The reason that we must interpret sacred scripture through the lens of Sacred Tradition is that most, if not all of us, do not understand Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, or Latin, the languages of the original bible and the later translations. All of those languages have idioms that were not meant to be taken literally, and some that were. Nuances in those ancient languages are very different than English. The early Church did understand all of that however, and how they interpreted the bible is how we should. Our 21st century minds just cannot grasp agrarian Jewish culture of millenia past.

If the early church believed in it, then so do I....

Good questions...IMHO, the early church has the documented writings of Ignatius, Polycarp, Origen, Justin Martyr, Jerome, etc. That is how I define the early church. And the definition of Sacred Tradition is what they all believed and taught all over the Christian world. From my readings of the early church, they all believed and taught the same doctrines, albeit with some debate at first.

Thaddeus73 said:

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Good questions...IMHO, the early church has the documented writings of Ignatius, Polycarp, Origen, Justin Martyr, Jerome, etc. That is how I define the early church. And the definition of Sacred Tradition is what they all believed and taught all over the Christian world. From my readings of the early church, they all believed and taught the same doctrines, albeit with some debate at first.

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Polycarps disciples were temporarily excommunicated by Rome, and Origen was eventually declared a heretic. If you are seeing unity in the early Church then you aren't looking closely enough.

Why did the Church only include Greek books in the New Testament? Didn't Jesus primarily speak Aramaic? But IIRC, the only time he's quoted speaking Aramaic was when he was dying on the cross.

Even the traditions have problems. To this day you will find people arguing over whether Ephraim the Syrian believed on the pre-trib rapture.


Also: In before the usual suspects denounce the pre-trib rapture and/or glossolalia.

UTExan said:

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Even the traditions have problems. To this day you will find people arguing over whether Ephraim the Syrian believed on the pre-trib rapture.


Also: In before the usual suspects denounce the pre-trib rapture and/or glossolalia.

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Well, since the protestant reformation, you have people increasingly arguing over a litany of scripture meaning. This is the problem with going it alone under a tree with only a bible. Could the Holy Spirit lay out exactly what everything means in its context? Sure. Is it likely the HS does this for everyone without other help, not as much as the traditions of the Church Christ instituted.

Jabin said:

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BluHorseShu said:

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UTExan said:

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Even the traditions have problems. To this day you will find people arguing over whether Ephraim the Syrian believed on the pre-trib rapture.


Also: In before the usual suspects denounce the pre-trib rapture and/or glossolalia.

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Well, since the protestant reformation, you have people increasingly arguing over a litany of scripture meaning. This is the problem with going it alone under a tree with only a bible. Could the Holy Spirit lay out exactly what everything means in its context? Sure. Is it likely the HS does this for everyone without other help, not as much as the traditions of the Church Christ instituted.

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Why is unanimity of interpretation so important? You frequently state that as if it's dispositive, but in some ways disagreement can be a feature, not a bug.

And by the way, "going it alone under a tree with only a bible" is a bit of a strawman argument or an oversimplification of the Protestant position. I don't know of many thinking Protestants who believe that is the correct approach.

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The bigger issue than "correct interpretation" is how do we stay one body?. We've seen more splitting over the "right" interpretation or even the "right way" to use sola scriptura that it should be proof that we were never meant to use our own authority to determine what it all means.

Fact of the matter is that each church or denomination has its own little pope. Even saying something like "having differing interpretations isn't a problem" would be a lens through which we would have to view the faith/bible that is either fallible or infallible.

Staying united under one church, despite its many issues that may need to be taken to a church council, has always made far more sense to me than us as individuals just trying to figure this all out on our own. And yes, picking which church is teaching you the truth is still figuring it out on your own.

That's been happening from the time of Peter taking over and Paul criticizing the legalism of the Jewish believers plus all the killings, heresies, scandals and schisms. Somehow, the orthodox (little o) doctrines remain and the Christian church grows.

UTExan said:

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That's been happening from the time of Peter taking over and Paul criticizing the legalism of the Jewish believers plus all the killings, heresies, scandals and schisms. Somehow, the orthodox (little o) doctrines remain and the Christian church grows.

