God’s Grace and Comfort Be Yours!

Dear Kent,

I don’t fully understand why you would go ahead and do something that you know ahead of time will lead to something you do not want. This doesn’t make much sense, and it calls your personal ethics into question. It would have been more consistent for you to not say anything at all since you believe that doing so would bring about the last thing that you want. My guess is that you do want an argument.

But rather than granting you an argument for argument’s sake, I believe there is enough propositional content in your comment to warrant a debate (i.e. rational, intelligible dispute). I know that debate and argument are generally synonymous, but I think the distinguishing factor here is the absence or presence of emotional barriers and other psychological ailments caused by the sinful effects of the flesh. I’m sure you’re aware of this since you said you’re familiar with “passions taking over instead of reason.”

With that said, I must admit the humor in your “leave it” paragraph. If you take it to its logical end, you are saying that you are less obedient than your dad expects his dog to be. This certainly can’t be a very good example to set for others, can it? If your dad’s dog was about to commit a doggy no-no [DNN] and your dad says “leave it!”, would your dad be pleased if his dog momentarily disobeyed its master’s command, went ahead and committed the DNN, and then continued in supposed obedience and “left it?” Would your dad pat it on the head and say, “Good dog?” Or would the disobedience have negated the immediate adherence to the command leaving no earned reward but a rolled up newspaper slap on the snout? Essentially this is what you’ve done. Anyhow, it made me chuckle for a bit…

You said: “…that the final authority is Christ our God. After all, Christ is The Word and The Church (Acts 9:4). We would not limit Him by saying “Christ as revealed in the scriptures” for nothing can contain God. Not even the divine scriptures.”

I appreciate your attempt at a tertium quid, but as an Orthodox adherent you must be warned that the method of reasoning espoused in your reply to Reformed Mama is of the variety that produced the Apollinarian heresies condemned by Athanasius as well as in the First Council of Constantinople. I’m sure you’re aware of the controversy and the methods involved, and thus should appreciate the warning. If you’re not, ask an Orthodox person who is advanced in learning regarding church history and philosophy and they will explain it to you.

More important though, are the philosophic contradictions and logical impossibilities that render your position irrational.

First, you attempt to solve the problem of Scripture vs. church as they pertain to “final authority” and offer the tertium quid, “Christ our God.” So far, at this point, you stand shoulder to shoulder with countless heretical schismatics. This basically says nothing (these days). To prove that it is a self-referentially incoherent proposition, all one has to do is take notice of your appeal to Scripture as the authority in order to validate it.

Why quote from Luke’s writings (SCRIPTURE) to establish your proposition that Christ is The Word and The Church? Or that “Christ our God” is the final authority? You should be able to establish your premise “without appealing to Scripture” as the final authority, that is, “if” your proposition is true. If you can’t, then you continue to remain in a confused and inconsistent state of predicament in denying the validity of the basic premise of Protestantism while depending on it to make your disputation.

This is self-refuting. So, your task is to establish the premise as true without appealing to Scripture or anything else (or else the “anything else” becomes the “final authority”). Protestants do not suffer this tension when saying that “Scripture is the Word of God and the final authority in religious controversy.” We justify this statement by appealing to the very Scriptures we claim as the final authority. We do not need to appeal to any other source as borrowed authority in order to establish the validity of our authority. Scripture is also the objective rule of faith in which we judge all religious systems that compete for the souls of men, including the various systems called “Christianity.”

Second, you said, “We would not limit Him by saying ‘Christ as revealed in the scriptures’ for nothing can contain God. Not even the divine scriptures.”

Now, the easy way to demonstrate the logical impossibility of denying Scripture as the final authority is to take your statement, “nothing can contain God…” and demand that you define what you mean by the term “God” and how you know that nothing can contain “God.” Your feet are held to the fire as you scramble to try and answer without appealing to Scripture as the final authority.

But again, you show yourself to be at great odds with the Fathers. When the early heretics ran around with aberrant teachings, their method of promotion and advancement was to circumvent what was established as the authority in the established churches, i.e., the special revelation of God first handed down orally then wholly committed to writing, as Irenaeus said, “by the will of God.” This is where the use of the Ante-Nicean noun “tradition” comes from. The verb in the Greek for “handed down” is literally rendered “traditioned.” Whenever there was a controversial doctrine floating around, the early church refuted it by appealing to the Scriptures. This ancient Jewish tradition (the principle of sola scriptura) can also be seen in the Prophet Isaiah who said that if anyone does not speak in accordance to the law & prophets (i.e. Scripture) then he does not have any light (Isaiah uses “the light of dawn” to emphasize the absolute epistemological darkness). Your denial pits you against Irenaeus (venerated EO & RC Saint) who’s famous saying affirms the principle of sola scriptura: “Scripture is the ground and pillar of the faith.”

Furthermore, you are confusing the revelation of God with the nature and being of God. No one here has stated that the nature and being of God is fully contained in the divine scriptures. You are using a straw man to give your synthesis a false impression of value, when all it is is a poor category fallacy. If it was a simple error on your part then simply admit to it, accept the consequences and discard the use of it moving forward (this is part of the reform you admit to needing). If it was not a simple error but rather an intellectually dishonest maneuver to advance your position among the supposedly unsuspecting layfolks here, then stand exposed in the light and hear our call for your repentance. I see only these two options here. Perhaps you can offer a tertium quid?

Read how Scripture testifies of itself, and accept it as God’s Word and submit to it for there is no excuse for rejecting it:

2PE 1:19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts. 21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

2TI 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

1JO 5:9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.

1 TH 2:13 For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

Read how the Westminster Divines summarized this biblical teaching:

IV. The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, depends not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God. – WCF 1.4

The Divines further clarified the early church’s consistent application of the principle of sola scriptura and added it to the close of the first section of the Confession:

X. The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture. – WCF 1.10

Third (of 3), you said, “Please criticize myself or any member of the Orthodox Church as much as you want. We Orthodox are all sinners and deserving of every scorn and criticizim. I am exceedingly selfish, arrogant and rude in all I say, and you are right to think that. But PLEASE be VERY careful, my dear sister, criticizing The Church.”

You quote from Ac. 9 to establish that Christ is The Church based on his question to Saul, “why are you persecuting me?” In the paragraph above you make a distinction between members of the Orthodox Church and The Church. You approve of criticizing members of the Orthodox Church but warn against criticizing The Church (whom I am supposing you consider the Christ).

The problem I see here is that it was Saul’s persecution of the “people” of the church that Christ considered persecution of him. I believe that you are guilty of equivocation and thus your muddled thinking on this subject.

BUT, how do you protect against being charged with giving an open invitation to persecute Christ? Are you asking people to persecute the Christ?