Could the Philosophical & Interpretive Approach of Reformed Protestantism lead out of Christianity?

Are there early Christian writings that clearly teach against keeping relics for prayers & miracles

  • Yes

    Votes: 1 25.0%
  • No

    Votes: 3 75.0%
  • Other (explain).

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    4
  • Poll closed .

rakovsky

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Dear JM,
Hello!
As for demonstrating from scripture a principle that is supposed to be universally applied to the church...citing Acts 19 doesn't cut it. That's called proof texting. I asked you to demonstrate from scripture how Acts 19 applies all believers today, as an example for us to follow, which you have not done.
Were I to make that argument, I might try to claim that we should follow the example of Paul and the early Christians as our role models in our own lives. Paul preached, went on missions, gave out his clothes for healings by God's power, and early Christians gathered his clothes that he gave them for this purpose. Therefore, some Christians today should do this.

However, that is not actually what I am saying. Whether or not Christians should try to reenact such practices today, it seems like Calvinist principles would go against the practices.

That is, under Reformed principles, saints should not give out clothes for healings, nor should the Reformed take such clothes for this, because as you portrayed it, it would be "seeking carnal, fleshy, tangible evidences for faith" and "seeking to point us to the temporal and not to Jesus Christ". Yet, in conflict with these Reformed principles against sharing and taking saints' clothes for healings, that is what we find in this verse.

It's not a problem of whether we should do it ourselves, but Reformed principles going against using relics, and then to the contrary finding such practices in scripture.

I have demonstrated from the NT that Paul's gift of healing faded in relation to the end of the Mosaic dispensation, the application of Joel 2 and the prophetic meaning used in Acts 2.
Sorry, could you please remind me what the Mosaic dispensation was and why its end would make Paul's gift fade?
Are you referring to Dispensationalism?

The apostolic era lasted until about 100 AD, perhaps. So that would be a pretty big window of time for these kinds of relic healings to occur multiple times, if indeed they were indicative of that particular era.
 
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rakovsky

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Toll houses are a prime example of Traditional tomfoolery and relevant when discussing Eastern Orthodox Tradition. We find no example in scripture. EO's were once largely against this weird doctrine (often associated with Egyptian religion of the soul wondering after death) but it seems it is now gaining ground. If it becomes more popular it will become doctrine for you. That's just how Tradition works.
Hello again, JM.
Again, you are getting into an area I am not an expert on. However, it would be an oversimplification I think to equate whatever ideas Orthodox have about the soul after death with Egyptian religion. Really the ideas can be found in Judaism as their precursor- in Judaism, the body only rots after 3 days, hence Jesus' three days in the tomb (per Psalm 16). During that time, where is the soul? It seems to be still associated with the unrotted body. Then 40 days passed for Jesus while he was on earth before the Ascension. This 3 and then 40 day period became the basis for similar associations with Christians' souls after death in Orthodoxy.

Regarding the tollhouses, I could at best say that it is one theory or way of viewing what happens after death, and it is really a controversial teachings. If it is not in the early traditions and Church fathers, then for Orthodox even if it becomes popular, it would be hard to make it formal "doctrine" for everyone, especially if it is not in some canon or Council, which would be pretty hard to expect too. Orthodoxy is not really so defined and legalistic as Catholicism.
 
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rakovsky

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Dear AMR,

You could argue that Jesus, early believers, and apostles were involved in and approved of this per the NT, and that since we must model ourselves after them, then we should do this too.

This would be akin to what charismatics would appeal to in denying the apostolic gifts have ceased. I am a cessationist, as are the conservative Reformed.
It's interesting. What would make the gifts cease? In Paul's letters to the Corinthians it appears that even the Corinthians, who were not the apostles, were performing charismatic gifts regularly, if not weekly. It seems then that they were not limited to the apostles.

Second, in Elisha's case, his bones worked a miracle long after his death, so it seems that the apostle technically would even have to be alive anymore for a relic to work a miracle.

Third, supposing that the Cessation occurred, it seems that miracle healings did not really cease, strictly speaking. Even among Evangelicals there appear to be not a few stories of an ongoing phenomenon of healings among believers. It seems that if healings are ongoing, then saints' clothes or bones could potentially still be involved in them.

