for authenticity, veracity, and tradition can equally apply to any of these branches. Even the Anglicans, since there are examples of the ancient patriarches granting permission for rulers to divorce and opposition to the supremacy of Rome is also found in ancient times. So it sort of hurts my brain to hear someone say that Christianity is undivided, even by the very strictest sense of liturgical, apostolic Christianity.

That said I do agree with the statement in a different way. I think there is only one Christianity, and it encompasses every one of every creed that has a heart that reflects Christ and puts mercy, love, charity and hope over cruelty, selfishness, hatred and greed.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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It seems that you're now dividing faith, belief, salvation, and Christianity into different buckets. I can't see how this would work on any level. To begin with, there is one Faith, passed down once for all to the saints, connected to one Lord, and one baptism. There is accordingly one salvation, through this one faith. There are not, for a Christian, a multiplicity of faiths any more than there are a multiplicity of Lords or baptisms or salvations.

Belief and Faith are scripturally identical - they are literally the same word. The symbol of Faith of Nicaea begins with the verb "pisteuo" - belief, faith. Christians have since the time of Nicaea used these words to represent the one faith we hold in common - the symbol is that which implies the other. When we confess the symbol of faith, we are confessing a commonality of experience as represented by these words - the unity of the faith, which St Paul ties closely to the knowledge of the Son of God. This is one reason why they are said before communion.

As there is only one faith, and one salvation, there is only one Christianity. Separating faith, knowledge, understanding is dividing intellectual assent from grace-filled faith, as we come to know the Lord. This is not a set of logical claims which are ratified by the tightness of the argument - although the fathers have taken great care to not say logical falsehoods - it is experience which informs faith, and as St Gregory the Theologian said, it is faith which completes our argument

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I have to say that I take issue with the above statement in its particulars. I agree on the statements as a whole, but I think you and I would mean completely different things despite using the exact same words. Regarding the multiplicity of faiths, I don't see how you get around the fact that Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans, Oriental Orthodox, and the Assyrians can all legitimately claim Apostolic Succession all the way back. And the early church easy consisted of all of these different strains simultaneously. So the entire church up to about 400 AD included all of these variations together, but now those variations all still exist but are separate. How is someone supposed to look at those options and say that one has a stronger claim? Are they not all Christian? Hasn't each persevered just like all the others with their rituals and beliefs intact and unchanged? Every argument for authenticity, veracity, and tradition can equally apply to any of these branches. Even the Anglicans, since there are examples of the ancient patriarches granting permission for rulers to divorce and opposition to the supremacy of Rome is also found in ancient times. So it sort of hurts my brain to hear someone say that Christianity is undivided, even by the very strictest sense of liturgical, apostolic Christianity.

That said I do agree with the statement in a different way. I think there is only one Christianity, and it encompasses every one of every creed that has a heart that reflects Christ and puts mercy, love, charity and hope over cruelty, selfishness, hatred and greed.

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Zobel would unity of belief be the claim, perhaps stated differently than a singular faith? So the faith of a united church prior to the divisions that split us now like the Filioque and papacy?

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Regarding the multiplicity of faiths, I don't see how you get around the fact that Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans, Oriental Orthodox, and the Assyrians can all legitimately claim Apostolic Succession all the way back.

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There is only one faith. This is axiomatic as a confessional starting point, but witnessed to in the scriptures. St Jude describes it as the hapax or once for all faith, traditioned (paradidomi) to the holy ones. St Paul calls it the the faith of the Gospel, expresses that St Titus and he share a common faith, says specifically there is one faith, because there is one God, and that this faith is the source of unity. There is a baseline fact here - the Apostles taught something.

Where there is disagreement over something you really only have a couple of options. You could contend that what the Apostles taught is unknowable, and lost to us in its original form. You could say that there never was one Apostolic teaching (contra Acts 2:42) perhaps by appealing to some kind of rift between Sts Paul and Peter or others. You could say that the Apostolic teaching is maintained, but there are all kinds of historical accretions over it that the Apostles would find foreign. Or you can say that one more parties are simply incorrect.

