Triumph of Orthodoxy

In modern American culture, an "iconoclast" is someone who is celebrated as a "creative visionary," an innovator, a hero, a trailblazer; someone whose boldness and foresight we are to admire and emulate.

But, in Christianity an iconoclast is a heretic.

A controversy arose in the eighth century regarding the question of whether or not imagery was appropriate in Christian worship. Those who opposed the use of religious images were known as iconoclasts, which means "image smashers." This controvery stirred up so much trouble that the Church convened a council of bishops to settle the matter. They determined that the use of images is not only acceptable but necessary because, for one thing, it affirms the Incarnation.* They also anathematized those who reject the use of religious imagery. That is, they condemned their teaching as heresy.**

(Like other major heresies of the early Church, iconoclasm once again reared its head during the Protestant Reformation.)

The Church celebrates and reaffirms its use of holy images on the first Sunday of Lent (tomorrow), which is known as the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

The following video, which I boosted from the Pious Fabrications blog, provides a brief examination of holy icons and their use within the Orthodox devotional life.



For further reading:
Sunday of Orthodoxy (OrthodoxWiki)
Sunday of Orthodoxy (Antiochian Archdiocese)
The Sunday of Orthodoxy and the Current State of Affairs
Sunday of Orthodoxy (Glory to God for All Things blog)
Sermon on the Sunday of Orthodoxy (Abp Averky)
Sermon on the Sunday of Orthodoxy (Schmemann)
What is Orthodoxy? (orrologian blog)

* "...we keep unchanged all the ecclesiastical traditions handed down to us, whether in writing or verbally, one of which is the making of pictorial representations, agreeable to the history of the preaching of the Gospel, a tradition useful in many respects, but especially in this, that so the incarnation of the Word of God is shown forth as real and not merely phantastic, for these have mutual indications and without doubt have also mutual significations.

"We, therefore, following the royal pathway and the divinely inspired authority of our Holy Fathers and the traditions of the Catholic Church (for, as we all know, the Holy Spirit indwells her), define with all certitude and accuracy that just as the figure of the precious and life-giving Cross, so also the venerable and holy images, as well in painting and mosaic as of other fit materials, should be set forth in the holy churches of God, and on the sacred vessels and on the vestments and on hangings and in pictures both in houses and by the wayside, to wit, the figure of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ, of our spotless Lady, the Mother of God, of the honourable Angels, of all Saints and of all pious people. For by so much more frequently as they are seen in artistic representation, by so much more readily are men lifted up to the memory of their prototypes, and to a longing after them; and to these should be given due salutation and honourable reverence (ἀσπασμὸν καὶ τιμητικὴν προσκύνησιν), not indeed that true worship of faith (λατρείαν) which pertains alone to the divine nature; but to these, as to the figure of the precious and life-giving Cross and to the Book of the Gospels and to the other holy objects, incense and lights may be offered according to ancient pious custom. For the honour which is paid to the image passes on to that which the image represents, and he who reveres the image reveres in it the subject represented."

** "Those, therefore who dare to think or teach otherwise, or as wicked heretics to spurn the traditions of the Church and to invent some novelty, or else to reject some of those things which the Church hath received (e.g., the Book of the Gospels, or the image of the cross, or the pictorial icons, or the holy reliques of a martyr), or evilly and sharply to devise anything subversive of the lawful traditions of the Catholic Church or to turn to common uses the sacred vessels or the venerable monasteries, if they be Bishops or Clerics, we command that they be deposed; if religious or laics, that they be cut off from communion.

"This is the faith of the Apostles, this is the faith of the orthodox, this is the faith which hath made firm the whole world. Believing in one God, to be celebrated in Trinity, we salute the honourable images! Those who do not so hold, let them be anathema. Those who do not thus think, let them be driven far away from the Church. For we follow the most ancient legislation of the Catholic Church. We keep the laws of the Fathers. We anathematize those who add anything to or take anything away from the Catholic Church. We anathematize the introduced novelty of the revilers of Christians. We salute the venerable images. We place under anathema those who do not do this. Anathema to them who presume to apply to the venerable images the things said in Holy Scripture about idols. Anathema to those who do not salute the holy and venerable images. Anathema to those who call the sacred images idols. Anathema to those who say that Christians resort to the sacred images as to gods. Anathema to those who say that any other delivered us from idols except Christ our God. Anathema to those who dare to say that at any time the Catholic Church received idols." (The Decree of the Holy, Great, Ecumenical Synod, the Second of Nicaea)

Septuagint v. Masoretic

From Mystagogy:

Guns, Lies and Forgeries: A Bible Story
By Robert E. Reis

Once upon a time there was a tribe living in the Middle East that had a collection of sacred texts written in Hebrew, Chaldean and Aramaic. It is the nature of sacred texts to be venerated and transmitted from generation to generation unaltered.

As time passed members of this tribe emigrated to areas where Hebrew and Aramaic and Chaldean were not spoken. A large community settled and prospered in the city of Alexandria in Egypt. Greek replaced their tribal language. They needed an accurate translation of their venerated documents into Greek.

Around 250 B.C. seventy rabbis translated the sacred texts into Greek. This translation was not a bootleg edition. The project was approved by the High Priest and the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. The Septuagint, the translation of the seventy, was an official document.

A Hebrew Bible exists today. It is used by Jews everywhere. It is called the Masoretic text. It was compiled around 700 A.D. It is almost one thousand years newer than the Septuagint. The rabbis who compiled the Masoretic text were not accountable to the High Priest in Jerusalem. There no longer was a High Priest. The rabbis who compiled the Masoretic text were not accountable to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. There no longer was a Sanhedrin.

The Septuagint predates the first appearance of the Masoretic text by almost ten centuries. The Septuagint is based upon Hebrew texts at least twelve centuries older than the texts upon which the Masoretic version is based. .Yet, modern Christian translations of the Old Testament rely on the Masoretic Text, not the Septuagint.

Where is the problem?

Most of the quotations from the Old Testament in the New Testament used the Septuagint as their primary source. The integrity and truthfulness of the [New Testament] is completely dependant on the Septuagint being a truthful translation. Discredit the Septuagint and there is no New Testament.

There was no controversy about the integrity of the Septuagint from 250 B.C. until 135 A. D.

What had happened to provoke dissatisfaction with the Septuagint among the Jews?

Annas and Caiphas and the Sanhedrin had rejected the messianic claims of Jesus. The New Testament documents had been written and were circulating by A.D. 70. The Jews knew that the credibility of the Christian Gospels depended on the credibility of the Septuagint. Something had to be done.

Around 95 A.D. Rabbi Akiva, who later proclaimed Bar Kochba as the messiah, hired a man named Aquila to translate a Hebrew to Greek version of the Old Testament that would undermine the messianic claims of Jesus found in the Septuagint. Some scholars believe that the Masoretic text was based in part on this tendentious translation by Aquila.

How is the Masoretic text different from the Septuagint?

Psalm 22:16 the word “pierced” has been replaced by “lion”.

Psalm 145: 13 omitted entirely.

Isaiah 53:11 the word “light” is omitted.

On 134 occasions the Tetragrammaton, the name of God, has been replaced by “Adonai”.

Psalm 151 was omitted entirely. (It is now omitted by almost all Christian Bibles!)

Exodus 1: The number 75 replaced by 70

Genesis 10:24 some generations removed.

Deuteronomy 32:8 “Angels Of Elohim” replaced with “children of Israel.”

Jeremiah 10 verses 6 and 7 have been added in the Masoretic.