As I stated the majority of the ECF have denounced veneration of relics. I do not know of any that actually support it. I think "veneration" included the notion that these objects possessed some supernatural healing properties. This is reason number one. Reason number two, is that I do not see the healing gifts of the apostles as existing today.
It sounds like we would have to check from those ECFs whether considering an object to have a healing property would be by itself enough to consider it "veneration" of that object, regardless of any particular "observances" used with that object. Would you happen to remember where you read about this?
 
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rakovsky

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Hello, Albion.
He also doing exactly what I commented on quite a few posts back. Having posed the question about the Real Presence, and finding that the answer was NOT that Reformed theology rejected such a belief,
As I understand it, Reformed theology rejected the "Real Presence" in the way that Luther defined it (a real presence in the Eucharist food) and in the dictionary sense of the term, as the Center for Reformed Theology explains:

In normal speech "real" connotes something that is existent, objective, and in the external order. When used with reference to the Supper, "real presence" implies "local presence," and, of course, this is denied by Calvin. So then, Calvin would allow the phrase praesentia realis only if "real" was used for "true" as is sometimes the case in common or vulgar parlance. (http://www.reformed.org/webfiles/an...bfiles/antithesis/v2n2/ant_v2n2_presence.html)

Calvin did use the term "real presence", but by this he meant that the believer's spirit connected to Jesus who had a real presence up in heaven. You had noted before:
The Reformed view is normally considered to be a version of Real Presence (including by members of the Reformed churches themselves), but since it doesn't include localizing the essence of Christ (which would be different from the RC, EO, Ang, and Lutheran views), I can appreciate your thinking that it ought not be considered a genuine version of Real Presence.

According to the Lutheran Missouri Synod, "Calvin held the spiritual presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper but not the doctrine of the real presence of Christ's body in the sacrament." (http://cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=c&word=CALVINISM)
I could agree that this is a simplification though to simply say that Calvin does not accept the real presence. In Calvin's idea, Christ's body stays up in heaven and the believer connects to Him through the Holy Spirit, so Calvin's version brings to mind saying a person has a "real presence" in a phone call.

I just have to agree with the Center for Reformed Theology that this is not really a "dictionary" sense of real presence, since "present" would connote that the person is concretely in the area where the ritual is directly performed.

he nevertheless continued on with his planned sequence of questions leading to a planned conclusion about Reformed theology allegedly "leading out of Christianity"... and basing that on his preconceived idea that Reformed theology is actually Anabaptist theology.
Seeing as my main understanding of Reformed theology as to the bread itself not actually being Jesus' body in physical or spiritual form (Consubstantiation) appears to have been corroborated, why do you say "nevertheless"? Luther drew even stricter conclusions than I feel in my own attitudes on this issue, as the Missouri Synod quoted him in Admission to the Lord's Supper.

I don't know much about Anabaptist theology, except that they do not allow infant baptism. What am I missing that you find me wrongly associating with Reformed Theology? After all, at least one of the Reformed on this thread opposes infant baptism.
 
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JM

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Dear JM,
Hello!
Were I to make that argument, I might try to claim that we should follow the example of Paul and the early Christians as our role models in our own lives. Paul preached, went on missions, gave out his clothes for healings by God's power, and early Christians gathered his clothes that he gave them for this purpose. Therefore, some Christians today should do this.

You still have not demonstrated from scripture that are to follow the example you laid out with the idea in mind that miracles would follow. You have isolated the story and built a doctrine using it but the story does not lead to such a conclusion.

Sorry, could you please remind me what the Mosaic dispensation was and why its end would make Paul's gift fade? Are you referring to Dispensationalism?

No, not Dispensationalism, simply a period of time in which gifts were given to the Apostles for "For the Jews require a sign..." Did you compare Joel 2 with Acts 2? That would be helpful.

The apostolic era lasted until about 100 AD, perhaps. So that would be a pretty big window of time for these kinds of relic healings to occur multiple times, if indeed they were indicative of that particular era.