Apostolic succession isn't simply a chain of people. It is a chain of custody of teaching, faith, and practice. St Paul doesn't just say make sure you always transfer authority from person to person but to entrust St Paul's own public teaching to faithful stewards who will be able to teach others. St Irenaeus wrote:

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We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith...It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times...In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth.

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So when you say "the early church easy consisted of all of these different strains simultaneously" I don't agree. This is, to me, either an appeal that there never was a group that had all the truth, or that the divisions are historical accretions, or that there never was one apostolic teaching. But I reject all of these, I don't think that's the promise of the scriptures, and I also don't think the storyline you're painting is accurate.

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How is someone supposed to look at those options and say that one has a stronger claim? Are they not all Christian?

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To these questions I would answer : the same way Christians always have: by looking to what was passed down, unchanged, from the time of the Apostles. Nominally, yes.

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Hasn't each persevered just like all the others with their rituals and beliefs intact and unchanged? Every argument for authenticity, veracity, and tradition can equally apply to any of these branches.

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To this I say no, and no I do not agree.

There is only one Christianity and faith because there is only one Christ. But what you're taking as me drawing a circle and making some kind of prescriptive law about what or who is and isn't "real" is misreading the case. There is only one faith, but people participate in it in varying degrees.

In a way this is much like the historical view on scripture. Everyone agrees scripture is authoritative, reliable, divinely inspired. That's the circle I mentioned. But canons vary. Does that mean there isn't in reality a set of things written which are authoritative, reliable, and divinely inspired? Does it mean that it is binary, and your canon is either right or wrong? No, but what we receive, we receive as authoritative.

People get really touchy about this, but it really shouldn't be contentious. You should believe that you are practicing the faith of the Apostles, in its generalities and its particulars, and you should strive in every way to take hold of what they passed on, and what generations of Christians before you did, in unity of confession and faith. If you don't think that what you do in worship, in prayer, and in practice is the same as what St Paul taught, you should reconcile that. I believe that what I have been taught has a full participation in the experience and teaching of the Apostles. I believe that the teaching of the Church is the same as what St Jude described, and that our confession is fundamentally identical to the confession made by St Timothy in front of many witnesses. To the extent that there is variance is heterodoxy, whether that is in my own understanding and praxis or in others. What I think is very dangerous is denying that there is such a thing as small-o orthodoxy.

I understand your point, but I don't see how any of that addresses any of my points. A Copt could type the exact same sentences you just typed with the exact same sincerity. As could a Roman Catholic or an Assyrian. You would all be correct from your own vantage points, and wrong from the vantage points of the others. Yet at some arbitrary date such as 300AD, all of these faiths were part of a common Christain Church and no one thought that was weird or out of sorts at all.

So I guess my position is more or less similar to Jabin's in its essence. It seems to me that God's apostolic church split itself up over minor details and the Church that was united in 300 AD (for instance) can now be found in disparate hierarchies. But I'd say that God and the Spirit is present in all of those branches. One point of evidence is that all of these branches still exist unchanged, unlike the Arians, iconoclasts, Arminians, Donatists and any other number of splintered groups that have disappeared.

I'm going to bow out of this discussion with you as I don't think it is fruitful. You stopped responding a while ago when I gave you some hard evidence about the canon of scripture, and now you've come back with new arguments and a tone that shows that this is not going to be productive. So probably best for this to be my last post to you in this topic.

I reread my post a couple of times and I don't see any "liturgical-type language" or appeals to the fathers. In that post I mostly just paraphrased scripture. Here are my footnotes.