Psalm 96:10 “Say among the nations, YHWH reigns from the wood” omitted.

Isaiah 19:18 “city of righteousness” changed to the “city of the sun” or in some versions “the city of destruction.”

The Masoretic scribes purposely and willfully rearranged the original chapter order in the prophetic Book of Daniel, so that the chapters make no sense chronologically.

Isaiah 61:1 “recovery of sight to the blind.”. Omitted.

In Psalm 40:6 “a body you have prepared for me” was replaced by “you opened my ears.”

Deuteronomy 32:43 ‘Let all the messengers of Elohim worship him.’” Omitted.

Genesis 4:8: “Let us go into the field” is omitted.

Deuteronomy 32:43. Moses’ song is shortened.

Isaiah 53 contains 10 spelling differences, 4 stylistic changes and 3 missing letters for light in verse 11, for a total of 17 differences.

Isaiah 7:14. “Virgin” replaced by “young woman.”

(When Aquila made his Greek translation of the Old Testament at the behest of Rabbi Akiva, he changed the Septuagint’s “virgin” into “young woman”. The Masoretic compilers may have followed his lead.)

The Masoretic text differs from the Septuagint in hundreds of places.How do we know which text is accurate?

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered just after World War II.

According to carbon dating, textual analysis, and handwriting analysis the documents were written at various times between the middle of the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD. There are fragments from all of the books of the Hebrew Bible fragments except the Book of Esther and the Book of Nehemiah.

In addition an independent Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible exists, the Peshitta.Control of the Dead Sea Scrolls was a military objective of Israelis. It was achieved by their victory in the Six Days War.

The publication of the scrolls slowed to a trickle.

After 1971, the international team even refused to allow the publication of photographs of the material. They excluded scholars who wanted to make independent evaluations.

The embargo was not broken until 1991.An addition to the Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars can use the Peshitta to decide between the Masoretic text and the Septuagint.I have given examples above of some of the places the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Peshitta, and the Septuagint agree.

The Masoretic Text is part of a tradition that began with Rabbi Akiva. Rabbis rewrote the Jewish Bible to destroy the credibility of the New Testament.

The Hebrew versions of the Old Testament have been used to proclaim scores of “messiahs” . The Septuagint was only used once.

LXX v. Masoretic

This is an interesting video, but he speaks very fast so be prepared to listen fast...

"Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy" redux

If this series is anywhere near as good as the original (and I have no reason to think it's not), then I stongly suggest, as I did before, that everyone reading this drops what they're doing and links immediately to Ancient Faith Radio because it is a fascinating and worthwhile and enlightening series of lectures that is being re-recorded and broadcast in several weekly installments.

And, while you're at it, there's a ton of other good listening on AFR as well.

The Premodern Christian

From Byzantine Tx:

On one level, many Orthodox converts are fleeing megachurch Christianity. They are coming because they want something on Sunday morning besides a rock band and a giant plasma TV screen. Converts are also fleeing from mainline Protestantism, which is in the midst of a three-decade statistical nosedive and demographic suicide.

At the same time, I believe that most of these converts are coming out of that core 20 percent of their former churches. They are active, highly motivated people. They read, they think, they sing, and they serve. That hunger for more, that hunger for sound doctrine, is sending them to Orthodoxy.

These Orthodox converts are seeking mystery. They want a non-fundamentalist approach to the faith, but they are not fleeing the faith of the ages. They are trying to get back to the trunk of the tree. All around them are churches that are either modern, postmodern, post-postmodern or post-post-postmodern.

Read the rest here

From Russia with Scorn

You have to know, when the Russians are scolding the U.S. for being "Marxist," that something is dreadfully wrong.
Ouch!

"...their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then [sic] Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America."

(Read the rest here)

The coming evangelical collapse

"We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity."


Read the rest here.
Then immediately contact your nearest Orthodox church.

Buddhipiscopal?

Okay, it honestly never was (and is not now) my intention to tout Orthodoxy through use of the My-Religion-Is-Best-Because-The-Others-Are-So-Goofy approach. But this story is really too much to resist:

An Episcopal priest who has received a Buddhist lay ordination has been elected bishop in the Diocese of Northern Michigan. The Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester, who has served in the diocese since 2001, was elected on the first ballot and received 88 percent of the delegate votes.

Forrester, who has been identified by his former bishop Jim Kelsey as ‘walking the path of Christianity and Zen Buddhism together, is not the first Episcopal clergyman to practice dual faiths. In 2004, Pennsylvania priest Bill Melnyk was revealed to be a druid; while in 2007 Seattle priest Ann Holmes Redding declared that she was simultaneously an Episcopalian and a Muslim.

Read the rest here

"Ten Deadly Trappings of Evangelism"

The following is taken from a blog called Kuo & Joe. Although it was written by a Baptist, it sums up that which is most offputting about modern Christian Evangelicalism, demonstrating—yet again—why all Christians should be Orthodox:

#1 The Sinner’s Prayer — The gates of hell have a special entrance reserved for people who thought that they had a ticket into heaven because someone told them all they needed to do was recite the "sinner’s prayer." I’ve searched through the entire New Testament and can’t find an example of anyone who was "saved" after reciting such a prayer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that such prayer is worthless or that it can’t be used by the Holy Spirit. But salvation is not obtained by reciting a magical incantation as many, many, "Christians" will discover after it’s far, far, too late.

#2 Making Converts — I’ve always felt uneasy about the idea that Christians should be seeking to make converts. Am I wrong in thinking that the making of converts is a task associated with Islam, rather than Christianity? Perhaps I have a flawed understanding of the Gospel, but I always thought the purpose of evangelism is not to make converts but to make, as Christ commanded, disciples. Indeed, my primary complaint against each of the other nine methods on this list is that they are usually ineffective in instigating true conversion, much less helping make true disciples.

#3 "Do you know Jesus as…" — This is one question that needs never be asked for it shows (a) you do not know the person well enough, (b) the answer is yes and the person is a lousy Christian, or (c) the answer is no in which case you just activated their Fundie-alert system and caused them to switch their brains into ignore mode. Instead of asking about a "personal savior" you might want to simply try to get to know the person.

#4 Tribulationism — Ask a non-believer to give a rudimentary explanation of "the Rapture" and chances are they can provide a fairly accurate description of that concept. Ask the same person to give a basic explanation of the Gospel message, though, and they are likely to be stumped. The reason for this curious state of affairs is that evangelicals have promoted what I refer to as "Tribulationism" — an overemphasis on pre-millenial [sic] eschatology that overshadows the Gospel. I’m sure that somewhere in the three dozen novels that comprise the Left Behind series the Gospel message is presented. But there is something horribly wrong when the greatest story ever told is buried beneath a third-rate tale of the apocalypse.

#5 Testimonies — Several years ago, during a job interview for a Christian organization, my prospective employer asked me to tell him my "testimony." The fact that I was a Christian apparently wasn’t enough. I had to have a good conversion story to go along with my faith. Now you may have a great story about how the hound of Heaven" chased you down and gnawed on your leg until you surrendered. No doubt your story would make for a gripping movie of the week on Lifetime and lead to the making of numerous converts (see #1). But the harsh truth is that your story doesn’t much matter. You are only a bit player in the narrative thread; the main part goes to the Divine Protagonist. In fact, He already has a pretty good story so why not just tell that one instead?

