Parable of the sower

[Craigbythesea]

Faith alone wrote,

I think that most of us believe that it matters not how Christians and churches have taught regarding a doctrine down through the ages. It matters only what the Bible clearly teaches. (SOLA SCRIPTURAS) Hence, I have not done much research over the years on the teachings of the church. (Though John Hannah has a neat little book on the evolution of church doctrines through history called Our Legacy, The History of Church Doctrine.)

Two points:

1. The Bible does not clearly teach Sola Scriptura. Indeed, it does not teach it at all! Therefore, your own hermeneutic shoots down your hermeneutic!

2. If the Bible really does teach a doctrine that no one was able to see in the Bible for 1500 years, the Bible was so very poorly worded that it cannot possibly be the inspired word of God. Therefore, the novel doctrine of eternal security cannot possibly be what the Bible teaches.

 

[Craigbythesea]

Faith alone wrote,

Has anyone ever thought about the fact that Catholicism has taught a form of eternal security for at least 1500 years?

Your understanding of Roman Catholic theology is very incorrect. The Roman Catholic Church taught and still teaches that the grace of God in conferred through water baptism, either in the act of water baptism or in the sincere desire for water Baptism. The Roman Catholic Church has ALWAYS taught that the grace conferred in water baptism could subsequently be resisted by the baptized, and that it is often resisted, resulting in eternal damnation. If that is your understanding of the doctrine of eternal security, I suggest that you do some more reading on the subject.

 

[Craigbythesea]

Faith alone wrote,

In the early days only the very core of modern doctrines can be seen if we look at any doctrine. Should we then doubt everything that the Bible teaches? Hannah taught, as others do as well, that during the church apologists (150-300AD) not much theologically significant was done (or at least, has been preserved for us). It wasn't until after there was freedom subsequent to Constantine that any depth of doctrine began to develop.

If you will read for yourself the writing of the Ante-Nicene Church Father you will see for yourself that what you have posted is contrary to fact. Up to about 150 AD, we do not see much development of New Testament theology, but during the next three hundred years just the opposite is true.

The very important thing here, however, as you yourself have emphasized, is what the Bible actually teaches. If the Bible actually teaches the doctrine of eternal security, someone, somewhere, would have noticed that it does, but there is NO evidence that any one did, and there are volumes of evidence that no one did. If the Bible actually teaches the doctrine of conditional security, someone, somewhere, would have noticed that it does, and everyone, except for the heretic Universalists, did notice that. The Bible itself so very clearly teaches conditional security that up to the 16th century, when confusion about the doctrine of the sovereignty of God took hold, and the doctrine of eternal security evolved from this confusion, every one understood it.

And of course everyone with a good seminary education knows that the history of the interpretation of the Bible exposes this HUGE problem with the doctrine of eternal security, therefore those who hold to this false doctrine invented another doctrine, the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, to minimize the evidence against their doctrine of eternal security.

But don’t take my word for it—check this out for yourself—in a little more detail!

 

[canadyjd]

Craigbythesea

You said
___________

Augustine believed that some Christian were God's elect and that other Christians were not. If they were God’s elect, they would persevere and meet all of the conditions for continued salvation. If they were not God’s elect, they may or may continue in their faith and meet all of the conditions for continued salvation, and if they did not, they were damned to hell. Thus Augustine taught conditional security and he interpreted the conditional passages in the Bible to be conditional as did everyone for 1500 years.
__________

Please notice the "If they were God’s elect, they would persevere and meet all of the conditions for continued salvation."

That is not conditional salvation. That is eternal security for the "elect". That Augustine believe genuine Christians could lose their salvation is not the point. He clearly believed some (God's elect) would not.

This clearly refutes your continued assertion that eternal security was rejected by the church for 1500 years and that Calvin "invented" it.

peace to you

 

[HankD]

I have (or had, I can't acess it anymore after Windows XP) a 20,000 page library of "Church Fathers".

Craig is correct, apart from Augustine there seems to be no one (with the exception perhaps of certain of the Valdi of the Piedmont Valley) which give credence to the doctrine of "Eternal Security".

There are also two other doctrines which I have researched which seem to have grown up with the early church:

1) The Real Presence in the Eucharist.
2) Baptismal regeneration - or water as the instrumental means of the removal of Original Sin.

There may be those fathers who didn't adhere to these doctrine but I couldnt find anything definitive.

That does not mean that there are none.

However and therefore should we believe these doctrine since they apparently were believed by the majority of the Ante-Nicene Fathers as well as those who identified the Canon of Scripture?

Personally I don't like the phrase Sola Scriptura. Not so much for what the words say but because it is identified with Martin Luther and Lutheranism, who IMO did not go far enough (as well as all the other Reformation Churches) in his/their separation from the Church of Rome.

I prefer the Baptist distinctive phrase "Final authority" in all matters of belief and practice.

"Proof Text"

Acts 17
11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
12 Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few.

Here they were face-to-face with the apostle Paul yet they turned to the Scripture as their final authority.

However "final authority" does present a difficulty here and there on occasion.

But then again no systematic theology is without "difficulties".