Faith passed down once Jude 1:3
One Lord, Faith, Baptism Ephesians 4:15
One God and Father and One Lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor 8:6
Unity of the faith Ephesians 4:13
Son as Word and unique (monogenes) Son of the Father John 1:14
Son as express image of the Father Hebrews 1:3
Spirit as the Spirit of the Son Galatians 4:6
The Spirit proceeds from the Father John 15:26
The mystery of God is Christ and is the Gospel Colossians 1:26, Romans 16:25, Colossians 2:2, Colossians 4:3, Ephesians 3:1-11
Knowledge of Truth leads to Godliness Titus 1:1
St Paul received Gospel from the Lord and the teaching follows the words of the Lord directly Galatians 1:1-12, 1 Corinthians 11:23, 1 Timothy 6:3
Christ is the Truth Ephesians 4:21, John 14:6, 1 John 5:6
Spirit led Apostles into all Truth John 16:13

Since you ask "If the Church is the source of all Truth"... I will add 1 Timothy 3:15 to the list.

No one is ignoring any points that make us uncomfortable. I'm quite happy to examine the history of the Church, the history of the development of the canons, the history of the ecumenical councils, the growth and exposition of the description of the faith and the use of philosophical language to accomplish precise communication about it, and so on.

No one is likewise "attacking" Evangelicals. No one but you is saying other denominations are dead, irrelevant, bereft of the Spirit, or saying things like other people's faith is centered on hats and incense. No one but you us accusing others of being condescending, evasive, of disingenuous. Frankly, I think you should consider your approach here. Best of luck to you. Please remember me in your prayers.

Right, so it seems you're choosing the either the multiple apostolic faiths or accretion explanations. Either the Copts and the Assyrians are both continuing authentic Apostolic tradition, and the differences were at the source, or they're possibly also both continuing authentic Apostolic tradition and the differences are additions not original to the faith.

I don't think what you're saying about the arbitrary date of 300 AD is correct, though. I mean by this same argument you could say that before Nicaea Arians also were part of a common Christian Church too. The idea almost seems to be that there is no actual faith until it is described in an affirmative way. I disagree. Arians were in error before Nicaea. Nestorians were following a different faith before Ephesus. The gnostics sects as well.

The idea that a group exists legitimizes it seems false, because then you can only wait for truth to come in when a sect dies out. Do you think Mormons have a valid apostolic faith? I don't, to be clear, but by your view here it seems hard for you to say why not - they still exist "unchanged" (by their reckoning).

Now, I don't think a binary approach is good, as I've said. I don't think variance is necessarily some kind of condemnation. Truth is salvific, but any truth is salvific, less truth just less so. I would say that heresies show what is genuine as St Paul says. So I do think we can use this to kind of gauge whether a difference is truly major or minor. Copts and Orthodox are as near as I can tell functionally identical with the exception of the definition of Chalcedon. Rome and the East are not. Protestants and the East are not. I conclude that whatever the differences may be, miaphytism is more minor than, say, the papacy and filioque or ideas like sola scripture etc.

Zobel said:

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Right, so it seems you're choosing the either the multiple apostolic faiths or accretion explanations. Either the Copts and the Assyrians are both continuing authentic Apostolic tradition, and the differences were at the source, or they're possibly also both continuing authentic Apostolic tradition and the differences are additions not original to the faith.

I don't think what you're saying about the arbitrary date of 300 AD is correct, though. I mean by this same argument you could say that before Nicaea Arians also were part of a common Christian Church too. The idea almost seems to be that there is no actual faith until it is described in an affirmative way. I disagree. Arians were in error before Nicaea. Nestorians were following a different faith before Ephesus. The gnostics sects as well.

The idea that a group exists legitimizes it seems false, because then you can only wait for truth to come in when a sect dies out. Do you think Mormons have a valid apostolic faith? I don't, to be clear, but by your view here it seems hard for you to say why not - they still exist "unchanged" (by their reckoning).

Now, I don't think a binary approach is good, as I've said. I don't think variance is necessarily some kind of condemnation. Truth is salvific, but any truth is salvific, less truth just less so. I would say that heresies show what is genuine as St Paul says. So I do think we can use this to kind of gauge whether a difference is truly major or minor. Copts and Orthodox are as near as I can tell functionally identical with the exception of the definition of Chalcedon. Rome and the East are not. Protestants and the East are not. I conclude that whatever the differences may be, miaphytism is more minor than, say, the papacy and filioque or ideas like sola scripture etc.