#6 The Altar Call — If he tells men they are under obligation to receive Christ on the spot, and demands in God’s name that they decide at once, some who are spiritually unprepared will try to do so; they will come forward and accept directions and "go through the motions" and go away thinking they have received Christ, when all the time they have not done so because they were not yet able to do so. Man takes it on himself to try to bring that work to a precipitate conclusion, to pick the fruit before it is ripe; and the result is "false conversions," hypocrisy and hardening.

#7 Witnessing — Evangelism ain’t Amway. It is not a form of Multi-Level Marketing in which you get extra credit for the number of people in your network and you don’t get a great commission for the Great Commission. If you want to sell something door-to-door make it Amway products not the Good News.

If you want to be a more effective "witness for Christ" then start by doing what Christ did and love other people. Start by loving the "unlovable" — the smelly, unbathed men down at the mission, the annoying kids at church, the bonehead who cuts you off in traffic. Yes, you need to tell people about the Gospel. But that is evangelism, not "witnessing." In the context of the Christian life, "witness" should be a noun more often than a verb.

#8 Protestant Prayers — Last week one of my fellow coworkers, a young Catholic man, was asked to open our meeting with a prayer. Without hesitation he began reciting the "Lord’s prayer." Afterward I joked that, having come up with such a fine prayer, he might want to write it down for future use. What I didn’t say what how his recitation of the prayer made me uncomfortable.

First, I’m not used to hearing prayers that don’t contain the word "just" (as in "We just want to thank you Lord…") so it had an odd ring to it. Second, it seemed to violate the accepted standards for public prayer. I had always assumed that praying in public required being able to interlace some just-want-to’s in with some Lord-thank-you-for’s and be- with-us-as-we’s in a coherent fashion before toppping [sic] it all with an Amen. Third, I thought that prayers are supposed to be spontaneous–from the heart, off the top of the head–emanations, rather than prepackaged recitations. If it ain’t original, it ain’t prayer, right? Can I get an amen?

But where did this idea come from? We have entire books to teach us how to pray yet Jesus managed to wrap up the lesson in less than forty words. Why isn’t that prayer good enough for evangelicals to use? Why do our prayers sound nothing like His example? (And if you are wondering what prayer is doing on a list of evangelistic fixtures then we are really in trouble.)

#9 The Church Growth Movement — Sadly, this has moved from fad to fixture. Think I’m wrong? Ask the next person you see to define that phrase. In fact, ask the next 100 people you see. Let me know if you find anyone that tells you they think the church growth movement is a movement in the church to grow disciples.

#10 Chick Tracts — Chick Tracts are a tool of the devil. That fact — and yes it is a fact — is not changed just because you know a guy who knows a guy who heard testimony about a guy who said the Sinner’ Prayer after finding "The Long Trip" on the floor of a truck stop restroom.


Recommended reading:
Evangelical Fads Don't Always Reach Others

Conversion

Normally, changing church affiliations is known simply as "attending another church."

When someone decides to stop attending the local non-denominational church and start attending the Lutheran church up the road, for example, he doesn't necessarily consider himself to be "converting." The word "proselyte" doesn't even occur to him.

However, making the move from Protestantism to Orthodoxy involves much more than simply altering the geography of one's Sunday worship; it is more than singing a different set of hymns, or exchanging pews for theater seating, or vice-versa. It is learning a whole new language; it's becoming the country mouse in the big city; it's Alice slipping through the looking glass; it's Dorothy, discovering that simply moving from one grayscale room to another isn't getting her anywhere, and stepping out the front door and into the lush Technicolor land of Oz; it's Butch and Sundance plunging off the cliff; it's "Alea iacta est" and "One giant leap" rolled into one.

I would say that, yes, the word "conversion" would apply here.

Since before Kathryn and I married, we attended a church at which we were both very comfortable, where the people were warm and welcoming, where we knew and loved the pastors, where were were able to assist with our time and tithes. It was the church in which we were married, so there was—and is—an emotional connection. We could easily continue for many years to attend and worship at Christ the King and be perfectly comfortable and content there.

But knowing what we know now, we can see that for us to remain at that church, or at any Protestant church, is to be part of a church whose doctrine and practice are demonstrably different from the Church of the first century; it would be to hold the Scripture over the Church, and to believe that my interpretation of the Scriptures is superior to the consistent witness of the Church through the ages; it would be to reject the written testimony of the Early Fathers in favor of Enlightenment scholars, and to believe that, until the Reformation, God reneged on His promise not to allow the gates of hell prevail against His Church.

We recognize now that, despite whatever argument we can devise to justify doing so, for us to continue for another day within any Christian body other than the Holy Orthodox Church would be to remain in willful and obstinate separation from the very same Church of the Apostles, the Church founded on Pentecost.

At approximately 4 o'clock on the afternoon of February 21st, Kathryn and I will be baptized into the Orthodox Church. Any of my readers who feel inclined to attend are invited to do so. It will take place at St. Sabbas Monastery in Harper Woods.*

If, however, between now and then someone can give me reason to believe that there is another Christian body out there that...

...can better or more clearly demonstrate continuity between its present self and the Church established at Pentecost,

…can be shown to have adhered to and taught more steadfastly the "faith which was once for all delivered to the saints,"

…more consistently and accurately reflects the teaching of the Scriptures,

…gives more appropriate respect and honor to “the mother of my Lord,”

…has a fuller and more active and robust prayer life,

...can prescribe more effective means of denying myself and taking up my cross,

...worships in a manner more consistent with Biblical worship,

…can make a better case to being the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church,

then we will immediately put the baptism on hold.

However, I don't expect that will happen. I don't believe it can happen. I believe beyond any reasonable doubt that this is the "one fold," this is the fullness of the Faith. This is Christianity as God intended, undiminished, uncorrupted, undistorted.

I invite all my readers who haven't already done so to get out of the black-and-white, and step through the front door into the color. Don't take my word for it: come and see.


*Attendees are reminded to dress appropriately, including skirts and head coverings for women.

"The Ancient Church" documentary

The following is a short documentary on the history of the ancient Orthodox Church. For more information on the people, places, and events mentioned in the videos, click on the links below.

5:16 Ecumenical Councils
6:20 Papal Supremacy
6:23 The Filioque
6:28 The Great Schism of 1054 (also here)

00:13 Luther & 95 Theses, Protestant Reformation
2:00 Patriarch Ignatius IV
2:18 St Ignatius
3:11 Churches of Russia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria & Georgia
3:19 Churches of Cyprus, Greece, Poland & Albania
3:25 Churches of Sinai, Czech Republic, Finland, Japan & China
4:36 Metropolitan Philip
5:49 Fr Peter Gillquist
6:03 Fr Gordon Walker

00:31 Mysteries
00:42 Fr. Jon Braun

Q&A

Q: Orthodox churches are getting a significant number of converts from Western Christian traditions. Is that a reflection on Orthodoxy, on Western churches, or both?

A: To a great extent, many of the other churches are falling apart. The mainline Protestants, the Methodists, the Presbyterians. The Episcopalians have lost half their membership. The Baptists, even. The evangelical movement is already coming to an end. It's only about 100 years old in American culture, and it's kind of come to the fulfillment of its potential. The Orthodox Church is the fullness of the apostolic faith and the apostolic tradition. People find in it what they always thought Christianity should be.


From a USAToday interview with Met. Jonah, 12/10/2008

Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy

I cannot recommend this highly enough.
It is a series of lectures given recently by Father Andrew Damick of St George Cathedral in Charleston, WV on the many differences (and a few similarities) between Orthodox Christianity and the many other religions--Christian and otherwise--that are out there.