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I would posit that disagreements that stayed inside the church as a whole are far superior to the disagreements we have amongst 1000 churches today. Today it's near impossible to have a dialogue on religious differences because we use the same words with entirely different meanings. We also have to combat the fact that people, knowingly or not, have been acting as their own pope for their entire lives. It's very difficult to reconcile all of the differences now because of how many differences have been given legitimacy by the different denominations.

This would be akin to the nestorians, pelagians, arians etc successfully creating different denominations, rather than being snuffed out by the councils of their time. Can you imagine if over 1/2 of Christians eschewed the trinitarian formula all those centuries ago and successfully launched their own denomination? What we see as the easy teaching on the divinity of Christ wouldn't be so easy.

The world that now has far ranging theologies from prosperity gospel, to Calvinism, to Unitarianism, to liberal vs conservative moral teachings etc would be even more different had the church body not held on as long as it did. Even the 500 years between the east west schism and the Protestant reformation was full of reunification talks. It got close a number of times. How could we even start something like that today? I do believe the Spirit will eventually bring us all back together, but it's going to take a true miracle.

The lens of Sacred Tradition is the best lens for interpreting scripture. If the apostles and their pupils taught doctrines based on their understanding of the Word of God , then why wouldn't we want to also? It seems to me the alternative is chaos.

Thaddeus73 said:

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The lens of Sacred Tradition is the best lens for interpreting scripture. If the apostles and their pupils taught doctrines based on their understanding of the Word of God , then why wouldn't we want to also? It seems to me the alternative is chaos.

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Isn't the issue not whether one looks to tradition to help interpret scripture, but what weight one gives to tradition?

Also, exactly what is "tradition" and who gets to define it? When does "tradition" end?

Protestant scholars also give great weight to the writings of the earliest church fathers, but although those writings are important, they are only one factor among many in the interpretation of Protestant scholars of uncertain practices.

I also wonder if some issues really need to be resolved. Some things would seem better left as simply a mystery. It seems that many scholars and church dignitaries are extremely uncomfortable with that and what to define with precision what the scriptures have purposefully left uncertain (at least to us). They have changed "believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved" to "believe in my/our entire work of systematic theology in order to be saved".

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This would be akin to the nestorians, pelagians, arians etc successfully creating different denominations, rather than being snuffed out by the councils of their time. Can you imagine if over 1/2 of Christians eschewed the trinitarian formula all those centuries ago and successfully launched their own denomination? What we see as the easy teaching on the divinity of Christ wouldn't be so easy.

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Not really sure what point you're trying to make. The Church successfully snuffed out the Pelagians, but the Arians (and the Donatists) were running strong until they were wiped out by the Muslims. I don't know that the Catholic Church can take credit for that, except for maybe the fact that the Orthodox, Copts, Assyrian, and Ethiopian Churches survived under Muslim rule while the Arians didn't. Speaking of the Assyrian Church, it started during the Nestorian schism and still exists with an unbroken line of apostolic succession. They don't like to be called Nestorians though

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Why is unanimity of interpretation so important? You frequently state that as if it's dispositive, but in some ways disagreement can be a feature, not a bug.

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On the whole, I heartily agree with this. Some of the things that separate denominations or individual churches seems very minor to me on the grand scale. For example, in the Didache they talk about the preference of baptizing with living cold water. However, there are multiple allowances made for other types of baptism. But this exact difference in method separates denominations and churches today, whereas early Christians didn't think it was that big of a deal.

OTOH, you have to draw a line somewhere. Arianism is a good example. If Jesus was created and not eternal, then there is nothing stopping God from creating another Son just like he did Jesus. More practically, there is nothing stopping patriarchs or emperors from claiming that they are on the same level as Christ. IMHO, this is why Arians where so easily converted to Islam. If Jesus wasn't singular, then he could be equaled or supplanted. So it seems clear that Arianism is an entirely different animal from Christianity, and history has borne that out.