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Well the flip side must also be true if you don't like my take. If you think the Catholics, Anglicans, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrians are not Christian now, then they have been non-Christian since their very roots. Because their stance really hasn't changed. So if a Copt today isn't Christian then neither was Athanasius, because it's the same faith. So either the modern Copts are still Christians or Athanasius never was. Under your definition of an unchanging eternal church, there's no room at all to say "that was fine then but it isn't fine now".

If you want to say that there is only one unified Christian faith and it's the Orthodox, then you are basically saying that only one fraction of the ancient church was indeed Christian. All the rest have been wrong to the point of following a different religion going back as far as they care to document, which is a far back as the Orthodox go as well.

Regarding the existence legitamizing, I think the reverse is true only. The disappearance of a group is proof they were wrong. So the Donnatists were wrong and a piece of evidence to that is their non-existence. Existence doesn't confer legitimacy, but non-existence is proof of illegitimacy. Just mentioned it to show that the Copts and Assyrians could easily have been wiped out during the course of history. They've certainly had it as bad as the Orthodox since that time and are still around. So when the Copts, Orthodox, and Assyrians all claim Apostolic Succession, unbroken ancient tradition, perserverance through hardships, and stewardship of the original Christian faith, what possible criteria is there to say one group is the real Christians while the others are not?

There's a tacit assumption that the manner in which we worship is somehow separate from the focus of that worship. I don't see it that way. Taking great care for how we worship is part of worship. The scriptures are full of incredibly detailed instructions as to worship, and I can't see how devotion to those things could tread on idolatry. If anything devotion to the form of worship is a guard against idolatry.

I've said it more than once on this thread, but the Orthodox faith in my experience is completely Christocentric. No one in a divine liturgy is there for incense or robes.

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I understand (I think) that you would argue that the Apostles taught us how to worship Christ properly, or most effectively perhaps? And yet, worship and communion (imperfect as it might be) happens wherever 2 or more are gathered in His name, no? I like how James simplifies things:

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I would say it this way. The Lord - who is Christ Jesus - taught us how He wanted to be worshipped. This worship is fundamentally linked to sacrifice - food, hospitality, participation in a shared event. Read closely the feasts and festivals of the OT. Yahweh is the God who feeds His people. We come to Him to be fed (literally, spiritually, metaphorically). And in the fullness of this we are fed by His own Body, His own Blood. As our post-communion prayers say, He willingly gives His flesh to us as food, and this is 1000% in line with everything we see in worship and the character of God in the OT.

Merely coming together in prayer is not the same thing as coming together as Church. St Paul says it word for word like this - "when you come together as Church" - in the context of the eucharistic fellowship (1 Cor 11). There is no Church without it. In Acts 2:42 we see the definition of the communion (koinonia) as the breaking of the bread. So to me, there is a big difference in what we call worship. What we understand to constitute or institute the church. Properly the Church is instituted as the gathering of people of God for holy communion. And St Paul says clearly that these words of worship regarding the eucharist He received from Christ Himself (1 Corinthians 11:23). This worship is a direct continuation of the worship of the OT, and is the worship commanded by God Himself.

Our religion and our worship are linked - and of course St James is perfectly right. But as the Lord told the Pharisees "You ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone." When the Lord tells Israel their offerings are a stench it is because they are denying justice to orphans and widows and coming to Him with defiled hands. The admonition to practice justice and care for the orphan and the widow is not an alternative to worship and communion with the Lord, or over and against it, but a requirement in order to do it with pure and undefiled hands. Nowhere does the Lord say "you can offer sacrifices and follow the festivals OR just take care of widows and orphans." They're not options.

Similarly what St Paul says about prayer is not at odds with praying at fixed times, praying specific prayers, and practicing eucharistic fellowship. All of these we see in the scriptures. Those two verses do not support your use here in putting them in opposition to liturgical worship.

I get you - I do. I've been there. I just no longer agree.