It is a fascinating and thorough and fair examination of the history and core beliefs of these religions and I strongly suggest that you take the time to listen.

Clicking on each title below will link directly to the audio file. They take a little while to download (each lecture is over an hour long), but, believe me, it's worth it.


Lecture 1: Heterodoxy & Heresy (series introduction)

Lecture 2: Roman Catholicism

Lecture 3: Churches of the Classical Reformation (Lutherans, Calvinists, Reformed, Zwinglians, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Wesleyans)

Lecture 4: Churches of the Radical Reformation (Anabaptists, Baptists, Brethren, Amish, Mennonites, Restorationists, Adventists)

Lecture 5: Modern Revivalism (Pentecostalism, Charismatics, Evangelicalism)

Lecture 6: Non-Christian Religions (Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto, Sikhism, Wicca, Neo-paganism, Zoroastrianism, Modern Gnosticism, Animism)

Lecture 7: Non-Mainstream Christians (Swedenborgians, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Unitarian Universalists, Christadelphians, Christian Science, Unification Church ("Moonies"); also includes series conclusions)


From Christ in the Mountains by Fr. Andrew Damick

Sola Scriptura, Part 9

Continued form last week [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8]

THE ORTHODOX APPROACH TO TRUTH

Lest any be mistaken or confused, let me be clear: the Orthodox approach to the Scriptures is not based upon "scientific" research into the Holy Scriptures. Its claim to understand the Scriptures does not reside in its claiming superior archaeological data, but rather in its unique relationship with the Author of the Scriptures. The Orthodox Church is the body of Christ, the pillar and ground of the Truth, and it is both the means by which God wrote the Scriptures (through its members) and the means by which God has preserved the Scriptures. The Orthodox Church understands the Bible because it is the inheritor of one living tradition that begins with Adam and stretches through time to all its members today. That this is true cannot be "proven" in a lab. One must be convinced by the Holy Spirit and experience the life of God in the Church.

The question Protestants will ask at this point is who is to say that the Orthodox Tradition is the correct tradition, or that there even is a correct tradition? First, Protestants need to study the history of the Church. They will find that there is only one Church. This has always been the faith of the Church from its beginning. The Nicene Creed makes this point clearly, "I believe in... one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church." This statement, which almost every Protestant denomination still claims to accept as true, was never interpreted to refer to some fuzzy, pluralistic invisible "church" that cannot agree on anything doctrinally. The councils that canonized the Creed (as well as the Scriptures) also anathematized those who were outside the Church, whether they were heretics, such as the Montanists, or schismatics like the Donatists. They did not say, "well we can't agree with the Montanists doctrinally but they are just as much a part of the Church as we are." Rather they were excluded from the communion of the Church until they returned to the Church and were received into the Church through Holy Baptism and Chrismation (in the case of heretics) or simply Chrismation (in the case of schismatics) [Second Ecumenical Council, Canon VII]. To even join in prayer with those outside the Church was, and still is, forbidden [Canons of the Holy Apostles, canons XLV, XLVI]. Unlike Protestants, who make heros of those who break away from another group and start their own, in the early Church this was considered among the most damnable sins. As St. Ignatius of Antioch [a disciple of the Apostle John] warned, "Make no mistake brethren, no one who follows another into a schism will inherit the Kingdom of God, no one who follows heretical doctrines is on the side of the passion" [to the Philadelphians 5:3].

The very reason there arose a Protestant movement was that they were protesting Papal abuses, but prior to the Roman West breaking away from the Orthodox East these abuses did not exist. Many modern Protestant theologians have recently begun to take a second look at this first millennium of undivided Christendom, and are beginning to discover the great treasure that the West has lost (and not a few are becoming Orthodox as a result). 19

Obviously, one of three statements is true: either (1) there is no correct Tradition and the gates of hell did prevail against the Church, and thus both the Gospels and the Nicene Creed are in error; or (2) the true Faith is to be found in Papism, with its ever-growing and changing dogmas defined by the infallible "vicar of Christ;" or (3) the Orthodox Church is the one Church founded by Christ and has faithfully preserved the Apostolic Tradition. So the choice for Protestants is clear: relativism, Romanism, or Orthodoxy.

Most Protestants, because their theological basis of Sola Scriptura could only yield disunity and argument, have long ago given up on the idea of true Christian unity and considered it a ridiculous hypothesis that there might be only one Faith. When faced with such strong affirmations concerning Church unity as those cited above, they often react in horror, charging that such attitudes are contrary to Christian love. Finding themselves without true unity they have striven to create a false unity, by developing the relativistic philosophy of ecumenism, in which the only belief to be condemned is any belief that makes exclusive claims about the Truth. However, this is not the love of the historical Church, but humanistic sentimentality. Love is the essence of the Church. Christ did not come to establish a new school of thought, but rather, He, Himself said that He came to build His Church, against which the gates of hell would not prevail (Matthew 16:17). This new community of the Church created "an organic unity rather than a mechanical unification of internally divided persons." 20 This unity is only possible through the new life brought by the Holy Spirit, and mystically experienced in the life of the Church.

Christian faith joins the faithful with Christ and thus it composes one harmonious body from separate individuals. Christ fashions this body by communicating Himself to each member and by supplying to them the Spirit of Grace in an effectual, tangible manner.... If the bond with the body of the Church becomes severed then the personality which is thereby isolated and enclosed in its own egoism will be deprived of the beneficial and abundant influence of the Holy Spirit which dwells within the Church. 21

The Church is one because it is the body of Christ, and it is an ontological impossibility that it could be divided. The Church is one, even as Christ and the Father are one. Though this concept of unity may seem incredible, it does not seems so to those who have gone beyond the concept and entered into its reality. Though this may be one of those "hard sayings" that many cannot accept, it is a reality in the Orthodox Church, though it demands from everyone much self-denial, humility and love. 22

Our faith in the unity of the Church has two aspects, it is both an historic and present unity. That is to say that when the Apostles, for example, departed this life they did not depart from the unity of the Church. They are as much a part of the Church now as when they were present in the flesh. When we celebrate the Eucharist in any local Church, we do not celebrate it alone, but with the entire Church, both on earth and in heaven. The Saints in heaven are even closer to us than those we can see or touch. Thus, in the Orthodox Church we are not only taught by those people in the flesh whom God has appointed to teach us, but by all those teachers of the Church in heaven and on earth. We are just as much under the teaching today of Saint John Chrysostom as we are of our own Bishop. The way this impacts our approach to Scripture is that we do not interpret it privately (II Peter 1:20), but as a Church. This approach to Scripture was given its classic definition by St. Vincent of Lerins:

Here, perhaps, someone may ask: Since the canon of the Scripture is complete and more than sufficient in itself, why is it necessary to add to it the authority of ecclesiastical interpretation? As a matter of fact, [we must answer,] Holy Scripture, because of its depth, is not universally accepted in one and the same sense. The same text is interpreted differently by different people, so that one may almost gain the impression that it can yield as many different meanings as there are men.... Thus it is because of the great many distortions caused by various errors, that it is, indeed, necessary that the trend of the interpretation of the prophetic and apostolic writings be directed in accordance with the rule of the ecclesiastical and Catholic meaning.