HankD

 

[Faith alone]

Thanks Craig,

Well, I have taken 2 church history courses, and both of my profs said that the real emmergence of doctrine did not start until Constantine. They both said that there was much coherency in what they believed before then, but little taught on church doctrine until Augustine. He was the first with any real systematic theology. OK, there was Tertullian on the trinity. And the governmental structure of the church began to be developed early. A single bishop was soon responsible for accuracy of doctrine in many of the larger cities. But there was little written in terms of bringing unanimity to the scripture. The canon itself was barely organized not long before Constantine.

Once Constantine gave religious freedom to Christianity, an abundance of writings begins to emerge. Before then, Christian communities were just struggling to survive.

And I did quote Hannah on this. In those days when a false heretical teaching began to surface it quickly was recognized and snuffed out.

Then why do we not read about people teaching on a "false doctrine of eternal security" and also read about it being snuffed out? Do you see my point. The Arian controversy shook the Christian world. Yet we do not read of such a stirring over the security of the believer.

But regardless, I do acknowledge that we do not see much taught on the security of the believer. But we also see a plethora of inaccurate teachings on a wide range of topics during those days as well. Anyone who reads much from those days will quickly decide to return to His Bible! So often their interpretation of scripture has obviously missed the point. If we could read some of those church fathers' and apostolic fathers' writings and see a consistency and clarity of teaching, then I would be concerned about little being taught regarding the security of the believer, But that is not what we see.

So it comes down to needing to have an authority of God's Word alone. By referring to history you continue to base your authority on how men have interpreted that scripture. That's the kink in the historical argument armour regarding eternal security.

And the false teachings on baptism which began to arise almost immediately would then lead someone to believe that the Bible teaches that we are saved by baptism. Should we then base our theology on baptism on the teachings of the church fathers?

Also, the RCC did teach on a sort of security of the believer early, though it was based on baptism.

The point is that I don't think any of us would take many quotes from those early days and use them as a foundation to develop out systematic theology. We must start with God's Word and end with it as well.

SOLA SCRIPTURA.

You can't have it both ways. Either God's Word stands alone as our standard, or we allow an opening for the authority of men to compromise God's Word. Such improper authority lead to 1000 years of hell on earth. ' Think I'll stick with my Bible.

FA

 

[Craigbythesea]

Faith alone wrote,

And I did quote Hannah on this. In those days when a false heretical teaching began to surface it quickly was recognized and snuffed out.

Then why do we not read about people teaching on a "false doctrine of eternal security" and also read about it being snuffed out? Do you see my point. The Arian controversy shook the Christian world. Yet we do not read of such a stirring over the security of the believer.

We don't find anyone at all writing about the doctrine of eternal security, for or against, prior to the 16th century because the doctrine had not yet evolved. You are confusing some very early and absurd doctrines of predestination with the doctrine of eternal security. Had these early doctrines of predestination evolved into the doctrine of predestination of the 16th century, the doctrine of eternal security in some form would very likely have evolved from that, but these early doctrines of predestination were so ridiculous and so obviously contradicted the Bible that they were almost totally ignored and quickly died out.

The doctrine of conditional security, however, was understood by the entirety of the Church because it is expressly taught in hundreds of verses in the Bible, especially in the New Testament. And of course the large majority of the Church today continues to teach the doctrine of conditional security, and with more and more Baptists getting a better education, we are finding more and more Baptists who are teaching the doctrine of conditional security. However, the current doctrines of eternal security are closely linked to other doctrines commonly held by Baptists, so we cannot expect very many of them to abandon their doctrines of eternal any time soon. And not only that, the doctrine of conditional security and the possibility of losing one’s salvation is, in the mind of very many Baptists, a thought too horrible to contemplate.

 

[Craigbythesea]

Faith alone wrote,

Well, I have taken 2 church history courses, and both of my profs said that the real emmergence of doctrine did not start until Constantine. They both said that there was much coherency in what they believed before then, but little taught on church doctrine until Augustine. He was the first with any real systematic theology. OK, there was Tertullian on the trinity. And the governmental structure of the church began to be developed early. A single bishop was soon responsible for accuracy of doctrine in many of the larger cities. But there was little written in terms of bringing unanimity to the scripture. The canon itself was barely organized not long before Constantine.

Once Constantine gave religious freedom to Christianity, an abundance of writings begins to emerge. Before then, Christian communities were just struggling to survive.

A very common argument among those whose theology is not supported by the Ante-Nicene Church fathers is that “the real emergence of doctrine did not start until Constantine,” that is, after the close of the Ante-Nicene period when the Church very rapidly entered into a time of darkness and wickedness commonly known as the Dark Ages. That this argument is absolutely false, however, is known for an incontrovertible fact by everyone who has taken the time to read the volumes of the Ante-Nicene that have been preserved and the references that they make to countless writings that have not been preserved.

 

[Faith alone]

Craig,

My point is simply that there is not much doctrine before the 4th century that many of us would align with at all. Parts of what was written was sound, but much of it was simply unbiblical. Hence, why try to develop a theology based on that?

The idea that we do not find much written regarding the security of the believer until hundreds of years after the NT church is a common argument used by those who support conditional security. But this is true of so many theological areas. If I saw consistency in most areas, yet not in this area, that one be one thing. But that is not what we see.

SOLA SCRIPTURA.

FA