Who said anyone wasn't a Christian? Who said anything about "real" Christians? You're pushing this way past what I said.

If Coptic Christians and Orthodox Christians share a hypothetical complete commonality of belief and praxis excepting only the definition of Chalcedon, would you expect any large differences? Does that make any particular Copt or any particular "Greek" more or less "Christian"?? You're making statements I never would.

At the same time - can we even begin to entertain the notion at this point that the filioque is the only distinction between Anglicans and Orthodox?

Why does it have to be this binary thing where you're so eager to say that the absence of the fullness of truth is tantamount to the absence of truth altogether? I would never suggest that, personally.

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their stance really hasn't changed

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This is so vague as to be unhelpful. What stance? When did the idea of a borderline between Anglicans and anyone else begin? When was there such a thing as a difference between a Copt and an Orthodox? I mean, for that matter, when was there a difference between a Jew and a Christian? These concepts of borders and heresy and orthodoxy are temporal realities that cannot be projected backwards in the past. You can't say St Athanasius was a Copt because the category didn't exist in his time. Just like you can't say that St Paul was a Christian over and against being a Jew.

I completely and fundamentally disagree with your approach here. You're making a really big assumption that very specific things which resulted in schisms were always present back to the beginning. That would be precisely what should be proven.

Question for you all:

Believing there is but one Faith, one Lord, one Baptism, would you say that this is the one faith Jesus found in few people in his time on earth in the flesh? Some examples being the Roman Officer in Matthew 8, the woman who reached through the crown to touch Jesus cloak in Mark 5, the thief on the cross to Jesus' right (the book of Nicodemus names as Dysmas. What about the faith of Abraham, Noah, Ruth, Joseph, David, etc.
What about the faith in the hearts of those listening to Peter on the day of Pentecost or a short time later in Caesarea who received the Holy Spirit.

Do all these share the One Faith?

Good and interesting question. Faith in Christ, yes. That's why the Christological / theological claims are the root of the issue. "Who do you say that I am?" is the question at hand.

Also I would suggest that articles matter in scripture. I think when the authors of scripture say "the faith" or "this faith" we should note it.

If by "faith" you mean a relationship between God's grace and our free action - then I would say yes we share in the same faith. However, we do so at different degrees. Just as in the parables of the Talents (MK 25:14-30) we see that God has given to each a different measure. We can, however, pray to God to increase our faith.

I think some of this is just terminology, the Orthodox church is comprised of many autocephalous churches (Syriac, Greek, Russian, Coptic etc), including 9 patriarchates. Orthodox after all just means 'right thinking.'

Now, in an ecumenical sense, some other churches may count as also 'right thinking' to some Orthodox members, such as the Roman Catholic Church (Catholic also just meaning universal).

Athanasius is venerated as a saint among denominations as varied as the RCC, Lutheran, Coptic, and everything in between. It's pretty near impossible to say how he would, if resurrected/brought up to speed on doctrines/practices today, choose to align himself, but it's a colorful question! After his 5 exiles, he spent his final years trying to mend/create unity, after all.

Feels a bit like I'm on trial here so I ought to defend myself. I've never said protestants aren't Christian. I think there's a really interesting discussion lurking back behind this one along the lines of "what defines a religion?" - the reason I think it matters is because Christianity has a historical tendency to define itself by belief - against heresy - more than anything else. So depending on where you draw the lines of confession you can include or exclude. These lines can be drawn differently by person to person. For most, "Christian" seems to mean a person who believes in the divinity of Jesus Christ with no other qualifiers. I think this underdefines it. Until you square that, though, including agreeing whether a set of beliefs is all that defines a religion, I think it's probably a discussion that will be confusing for everyone.

When I say there is one Christianity, I am saying there is one Faith, with one Lord, one People, one King, one High Priest. Draw a Circle, say that's it. The scriptures say that Faith is identified with knowledge, and particularly knowledge of Christ Jesus. So that Circle also contains every possible true statement and experience about Christ, and no false ones. It also has all of the teaching of the Apostles in it - everything... faith, morals, liturgical practice. I'll try to use capital-C Circle here to denote this space.