In the Catholic Church itself, every care should be taken to hold fast to what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. This is truly and properly Catholic, as indicated by the force and etymology of the name itself, which comprises everything truly universal. This general rule will be truly applied if we follow the principles of universality, antiquity, and consent. We do so in regard to universality if we confess that faith alone to be true which the entire Church confesses all over the world. [We do so] in regard to antiquity if we in no way deviate from those interpretations which our ancestors and fathers have manifestly proclaimed as inviolable. [We do so] in regard to consent if, in this very antiquity, we adopt the definitions and propositions of all, or almost all, of the Bishops. 23

In this approach to Scriptures, it is not the job of the individual to strive for originality, but rather to understand what is already present in the traditions of the Church. We are obliged not to go beyond the boundary set by the Fathers of the Church, but to faithfully pass on the tradition we received. To do this requires a great deal of study and thought, but even more, if we are to truly understand the Scriptures, we must enter deeply into the mystical life of the Church.
But what of the work that has been done by Protestant Biblical scholars? To the degree that it helps us understand the history behind and meaning of obscurities, to this degree it is in line with the Holy Tradition and can be used.

As Saint Gregory Nazianzen put it when speaking of pagan literature: "As we have compounded healthful drugs from certain of the reptiles, so from secular literature we have received principles of enquiry and speculation, while we have rejected their idolatry..." 25 Thus as long as we refrain from worshiping the false gods of Individualism, Modernity, and Academic Vainglory, and as long as we recognize the assumptions at work and use those things that truly shed historical or linguistic light upon the Scriptures, then we will understand the Tradition more perfectly. But to the degree that Protestant scholarship speculates beyond the canonical texts, and projects foreign ideas upon the Scriptures — to the degree that they disagree with the Holy Tradition, the "always and everywhere" faith of the Church, they are wrong.

If Protestants should think this arrogant or naive, let them first consider the arrogance and naivete of those scholars who think that they are qualified to override (and more usually, totally ignore) two thousand years of Christian teaching. Does the acquisition of a Ph.D. give one greater insight into the mysteries of God than the total wisdom of millions upon millions of faithful believers and the Fathers and Mothers of the Church who faithfully served God, who endured horrible tortures and martyrdom, mockings, and imprisonments, for the faith? Is Christianity learned in the comfort of ones study, or as one carries his cross to be killed on it? The arrogance lies in those who, without even taking the time to learn what the Holy Tradition really is, decide that they know better, that only now has someone come along who has rightly understood what the Scriptures really mean.

CONCLUSION
The Holy Scriptures are perhaps the summit of the Holy Tradition of the Church, but the greatness of the heights to which the Scriptures ascend is due to the great mountain upon which it rests. Taken from its context, within the Holy Tradition, the solid rock of Scripture becomes a mere ball of clay, to be molded into whatever shape its handlers wish to mold it. It is no honor to the Scriptures to misuse and twist them, even if this is done in the name of exalting their authority. We must read the Bible; it is God's Holy Word. But to understand its message let us humbly sit at the feet of the saints who have shown themselves "doers of the Word and not hearers only" (James 1:22), and have been proven by their lives worthy interpreters of the Scriptures. Let us go to those who knew the Apostles, such as Saints Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp, if we have a question about the writings of the Apostles. Let us inquire of the Church, and not fall into self-deluded arrogance.

From the Orthodox Christian Information Center

19. In fact a recent three volume systematic theology, by Thomas Oden, is based on the premise that the "ecumenical consensus" of the first millennium should be normative for theology [see, The Living God: Systematic Theology Volume One, (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), pp ix — xiv.]. If only Oden takes his own methodology all the way, he too will become Orthodox.

20. The Holy New Martyr Archbishop Ilarion (Troitsky), Christianity or the Church?, (Jordanville: Holy Trinity Monastery, 1985), p. 11.

21. Ibid., p. 16.

22. Ibid., p. 40.

23. St. Vincent of Lerins, trans. Rudolph Morris, The Fathers of the Church vol.7, (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1949), pp. 269-271.

25. St. Gregory Nazianzen, "Oration 43, Panegyric on Saint Basil," A Selected Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, series 2, vol. vii, eds. Henry Wace and Philip Schaff (New York: Christian, 18871900), p. 398f.

Mary, Part 4 - Veneration

"There is an equal harm in both these heresies, both when men demean the Virgin and when, on the contrary, they glorify Her beyond what is proper." St. Epiphanius of Cyprus, Panarion: Against the Collyridians

Pope Pius IX, in his 1854 bull Ineffabilis Deus, formally defined as dogma of the Roman Catholic Church the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. According to this belief, Mary's soul, "in the first instant of its creation and in the first instant of the soul's infusion into the body, was, by a special grace and privilege of God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, her Son and the Redeemer of the human race, preserved free from all stain of original sin."

It would take someone with far more knowledge than I have to provide a proper explanation of the Orthodox Church's objection to this doctrine. Such an explanation would involve a look at the Church's understanding of original sin, and a discussion of Mary's human nature, which she would necessarily have had to pass along to her Son. It will suffice for now to say that the Orthodox Church has never accepted the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. (However, those of my readers who are interested in learning more about the Orthodox understanding of this subject can find excellent and fascinating essays by two prominent Orthodox bishops here and here)

The Orthodox feel, not only that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is incorrect, but also that it clears the way for more objectionable teachings. For example, there is a movement underway among Roman Catholic clergy and laity to petition the Pope for an official bestowing on Mary of the titles "Co-Redemptrix," and "Mediatrix of all Graces."

At the extreme opposite end of the Marian spectrum is the Protestant attitude toward Mary, which can be summed up in two words:

"Mary who?"

Never have I been to a Protestant church service in which Mary--if she is mentioned at all--is referred to as anything other than as an historical figure. In my twenty years as a Baptist, I don't know that I ever heard a pastor utter the name "Mary" when he wasn't flanked either by Christmas trees or Easter lilies. In the Lutheran church that Kathryn and I attended, more than thirty stained glass windows adorn the walls of the nave depicting all twelve Apostles, Sts Paul, Polycarp, and Athanasius, Ruth and Naomi, and even Dorcas, the dressmaker from Acts chapter 9. Can you guess who is not shown?

Why is there such an aversion to Mary among Protestants? The best sense I have been able to make of it is that it is a reaction to the excesses of Roman Catholic Marian devotion. An article quoted on the This is Life! blog sums up why this is not a good thing (emphases are my own):

The Church catholic has always kept Jesus and Mary close together, as evidenced by the ecumenical confession of Mary as Theotokos, "Mother of God." This title was formally authorized by the General Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431), a council convened not to address Mariology but Christology. At a deep intuitive level, the Church has understood that her confession of the Incarnation of the eternal Word is intrinsically connected to the veneration of the blessed Virgin. Yet for some reason Protestants, including the overwhelming majority of Anglicans, do not intuit this connection. . . .

Something is very wrong with Protestantism. Our ecclesial communities do not generate a devotion to Mary. This absence of Marian devotion suggests to me a theological flaw. . . .

The Protestant, of course, immediately protests: "I believe in the Incarnation as strongly as any Catholic or Orthodox Christian!" But the fact remains that all of Protestantism has lost Mary, and many forms of Protestantism are now on the verge of losing Christ.

This raises a critical question for me: Is a Protestant competent to offer judgment on Marian devotion or Marian titles? I am beginning to suspect that no matter how "orthodox" we Protestants think we are in our doctrine of the Incarnation, we in fact are not. We have not faithfully appropriated the orthodox doctrine, because we have deleted Mary from the Church's life of worship and prayer.

This deletion of Mary is both evidence of our deficiency in our understanding of the Incarnation and a cause of this deficiency. Something is very wrong when our teaching and love of Christ does not generate the kind of hymnody, veneration, and devotion that is common in Orthodoxy and Catholicism. . . .

