Ah, I was wandering when you were going to chime in...
Eric B said:
So now you seem to be admitting that while the oral tradition at least might not be "exactly the same in every detail"; it is still pretty much the same body of teaching, and not an entirely different set of teachings.
True, but I've admitted as much in previous discussions. Perhaps you've forgotten this.
...yet, you are still using this argument to try to authenticate every single thing thè"undivided" Church has ever taught.
And?.....
For instance, the Nicene formula was not some hidden "tradition" passed down orally only by the apostles, and more and more of if was gradually revealed by the Fathers, and then suddenly in the 4th century, they dropped the whole thing publically.
Wow......when did I ever say
that, Eric? Me thinks you are making a straw man caricature of my argument.
There are many who seem to believe something like that, including Protestant fundamentalists, Nd most of our classic anti-cult apologists, who otherwise don't even belive in oral tradition.
Well, that's unfortunate. It seems they would benefit from reading a standard text on the matter like
Early Christian CREEDS by JND Kelley. He does an excellent job tracing the creeds--Apostles, Nicene, Nicene-Constantinopolitan--from the early pre-creedal fragments, baptismal confessions, and rule of faith in their historical contexts.
But the truth was, Nicaea was a decision on the best formulation of the Godhead, that conformed to what the scriptures were known to teach just by reading them.
No, not just by "
reading them", but also in
reflecting how the truths (to which the Scriptures testify) were lived out in the worshipping communities from the beginning in it's liturgical life of prayer, hymns, catechesis, rule of faith, baptismal confessions, etc. ('Lex orandi, Lex credendi'--"the rule of prayer is the rule of belief") For instance, the Church knew Arianism was wrong because it taught a different "Christ"--ie, a creature--from the One she had been worshipping and praying to from the beginning as God. Those who disregarded this ecclesial context/understanding, read the Scriptures differently and thus came to a different formulation.
You see, unlike you (apparently), I believe that the same Holy Spirit who guided the Church in deciding and accepting the correct Scriptural canon also guided the Church in deciding and accepting the correct formulations (in response to heresy) of the Trinity and of the Hypostatic Union, since it was same Spirit-guided Tradition that was involved with and reflected in both cases. :thumbs:
Before Nicaea, the "orthodox" position was slightly different; not so much of the three way "symmetry", rather the Son and Spirit were seen as proceeding from the Father, rather than sitting side by side with Him from all times.
So where in the Nicene-Constantinopalitan creed does it say the the Son and Spirit were "sitting side by side with Him from all times"? Rather it says that Son is "begotten of the Father" and the Spirit "proceeds from the Father". How is
that supposedly different from the ante-Nicene position?
So what was the "oral tradition" used in that issue? (Unless you believe the Apostles DID actually utter the Nicene Creed orally, or at least parts of it, or something like it).
(I certainly do not believe what you suggest in your parenthetical statement. The Nicene Creed wasn't uttered orally until...well, NICEA.) The "oral tradition" was used by applying how the Church had always believed about God and Christ, in contrast to heresies on either side, in
making a new formula that would
clarify this belief to the exclusion of error.
(Particularly when it became clear that the heretics would hide behind the current formulas/confessions while espousing an interpretation that was foreign to the way the truth of the formulas had been traditionally understood and lived out in the worshipping communities--ie the Church)
It was just a matter of harmonizing all the scriptures on the subject, and that's where many people went wrong.
It was indeed a "harmonizing" of Scriptures as
correctly intepreted and understood from the beginning--not the Arian "harmonization" of Scriptures
misinterpreted.
Are you implying that the "people went wrong" in their "harmonization" in formulating the Nicene Creed, Eric? If so, in what way?
So just because people may have taken one side of scripture, and missed another, or taken scriptures out of context (a BIG cause of error), and then those who come and DELIBERATELY twist them to draw disciples away, (such as the modern group that rewrites John 1:1), then you are saying NOBODY can understand it alone;
Arians and other heretics who saw Christ as a creature (who didn't "rewrite" John 1:1) threw proof texts back and forth with the orthodox in denying the Deity of Christ--and they were using the
same text (not the NWT). They would interpret John 1:1 to fit their interpretation of other Scriptures--ie by saying Christ was "god" (divine, but in a lesser sense) but obviously not on the same footing as
the God (the Father), since the God was absolutely One. Based on this conviction they would explain the "triad" differently than the Orthodox and thus claim
theirs was the Biblical position.
In other words, they would claim that it was the orthodox who were the ones twisting the Scriptures. Since they were all using the same Biblical
terminology, but with diametrically opposed
meanings, the Church over time constructed new definitions that expressed what she had always believed to the exclusion of heresy. (And this particular new definition didn't just drop out of the sky in AD 325, but had some precedent in expressions that somewhat anticipated it before hand, and it was further refined and clarifed afterwards--ie the Cappadocians and the Council of Constantinople.)
You see, folks weren't just given the 27 NT Bible (such an idea is of course an anachronism) and told to come up with their own take on God and the Trinity based on their own logical deduction. They were taught what to believe--just like you and I were--in the Church and then shown how the Scriptures supported or testified to this teaching. However, the heretics would from the same Scriptures come up with their own 'take'--influenced by their own philosophical convictions rather than those from the devotional, liturgical, and catechetical life of the Church--and offer a different interpretation of the Scriptures which the orthodox would use to support their positions. This is also why under the banner of Sola Scriptura during the Reformation there was an upsurge in groups espousing Unitarianism. Since they couldn't fathom God being a "Trinity" and since they couldn't find that that particular word in the bible, they threw out that doctrine. (Which is perhaps the rationale in why some folks cringe at the word "consubstantial" and accuse Nicea of error)
the truth cannot be discerned from the Bible, but only by the Church, and then every single thing this Church ever said or did ("corporately") in its history becomes validated as "apostolic tradition".
I never said the truth cannot be discerned from the Bible, but that it was apt to be misinterpreted especially for those who disregarded the apostolic tradition--the "
pattern of sound words" handed down by the Apostles--as a guide for
correctly understanding Scriptures. The Apostle Peter said as much--that the Scriptures could be (and were)
twisted by
untaught and
unstable men. Remember the kerygma came first and it was handed down in the Church before any of the NT writings were penned. The Apostolic tradition was thus the context in which Scriptures were written, the primary key to their interpretation (in other words Tradition=Scripture correctly interpreted) and even the means of determining (with time) the limits of the Canon itself. So if one disregards the consensual teaching of the Church--across
time and space--where this tradition has been maintained, then one is liable to misinterpreting the Scriptures, perhaps twisting them to his own destruction (or even jettisoning some books out of the Bible completely if they don't agree with him....like JAMES, for instance)
That is basically taking advantage of what all the other wolves have done; like one wolf using the threat of another wolf to lure the sheep into his trap.
What trap? Who are the wolves you speak of that used this threat to lure in the sheep, Eric? And, on what basis do you make this claim?
If by the different groups of "wolves" you are referring to different heretical groups who espoused the opposite heretical extremes, then you could have a point. However I have a feeling that you have something else in mind....