As an outsider, I really don't understand why each of the Catholic, Orthodox, Assyrian, Oriental, and Coptic churches aren't in communion with each other. Same for the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and Pentecostals. I could see a liturgical versus protestant branches being considered so dissimilar as to be different religions, but within those categories I don't think anyone can say that. In my cynical mind, the people drawing the dividing lines have impure, earthly motives, and it's just a reflection of us all being fallen.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Why is unanimity of interpretation so important? You frequently state that as if it's dispositive, but in some ways disagreement can be a feature, not a bug.

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On the whole, I heartily agree with this. Some of the things that separate denominations or individual churches seems very minor to me on the grand scale. For example, in the Didache they talk about the preference of baptizing with living cold water. However, there are multiple allowances made for other types of baptism. But this exact difference in method separates denominations and churches today, whereas early Christians didn't think it was that big of a deal.

OTOH, you have to draw a line somewhere. Arianism is a good example. If Jesus was created and not eternal, then there is nothing stopping God from creating another Son just like he did Jesus. More practically, there is nothing stopping patriarchs or emperors from claiming that they are on the same level as Christ. IMHO, this is why Arians where so easily converted to Islam. If Jesus wasn't singular, then he could be equaled or supplanted. So it seems clear that Arianism is an entirely different animal from Christianity, and history has borne that out.

As an outsider, I really don't understand why each of the Catholic, Orthodox, Assyrian, Oriental, and Coptic churches aren't in communion with each other. Same for the Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and Pentecostals. I could see a liturgical versus protestant branches being considered so dissimilar as to be different religions, but within those categories I don't think anyone can say that. In my cynical mind, the people drawing the dividing lines have impure, earthly motives, and it's just a reflection of us all being fallen.

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Assuming that I correctly understand you, I agree completely. We should not create divisions in the church over differing beliefs that are not central to the faith.

Arianism is probably a good example of a belief that is both wrong and goes to the core of what is Christianity. However, what is the appropriate response of the church to that heresy? Do we leave it up to local congregations to respond? What if they don't? If we centralize power in order to stamp it out, that concentrated power can and will certainly be abused by people with impure, earthly motives.

The centralization of power in the RCC has certainly not eliminated heresy or even differences of opinion within the RCC, let alone outside of it. But it has led to gross sin at both the corporate and the individual level. I am not as familiar with the history of the EOC in its historical geographical territory, but I seriously doubt that its structures and emphasis on liturgy have protected its priests and bishops from sin and error.

You have the same thoughts I do. We definitely need the ability to stand up and define our own religion and what is not. However, history has shown that there is no good method for this. We've tried Popes, Councils, individual churches, and even individuals, and they're all kind of a mess

My personal belief is that the bible wants us all to be of one accord, and not in disagreement....That's why Jesus gave us His glory, after all...

John 17:
22 The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.

You can be one and not be in agreement on every single detail of doctrine. From the rest of the new testament, it seems pretty clear that Christ's definition of being one was a matter of love, not theological agreement.

As an example, there are many things that I do not agree with members of my family on, nor they with me. However, we love each other and are a united family.

Good point, but I think St. Paul expects more out of the Church....

1 Corinthians 1:10
Divisions in the Church
I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

BluHorseShu said:

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UTExan said:

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Even the traditions have problems. To this day you will find people arguing over whether Ephraim the Syrian believed on the pre-trib rapture.


Also: In before the usual suspects denounce the pre-trib rapture and/or glossolalia.

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Well, since the protestant reformation, you have people increasingly arguing over a litany of scripture meaning. This is the problem with going it alone under a tree with only a bible. Could the Holy Spirit lay out exactly what everything means in its context? Sure. Is it likely the HS does this for everyone without other help, not as much as the traditions of the Church Christ instituted.

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Strawman.

Do you think people agreed on Scripture before the Reformation?

We can play the same game of pointing to all the disagreements exist between the ecclesiastical groups to see that it's all nonsense.

I agree with you from what I can see on Coptic, Orthodox, and Church of the East. I may be way wrong, and I am a little bit ignorant to some of the details here, but it seems to me the test of time has shown that these are the same faith separated by theological disputes. The similarities in faith and practice persist in spite of the breaks in communion.

I do not see thst between East and Rome. And my confidence in the differences between the East and Rome is much higher than my confidence in the sameness of the Assyrian church and the Orthodox.