Within the tradition and history of the Church, a lively faith in Jesus as the incarnate Word has gone hand-in-hand with a lively veneration of his blessed Mother. Yet for Protestants, Mary remains a person of the past, much like Abraham, David, and John the Baptist. One must wonder if we really have understood the mystery of the Incarnation.

Mary herself said, "From henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." This is not something I have seen in Protestantism. But she also said "My soul doth magnify the Lord." not vice versa, as often seems to be the case in Roman Catholicism. Not until I found Orthodox Christianity did I finally see what it means to give Mary her due honor; only then did I discover a middle ground between the Roman Catholic deification of Mary and her near omission by Protestants.

Mary is given a special place in the Orthodox Church, where she is hailed as being "more honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious, beyond compare, than the Seraphim." But she is not seen as a goddess, nor as the fourth person of the Trinity; She is not given honor that is due to God alone: "Just as with the Holy Icons, the veneration due Mary is expressed in quite different words in the Greek writings of the Fathers than that due God." In the Orthodox Church, Mary is very seldom depicted without Christ (the image above is from a Roman Catholic website), and is attributed only with the power to intercede for us to her Son. She is lauded for her obedience to God and for her example of humility and piety.

According to the Orthodox Christian Information Center, Orthodox Christians "do not 'worship' the Virgin Mary. We 'venerate' her and show her great honor. Nor have we ever, like the Latins, developed the idea that the Theotokos was born without sin (the Roman Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception) or that she is a co-redemptor with Christ (the cult of the Redemtrix in the Latin Church). The consensus of the Church Fathers rejects such ideas, and the Orthodox Church adheres to that consensus."

Orthodox Christians recognize that, "where the God-Man is, so also, in Him, His Mother, His saints, His angels and His righteous ones are present. In Him—and only in Him—we have fellowship with them and ask their help. His Mother is truly Mother of us all in the Church, where she holds the most exalted position, closest to Christ, but she does not act independently from Him. She is not the Mother of the Church, nor the Mediatrix of all graces, nor the Co-Redemptrix" (Orthodox Info)

For more information:
The Veneration of the Virgin Mary in the Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Veneration of Mary the Birthgiver of God
Veneration of the Virgin Mary

Sola Scriptura, Part 8

Continued form last week [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 ]

APPROACH # 4, Historical-Critical Exegesis
Drowning in a sea of subjective opinion and division, Protestants quickly began grasping for any intellectual method with a fig leaf of objectivity. As time went by and divisions multiplied, science and reason increasingly became the standard by which Protestant theologians hoped to bring about consistency in their biblical interpretations. This "scientific" approach, which has come to predominate Protestant Scholarship, and in this century has even begun to predominate Roman Catholic Scholarship, is generaly referred to as "Historical-Critical Exegesis." With the dawn of the so-called "Enlightenment," science seemed to be capable of solving all the worlds problems. Protestant Scholarship began applying the philosophy and methodology of the sciences to theology and the Bible. Since the Enlightenment, Protestant scholars have analyzed every aspect of the Bible: its history, its manuscripts, the biblical languages, etc. As if the Holy Scriptures were an archaeological dig, these scholars sought to analyze each fragment and bone with the best and latest that science had to offer. To be fair, it must be stated that much useful knowledge was produced by such scholarship. Unfortunately this methodology has erred also, grievously and fundamentally, but it has been portrayed with such an aura of scientific objectivity that holds many under its spell.

Like all the other approaches used by Protestants, this method also seeks to understand the Bible while ignoring Church Tradition. Though there is no singular Protestant method of exegesis, they all have as their supposed goal to "let the Scripture speak for itself." Of course no one claiming to be Christian could be against what the Scripture would "say" if it were indeed "speaking for itself" through these methods. The problem is that those who appoint themselves as tongues for the Scripture filter it through their own Protestant assumptions. While claiming to be objective, they rather interpret the Scriptures according to their own sets of traditions and dogmas (be they fundamentalists or liberal rationalists). What Protestant scholars have done (if I may loosely borrow a line from Albert Schweitzer) is looked into the well of history to find the meaning of the Bible. They have written volume upon volume on the subject, but unfortunately they have only seen their own reflections.

Protestant scholars (both "liberals" and "conservatives" have erred in that they have misapplied empirical methodologies to the realm of theology and biblical studies. I use the term "Empiricism" to describe these efforts. I am using this term broadly to refer to the rationalistic and materialistic worldview that has possessed the Western mind, and is continuing to spread throughout the world. Positivist systems of thought (of which Empiricism is one) attempt to anchor themselves on some basis of "certain" knowledge. 11 Empiricism, strictly speaking, is the belief that all knowledge is based on experience, and that only things which can be established by means of scientific observation can be known with certainty. Hand in hand with the methods of observation and experience, came the principle of methodological doubt, the prime example of this being the philosophy of Rene Descartes who began his discussion of philosophy by showing that everything in the universe can be doubted except ones own existence, and so with the firm basis of this one undoubtable truth ("I think, therefore I am") he sought to build his system of philosophy. Now the Reformers, at first, were content with the assumption that the Bible was the basis of certainty upon which theology and philosophy could rest. But as the humanistic spirit of the Enlightenment gained in ascendancy, Protestant scholars turned their rationalistic methods on the Bible itself—seeking to discover what could be known with "certainty" from it. Liberal Protestant scholars have already finished this endeavor, and having "peeled back the onion" they now are left only with their own opinions and sentimentality as the basis for whatever faith they have left.

Conservative Protestants have been much less consistent in their rationalistic approach. Thus they have preserved among themselves a reverence for the Scriptures and a belief in their inspiration. Nevertheless, their approach (even among the most dogged Fundamentalists) is still essentially rooted in the same spirit of rationalism as the Liberals. A prime example of this is to be found among so-called Dispensational Fundamentalists, who hold to an elaborate theory which posits that at various stages in history God has dealt with man according to different "dispensations," such as the "Adamic dispensation," the "Noaic dispensation," the "Mosaic dispensation," the "Davidic dispensation," and so on. One can see that there is a degree of truth in this theory, but beyond these Old Testament dispensations they teach that currently we are under a different "dispensation" than were the Christians of the first century. Though miracles continued through the "New Testament period," they no longer occur today. This is very interesting, because (in addition to lacking any Scriptural basis) this theory allows these Fundamentalists to affirm the miracles of the Bible, while at the same time allowing them to be Empiricists in their everyday life. Thus, though the discussion of this approach may at first glance seem to be only of academic interest and far removed from the reality of dealing with the average Protestant, in fact, even the average, piously "conservative" Protestant laymen is not unaffected by this sort of rationalism.