Anything outside of that Circle is something foreign. I place that Christ Jesus is the unique Son and Word of God who Is before all creation within, and that Arius jingle "there was a time when He was not" without. At any time, in any place, any person who believed that "there was a time when He was not" was in error. This does not make them a heretic to be clear - just in error. That does not place you outside of the Church. It doesn't even mean you lack faith or are a bad person. It just means you know something wrong, or you're ignorant, or were taught incorrectly, or you're using terminology that is incorrect because its use promotes a falsehood. But it also presumes that you - being a normal person - have no direct illumination on this matter. Otherwise you would know it isn't true by experience. This experience and revelation we ascribe to few, which is why not many should teach or presume to theologize. Prior to Nicaea, anyone who believed that Jesus Christ was a creation was in error. They were not heretics. They were not not-Christians. The border of the belief was made clear at Nicaea, and only then can you mark "out" and "in". The Fathers at Nicaea (and all councils) said that they were not creating anything new - the Circle was already there - they were just affirming it.

So in 300 AD there was no "Arian" category. Or Nestorian. Just like in 45 AD there was no "Christian" over and against or excluded or distinct from "Jew".

If you're going to say St Athanasius is a Copt and not Orthodox you need to show two things: one, that he believed something outside the Circle about the nature of Christ, and two that when confronted with two different confessions he would accept schism as recourse.

Talking about what church he would claim is just hypothetical things we can't know. This particular one is good, because it's an example of the middle way between things which are piously motivated but ultimately logically incorrect and therefore error. Nestorianism is the error to over-emphasize the humanity of Christ in defense against Apollinarianism. Monophytism is the error to over-emphasize the divinity of Christ in defense against Arius. The Antiochenes reacted toward one, the Alexandrians toward the other. St Cyril (fully considered Orthodox by the way) was using language he thought was from St Athanasius to oppose Nestorianism. Turns out the phrase was misattributed and belonged to Apollinaris. Hence the Antiochene school being suspicious and rejecting it. But St Cyril always interpreted it correctly, if you read what he said about it and around it. Thus St Cyril is firmly in the Circle, as is St Athanasius. This kind of pious reactionism is no different than how the Orthodox view some of the extremes of St Augustine (polemic against Pelagius) or the Filioque (Spanish reaction against local Arianism). As St John Cassian wrote "many believing [these] and asserting them more widely than is right are entangled in all kinds of opposite errors." This is why St Gregory said it wasn't for all to be theologians, St Paul says not all are Apostles, and St James that not many should be teachers.

It seems to me that some are making the mistake that the particular language of Chalcedon, for example, is the Circle. It is not the Circle, it is a symbol of theCircle. That's why it is called the Symbol of Nicaea, it is that which represents the other. This means, of course, that a person could be using incorrect language to describe the Circle, but be perfectly within the Circle in their belief and experience. I put St Cyril, St Augustine, etc here. And probably countless other Christians since various schisms. It may well be true that the Copts in entirety belong here.

You also keep trying to force this into a binary, as if to say that any part of any structure of beliefs or formulas or doctrine sets one iota outside of the Circle, BOOM no longer Christians. I don't believe this, and I've said so. You can easily imagine an individual having a circle that is a Venn diagram that overlaps nearly completely or very little with the Circle. Likewise a sect. What minimum amount of overlap (or what else they put in their beliefs) makes that person "not a Christian" is beyond my pay grade.

So again, I say you're left with a handful of options. Either the confessions about Who Christ Is as defined by Chalcedon are faithful, accurate expressions of the Circle. Or, they are accurate but not exclusive, meaning you can write another definition which is true. Or, they are accretions outside of the Circle - additions to Apostolic teaching (and therefore irrelevant). Or they're false, and no particular church has the fullness of truth.

I believe the first option, and I could be persuaded of the second with regard to Chalcedon. Some make this case for the filioque too, I might add - but I think it is not correct.