Follow up thoughts on it isn’t true just because someone told you so

One person who commented on my post, Something is not true simply because someone said so, wondered about the place of the Holy Spirit in my description of the Early Church Fathers:

Would you not say that they relied on the Holy Spirit then, as He did His work in that era, but they did so in humility and through their everyday dealings and practices (“Scripture, prayer, reflection, fasting, consultation with their fellow theologians, and even on the counsel of the Church”)?

I answered that I was convinced that this was true. Upon further reflection, I thought that it might be worth looking at a couple of places where the Church worked through a matter and issued a pronouncement. It is worth looking at how the introduction to the pronouncement was worded. The first place I want to go is to Acts 15:

Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. . . . And after they had become silent, James answered, saying, “Men and brethren, listen to me: Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. And with this the words of the prophets agree . . . Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them . . . .”

They wrote this letter . . . For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us . . . .

Can you see the progression? The Church came together from all the places in which Christianity was present. Then they argued their point. The decision is announced by the presiding hierarch. Scripture was cited (“with this the words of the prophets agree”) as being in agreement with the decision, and when the letter is written, they finally state, “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us . . .” Notice the three-fold agreement that is present. It was in accord with the prophets (the writings); it was in accord with what they understood as the leading of the Holy Spirit; it was in accord with them as thinking, praying, fasting, practicing, worshiping, believers. This same pattern is found over and over again when the important decisions of the Councils are announced.

For instance, one can see the same pattern during the Nestorian controversy, at the time of the Council of Ephesus, Saint Cyril writes to Nestorius and says:

Following in all points the confessions of the holy fathers, which they made with the holy Spirit speaking in them, and following the direction of their opinions and going as it were in the royal way, we say that . . .

At the time of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, Pope Leo writes to Patriarch Flavian of Constantinople and says:

The people who fall into this folly are those in whom knowledge of the truth is blocked by a kind of dimness. They do not refer to

• the sayings of the prophets, nor to
• the letters of the apostles, nor even to
• the authoritative words of the gospels,

but to themselves. By not being pupils of the truth, they turn out to be masters of error. A man who has not the most elementary understanding even of the creed itself can have learned nothing from the sacred texts of the New and Old Testaments. This old man has not yet taken to heart what is pronounced by every baptismal candidate the world over!

Can you see the pattern of Acts 15 being followed through the ages? The Fifth Ecumenical Council makes the fact that this pattern is being followed even more obvious:

In this way they unanimously reached the conclusion which they wrote to the gentiles: It has seemed good to the holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity.

The holy fathers, who have gathered at intervals in the four holy councils, have followed the examples of antiquity. They dealt with heresies and current problems by debate in common, since it was established as certain that when the disputed question is set out by each side in communal discussions, the light of truth drives out the shadows of lying.

The truth cannot be made clear in any other way when there are debates about questions of faith, since everyone requires the assistance of his neighbor. As Solomon says in his proverbs: A brother who helps a brother shall be exalted like a strong city; he shall be as strong as a well-established kingdom. Again in Ecclesiastes he says: Two are better than one, for they have a good reward for their toil. And the Lord himself says: Amen I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

This is the Orthodox understanding of how to decide whether the Holy Spirit is truly moving or not. One works it through in consultation with the prophets, in consultation with the apostles, in consultation with the gospels, in consultation with the holy fathers, in communal discussions, in debates about questions of faith, in gatherings where Our Lord Jesus Christ is present in the midst of us. Only at the end of that process do we dare to say that we have followed the royal way. Only at the end of that process, which may last all the way up through an Ecumenical Council (if necessary) do we dare use God’s name and say that “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us.”

We Orthodox most absolutely rely upon the Holy Spirit to guide us, but we do not use his name until we have the certainty that it was indeed Him guiding us and not we ourselves, lest we come all too close to blaspheming the Holy Spirit by whom we were cleansed.