The great fallacy in this so called "scientific" approach to the Scriptures lies in the fallacious application of empirical assumptions to the study of history, Scripture, and theology. Empirical methods work reasonably well when they are correctly applied to the natural sciences, but when they are applied where they cannot possibly work, such as in unique moments in history (which cannot be repeated or experimented upon), they cannot produce either consistent or accurate results. 12 Scientists have yet to invent a telescope capable of peering into the spirit world, and yet many Protestant scholars assert that in the light of science the idea of the existence of demons or of the Devil has been disproved. Were the Devil to appear before an Empiricist with pitch fork in hand and clad in bright red underwear, it would be explained in some manner that would easily comport to the scientists worldview. Although such Empiricists pride themselves on their "openness", they are blinded by their assumptions to such an extent that they cannot see anything that does not fit their vision of reality. If the methods of empiricism were consistently applied it would discredit all knowledge (including itself), but empiricism is conveniently permitted to be inconsistent by those who hold to it "because its ruthless mutilation of human experience lends it such a high reputation for scientific severity that its prestige overrides the defectiveness of its own foundations."13

The connections between the extreme conclusions that modern liberal Protestant scholars have come to, and the more conservative or Fundamentalist Protestants will not seem clear to many — least of all to conservative Fundamentalists! Though these conservatives see themselves as being in almost complete opposition to Protestant liberalism, they nonetheless use essentially the same kinds of methods in their study of the Scriptures as do the liberals, and along with these methodologies come their underlying philosophical assumptions. Thus the difference between the "liberals" and the "conservatives" is not in reality a difference of basic assumptions, but rather a difference in how far they have taken them to their inherent conclusions.

If Protestant exegesis were truly "scientific," as it presents itself to be, its results would show consistency. If its methods were merely unbiased "technologies" (as many view them) then it would not matter who used them, they would "work" the same for everyone. But what do we find when we examine current status of Protestant biblical studies? In the estimation of the "experts" themselves, Protestant biblical scholarship is in a crisis. 14 In fact this crisis is perhaps best illustrated by the admission of a recognized Protestant Old Testament scholar, Gerhad Hasel [in his survey of the history and current status of the discipline of Old Testament theology, Old Testament Theology: Issues in the Current Debate], that during the 1970s five new Old Testament theologies had been produced "but not one agrees in approach and method with any of the others."15 In fact, it is amazing, considering the self-proclaimed high standard of scholarship in Protestant biblical studies, that you can take your pick of limitless conclusions on almost any issue and find "good scholarship" to back it up. In other words, you can just about come to any conclusion that suits you on a particular day or issue, and you can find a Ph.D. who will advocate it. This is certainly not science in the same sense as mathematics or chemistry! What we are dealing with is a field of learning that presents itself as "objective science," but which in fact is a pseudo-science, concealing a variety of competing philosophical and theological perspectives. It is pseudoscience because until scientists develop instruments capable of examining and understanding God, objective scientific theology or biblical interpretation is an impossibility. This is not to say that there is nothing that is genuinely scholarly or useful within it; but this is to say that, camouflaged with these legitimate aspects of historical and linguistic learning, and hidden by the fog machines and mirrors of pseudo-science, we discover in reality that Protestant methods of biblical interpretation are both the product and the servant of Protestant theological and philosophical assumptions. 16

With subjectivity that surpasses the most speculative Freudian psychoanalysts, Protestant scholars selectively choose the "facts" and "evidence" that suits their agenda and then proceed, with their conclusions essentially predetermined by their basic assumptions, to apply their methods to the Holy Scriptures. All the while, the Protestant scholars, both "liberal" and "conservative," describe themselves as dispassionate "scientists."17 And since modern universities do not give out Ph.D.s to those who merely pass on the unadulterated Truth, these scholars seek to out-do each other by coming up with new "creative" theories. This is the very essence of heresy: novelty, arrogant personal opinion, and self-deception.

Continued in Part 9 - The Orthodox Approach to Truth

11. The term positivism comes from the French word positif, which means sure, or certain. This term was first used by Auguste Comte. Positivistic systems are built upon the assumption that some fact or institution is the ultimate basis of knowledge — in Comtes philosophy, experience or sense-perception constituted that basis and thus he was the forerunner of modern Empiricism [See Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 1914 ed., s.v. "Positivism," by S.H. Swinny; and Wolfhart Pannenburg, Theology and Philosophy of Science, trans. Francis McDonagh (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), p. 29].

12. For example, one method for determining the reality of past events, among empirically minded scholars, is the principle of analogy. Since knowledge is based on experience, then the way one understands what is unfamiliar is by relating it to something that is familiar. Under the guise of historical analysis they judge the probability of a supposed past event (e.g. the resurrection of Jesus) based upon what we know to take place in our experience. And since these historians have never observed anything which they would consider supernatural they determine that when the Bible speaks of a miraculous event in history that it merely is recounting a myth or a legend. But since to the Empiricist, a miracle entails a violation of a natural law, then there can be no miracles (by definition) because natural laws are determined by our observation of what we experience, so were such an Empiricist to be confronted with a modern analogy of a miracle it would no longer be considered a miracle because it would no longer constitute a violation of natural law. Thus empiricists do not produce results that falsify transcendent reality, or miracles; rather their presuppositions, from the very outset, deny the possibility of such things. [see G. E. Michalson, Jr., "Pannenburg on the Resurrection and Historical Method," Scottish Journal of Theology 33 (April 1980): 345-359.]

13. Rev. Robert T. Osborn, "Faith as Personal Knowledge," Scottish Journal of Theology 28 (February 1975): 101-126.

14. Gerhard Hasel, Old Testament Theology: Basic Issues in the Current Debate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1982), p. 9.

15. Ibid., p. 7.

16. I have discussed Liberal Protestantism only to demonstrate the fallacies of "Historical" exegesis. An Orthodox Christian is much more likely to be confronted by a conservative Fundamentalist or a Charismatic, simply because they take their faith seriously enough to seek to convert others to it. Liberal Protestant denominations have their hands full trying to keep their own parishioners, and are not noted for their evangelistic zeal.

17. For a more in-depth critique of the excesses of the Historical-Critical Method, see Thomas Oden, Agenda for Theology: After Modernity What? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990) pp 103-147

Sola Scriptura, Part 7

Continued form last week [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6]

PROTESTANT INTERPRETIVE APPROACHES THAT DON'T WORK

Even from the very earliest days of the Reformation, Protestants have been forced to deal with the fact that, given the Bible and the reason of the individual alone, people could not agree upon the meaning of many of the most basic questions of doctrine. Within Martin Luther's own life dozens of competing groups had arisen, all claiming to "just believe the Bible," but none agreeing on what the Bible said.

Though Luther had courageously stood before the Diet of Worms and said that unless he were persuaded by Scripture, or by plain reason, he would not retract anything that he had been teaching; later, when Anabaptists, who disagreed with the Lutherans on a number of points, simply asked for the same indulgence, the Lutherans butchered them by the thousands — so much for the rhetoric about the "right of an individual to read the Scriptures for himself."

Despite the obvious problems that the rapid splintering of Protestantism presented to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, not willing to concede defeat to the Pope, Protestants instead concluded that the real problem must be that those with whom they disagree, in other words every other sect but their own, must not be reading the Bible correctly. Thus a number of approaches have been set forth as solutions to this problem. Of course there has yet to be the approach that could reverse the endless multiplications of schisms, and yet Protestants still search for the elusive methodological "key" that will solve their problem.

Let us examine the most popular approaches that have been tried thus far, each of which are still set forth by one group or another:

APPROACH # 1, Just take the Bible literally — the meaning is clear.
This approach was no doubt the first approach used by the Reformers, though very early on they came to realize that by itself this was an insufficient solution to the problems presented by the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. Although this one was a failure from the start, this approach still is the most common one to be found among the less educated Fundamentalists, Evangelicals and Charismatics — "The Bible says what it means and means what it says," is an oft heard phrase.

But when it comes to Scriptural texts that Protestants generally do not agree with, such as when Christ gave the Apostles the power to forgive sins (John 20:23), or when He said of the Eucharist "this is my body.... this is my blood" (Matthew 26:26,28), or when Paul taught that women should cover their heads in Church (I Corinthians 11:1-16), then all of a sudden the Bible doesn't say what it means any more — "Why, those verses aren't literal..."

