You will say to me, “Infallible and imperfect, you have to be kidding!” Is it not a contradiction to say that the Church is imperfect and infallible?
Well, not necessarily, but, let’s back up a minute an approach the subject from different direction. I will argue that all of Christianity is actually aware that something needs to be infallible in it. And, that something has never been taken to be just the Holy Trinity, or any Person of it. That is, where the rubber meets the road, believers have always been subconsciously aware that some way, here on earth, is needed to settle the doctrinal disputes in an authoritative way.
The answer of the Church, from very early on, has been that our Lord Jesus Christ trained, ordained, and empowered Twelve Apostles, to be the main carriers of Truth. By the way, He also appointed Seventy other Apostles, not to mention St. Paul, etc. The writings of the Twelve Apostles, St. Paul, and those in the Apostolic bands, such as St. Mark and St. Luke, as well as what they had verbally taught, became the foundations of doctrine. St. Paul says, “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle” (2 Thessalonians 2:15, KJV). In passing, you ought to look up the Greek, the word for traditions is indeed the word “tradition,” not doctrine or dogma. In fact, if you look at most Bibles with a good reference equipment, they will footnote that verse and that word and point out that the word is “Lit. traditions.” There is little warrant for translating the word as “doctrines” or “teachings” here and in other places where it refers to Christian belief and practice while translating it as “traditions” only when the reference is a negative one.
Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Anglicans would actually be in fair agreement up until this point. That is, we would all argue that our basic theology and worship practices were taught to us by the Apostles. [Note: I am not justifying all later worship practices, only the early ones, at this point.] The agreement would be that the Twelve Apostles were indeed the authoritative deposit given to us by the Lord to guide the Early Church in her theology and practice. As St. Paul put it, Christ Jesus is the cornerstone, but the foundation is the apostles and prophets. It is extremely anachronistic to claim that St. Paul is referring to the Old and New Testament, since the New Testament did not exist. The Anabaptists, Baptists, Pentecostals, etc., would agree as far as the doctrine but not as far as the practice.
It is after the death of the Twelve Apostles that the real arguments begin. The question becomes a question about what the Bible is and what the Church is. All Christians agree that the Bible is the Word of God and is authoritative. But, what is the relation of the Bible to the Church? What is the role of those who succeeded the Apostles? Has all Holy Spirit guidance gone authoritatively only to the Holy Scriptures or does the Church continue in the role of establishing Truth? Does the Holy Spirit only guarantee Scripture or does He also guard (guarantee) the Church? I could think of a couple more ways to word it, but you have gotten the idea by now.
However, I am typing this on my laptop on a trip, so I am afraid that the rest will need to wait for the moment.
I think that Holy Spirit Guidence must jive with Holy Scripture.
I believe that the Church must not stand on the Word of god but beneath it.
I’m not sure anyone in most Christian traditions would disagree with your first statement, though perhaps not in the particular way you might mean it. I find that a lot of people who say something like that mean that whatever they are hearing must jibe with their particular interpretation of Holy Scripture.
I find your second statement intriguing. The Church, of course, stands both within and below the Logos, its head. But I think we do need to be careful what we call ‘Logos’. Holy Scripture makes no such claim to that sort of authority about itself. Nor, if we are talking about the NT canon, could it have done so. The Church predates everything in that canon. And it radically (and sometimes pretty freely and loosely) reinterpreted what we call the OT canon (though that then begs the question of which OT canon).
Because I am still traveling, I am still working from a laptop and typing shorter answers. My apologies to both of you, as this was an unexpected trip.
What I am saying, to begin with, is that the Twelve Apostles preceded both the New Testament and the Church. I have not yet fully explained the relationship between them. The Early Church always claimed the writings to be those of either one of the Twelve Apostles or associated with the Twelve Apostles.
So, yes, Scott, the Church preceded the writing of the New Testament, but the Twelve preceded both of them. Both the Church and the New Testament are built on the foundation of the Twelve Apostles, Christ Himself being the cornerstone.
More when I have time.
Fr. Ernesto,
I’m not sure what you have said so far about the apostles and the church has to do with the price of tea in china. one though could attack it on many levels. The first believers in the resurrection were women, and not the apostles. The apostles were not separate from the church but part of it.
obviously when Paul wrote about the apostles and prophets you already had the O.T. Canon, along with the teaching of the apostles that centered in the resurection of Christ. The teachings of the apostles were recorded at different times and different places, some of Paul’s letters were very likely already in circulation. In any case we don’t have the apostles with us now, but we do have their teachings recorded in the N.T. Canon. Therefore the church still has this noteworthy foundation, and dare not contradict anything therein.
“we would all argue that our basic theology and worship practices were taught to us by the Apostles. ”
We wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, though – as scholarship keeps giving us a glance into the variegated, divergent and sometimes contradictory practices of the early church. (I love reading Schmemann, Wybrew and Talley in one week.) What we do know, is that in spite of all that, they managed to get along.
Huw, you have a partial point. But, look at my new post and you will see that the Orthodox definition of Holy Tradition does not inhibit variegated and divergent. I might argue about contradictory depending on what you meant. But, yes, there is a position, that (when it gets radical) can argue that there is no such thing as Early Christianity other than a loose amalgam of peoples who claimed Jesus Christ as their head.
Bror, more to come, but it will take a couple of more posts to work it through.
Scott, yep both the Apostles, Prophets, and the Church itself existed prior to any written New Testament whatsoever. Both the New Testament and the Church depend on the Apostolic witness. Some Protestants will go as far as to call the Apostles a “living Bible” in order to try to avoid the implication of the fact that the New Testament writings came after the Church not before the Church.
The leg to stand on: we can’t claim Apostolic origin for much of it.
Proof: it is contradictory.
Later, the church started to iron out the contradictions. Examples: celebration of Pascha; the different ideas of Church order, evident even in the NT; the trinity; higher ideas about the Eucharist; icons; the entry of the theotokos into the temple. (Yes, most of these have mythological stories of Apostolic origins, but no *proof*)
But we don’t need to claim “Apostolic Origins” either: otherwise, we’d have to ditch the Gospels and, even, the letters of Paul. We can be confident of the Holy Spirit working through the Church – that’s what a “living tradition” is supposed to be about.
This is also one of the things that worries me about making a fetish out of the ‘early church’. Something does not need to go back that far – nor can we prove it, anyway.
Hey Huw, it may interest you to know that The Festal Menaion, published by St. Tikhon’s and translated by Bishop Kallistos Ware and Mother Mary has the following to say about the entry of the Theotokos into the Temple.
“As with the feast of the birth of the Theotokos, what matters is not the historical exactness of the story . . .”
Of the Feast of the Birth of the Theotokos, the same books says:
“The Orthodox Church does not place the Protoevangelium of James on the same level as Holy Scripture: it is possible, then, to accept the spiritual truth which underlies this narrative, without necessarily attributing a literal and historical exactness to every detail.”
Which is all a nice way of saying that one need not believe either of those two feasts to commemorate fully historical events. And, no one would be likely to accuse either Bishop Kallistos or Mother Mary of being “radicals.” I will, again, comment that not all conservative Orthodox think like some of the converts. GRIN.
LOL. I love that. I’d never heard those quotes and I take great comfort in them. When Fr Tom Hopko said as much out loud at the Cathedral in SF, you should have seen the faces around the room!