APPROACH # 2, The Holy Spirit provides the correct understanding.
When presented with the numerous groups that arose under the banner of the Reformation that could not agree on their interpretations of the Scriptures, no doubt the second solution to the problem was the assertion that the Holy Spirit would guide the pious Protestant to interpret the Scriptures rightly. Of course everyone who disagreed with you could not possibly be guided by the same Spirit. The result was that each Protestant group de-Christianized all those that differed from them. Now if this approach were a valid one, that would only leave history with one group of Protestants that had rightly interpreted the Scriptures. But which of the thousands of denominations could it be? Of course the answer depends on which Protestant you are speaking to. One thing we can be sure of — he or she probably thinks his or her group is it.

Today, however, (depending on what stripe of Protestant you come into contact with) you are more likely to run into Protestants who have relativized the Truth to some degree or another than to find those who still maintain that their sect or splinter group is the "only one" which is "right." As denominations stacked upon denominations it became a correspondingly greater stretch for any of them to say, with a straight face, that only they had rightly understood the Scriptures, though there still are some who do. It has become increasingly common for each Protestant group to minimize the differences between denominations and simply conclude that in the name of "love" those differences "do not matter." Perhaps each group has "a piece of the Truth," but none has the whole Truth (so the reasoning goes). Thus the pan-heresy of Ecumenism had its birth. Now many "Christians" will not even stop their ecumenical efforts at allowing only Christian groups to have a piece of the Truth. Many "Christians" now also believe that all religions have "pieces of the Truth." The obvious conclusion that modern Protestants have made is that to find all the Truth each group will have to shed their "differences," pitch their "piece of Truth" into the pot, and presto-chango —the whole Truth will be found at last!

APPROACH # 3, Let the clear passages interpret the unclear.
This must have seemed the perfect solution to the problem of how to interpret the Bible by itself — let the easily understood passages "interpret" those which are not clear. The logic of this approach is simple, though one passage may state a truth obscurely, surely the same truth would be clearly stated elsewhere in Scripture. Simply use these "clear passages" as the key and you will have unlocked the meaning of the "obscure passage." As the Tubingen Lutheran scholars argued in their first exchange of letters with Patriarch Jeremias II:

Therefore, no better way could ever be found to interpret the Scriptures, other than that Scripture be interpreted by Scripture, that is to say, through itself. For the entire Scripture has been dictated by the one and the same Spirit, who best understands his own will and is best able to state His own meaning. 10

As promising as this method seemed, it soon proved an insufficient solution to the problem of Protestant chaos and divisions. The point at which this approach disintegrates is in determining which passages are "clear" and which are "obscure." Baptists, who believe that it is impossible for a Christian to lose his salvation once he is "saved," see a number of passages which they maintain quite clearly teach their doctrine of "Eternal Security" — for example, "For the gifts and callings of God are without repentance" (Romans 11:29), and "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand" (John 10:27-28). But when Baptists come across verses which seem to teach that salvation can be lost, such as "The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression" (Ezekiel 33:12), then they use the passages that are "clear" to explain away the passages that are "unclear." Methodists, who believe that believers may lose their salvation if they turn their backs on God, find no such obscurity in such passages, and on the contrary, view the above mentioned Baptist "proof-texts" in the light of the passages that they see as "clear." And so Methodists and Baptists throw verses of the Bible back and forth at each other, each wondering why the other cant "see" what seems very "clear" to them.

Continued in Part 8 - APPROACH # 4, Historical-Critical Exegesis


10. Mastrantonis, 115.

Sola Scriptura, Part 6

Continued form last week [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5]

B. THE DOCTRINE OF SOLA SCRIPTURA DOES NOT MEET ITS OWN CRITERIA
You might imagine that such a belief system as Protestantism, which has as its cardinal doctrine that Scripture alone is authoritative in matters of faith, would first seek to prove that this cardinal doctrine met its own criteria. One would probably expect that Protestants could brandish hundreds of proof-texts from the Scriptures to support this doctrine — upon which all else that they believe is based. At the very least one would hope that two or three solid texts which clearly taught this doctrine could be found — since the Scriptures themselves say, "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established" (II Corinthians 13:1).

Yet, like the boy in the fable who had to point out that the Emperor had no clothes on, I must point out that there is not one single verse in the entirety of Holy Scripture that teaches the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. There is not even one that comes close. Oh yes, there are innumerable places in the Bible that speak of its inspiration, of its authority, and of its profitability — but there is no place in the Bible that teaches that only Scripture is authoritative for believers. If such a teaching were even implicit, then surely the early Fathers of the Church would have taught this doctrine also, but which of the Holy Fathers ever taught such a thing?

Thus Protestantism's most basic teaching self-destructs, being contrary to itself. But not only is the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura not taught in the Scriptures — it is in fact specifically contradicted by the Scriptures (which we have already discussed) that teach that Holy Tradition is also binding to Christians (II Thessalonians 2:15; I Corinthians 11:2).

Continued in Part 7 - Protestant Interpretive Approaches That Don't Work

Sola Scriptura, Part 5

Continued form last week [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4]

FALSE ASSUMPTION # 3: Anyone can interpret the Scriptures for himself or herself without the aid of the Church

Though many Protestants would take issue with the way this assumption is worded, this is essentially the assumption that prevailed when the Reformers first advocated the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. The line of reasoning was essentially that the meaning of Scripture is clear enough that anyone could understand it by simply reading it for oneself, and thus they rejected the idea that one needed the Church's help in the process. This position is clearly stated by the Tubingen Lutheran Scholars who exchanged letters with Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople about thirty years after Luthers death:

Perhaps, someone will say that on the one hand, the Scriptures are absolutely free from error; but on the other hand, they have been concealed by much obscurity, so that without the interpretations of the Spirit-bearing Fathers they could not be clearly understood.... But meanwhile this, too, is very true that what has been said in a scarcely perceptible manner in some places in the Scriptures, has been stated in another place in them explicitly and most clearly so that even the most simple person can understand them.8

Though these Lutheran scholars claimed to use the writings of the Holy Fathers, they argued that they were unnecessary, and that, where they believed the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers conflicted, the Fathers were to be disregarded. What they were actually arguing, however, was that when the teachings of the Holy fathers conflict with their private opinions on the Scriptures, their private opinions were to be considered more authoritative than the Fathers of the Church. Rather than listening to the Fathers, who had shown themselves righteous and saintly, priority should be given to the human reasonings of the individual. The same human reason that has led the majority of modern Lutheran scholars to reject almost every teaching of Scripture (including the deity of Christ, the Resurrection, etc.), and even to reject the inspiration of the Scriptures themselves — on which the early Lutherans claimed to base their entire faith. In reply, Patriarch Jeremias II clearly exposed the true character of the Lutheran teachings:

Let us accept, then, the traditions of the Church with a sincere heart and not a multitude of rationalizations. For God created man to be upright; instead they sought after diverse ways of rationalizing (Ecclesiastes 7:29). Let us not allow ourselves to learn a new kind of faith which is condemned by the tradition of the Holy Fathers. For the Divine apostle says, "if anyone is preaching to you a Gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed" (Galatians 1:9).9

Continued in Part 6 - The Doctrine of Sola Scriptura Does Not Meet its Own Criteria

8. Mastrantonis, 115.

9. Ibid., 198.