Ah, there were counterfeits Apostles in Paul's day and it would be understood they would offer counterfeit relics. Is this fella Orthodox? He's using a prayer cloth like a talisman or relic.

 
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Albion

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Hello, Albion.

As I understand it, Reformed theology rejected the "Real Presence" in the way that Luther defined it (a real presence in the Eucharist food).
But it's not a rejection as the term is normally defined. Since this is the case, you are left to "prove" something about Reformed theology that amounts to little more than proving that it doesn't agree with your own view of things.

Calvin did use the term "real presence",..
 
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AMR

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Lutherans are... Lutheran. They aren't Reformed. Moreover, Reformed aren't Lutheran. As a Reformed theologian, I don't think the Lutheran position is correct, since I judge it verges on Eutychianism (and naturally they think we Reformed verge on Nestorianism). Our respective views of the sacraments is inseparable from our Christologies, and our diverse understandings of the manner of the communicatio idiomatum, which is how the properties of each of Christ's two natures are related to each other. One big reason why we Reformed have no real love for the ornate in worship (and not that we bless tastelessness) is because all that tricks the eyes of our heads with religious iconography, smells, bells, glitter, and all--is a distraction from the action. The glories of the Mosaic Covenant had a blinding, as well as a pedagogical function, according to 2 Corinthians 3:7 and forward. Now, all the distraction of earthly glory has been stripped away. All we have to glory in is the cross, Galatians 6:14.

Per the Lutheran view, Christ's body and blood are present "in, with, and under" the bread and wine communion elements, hence they believe in the ubiquity of the human nature of Christ. For us Reformed this confuses the divine and human natures of our Lord, which is contrary to what we believe Scripture teaches. It dangerously smacks of the Romanist notion of summoning Our Lord back to earth with the ringing of a bell. A worthwhile read can be had here. While the Lutheran view has much in common with the Reformed, by locating the thing signified within the the sign threatens the very existence of the sign itself.

Christ's presence with us in the world is by and through his Holy Spirit. We do acknowledge the bodily absence of our dear Lord, but not his Spiritual absence. He actually left us when he was lifted up before our eyes, and the clouds received him out of our sight. That means he's gone, bodily. But he kept his promise, and sent us his Spirit.

Lastly, Lutherans and Reformed speak of the communication of attributes (communicatio idiomatum) in distinct ways. For Lutherans, the communication (in today's terms we might say "borrowing" or "attribution") of natural (to the nature) properties is made nature-to-nature. As I noted earlier, Reformed folk think this just creates Eutychianism by confusing (an important Chalcedonian term) the two natures, since neither nature thus strictly retains its own properties that distinguish it from the other.
 
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rakovsky

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Dear AMR,

Thank you for your deep answers.

In practice though, Reformed don't seem to care much about this. If a Reformed brings up some new controversy, like Christian Zionism, the two sides don't seem to care much about asking "What have Christians been thinking for the first 1000 years of their history about this kind of thing?"

Reformed care deeply about this. Where exactly are you deriving these sweeping statements about what we believe? I would ask that you not presuppose what we believe, for what we believe is contained in the accurate summaries of Scripture contained in one of the historical confessions of the Reformation era (Second Helvetic Confession, the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism or the Westminster Standards).

I would of course be perfectly happy to be wrong by the way, and to find conservative nonZionist Reformed writing today on these current-day polemical topics that we need to go back to the Church fathers because they were inspired.

I read the Second Helvetic Confession, which says:
For God himself spoke to the fathers, prophets, apostles, and still speaks to us through the Holy Scriptures.
...
INTERPRETATIONS OF THE HOLY FATHERS. Wherefore we do not despise the interpretations of the holy Greek and Latin fathers, nor reject their disputations and treatises concerning sacred matters as far as they agree with the Scriptures; but we modestly dissent from them when they are found to set down things differing from, or altogether contrary to, the Scriptures. Neither do we think that we do them any wrong in this matter; seeing that they all, with one consent, will not have their writings equated with the canonical Scriptures, but command us to prove how far they agree or disagree with them, and to accept what is in agreement and to reject what is in disagreement.

COUNCILS. And in the same order also we place the decrees and canons of councils.

Wherefore we do not permit ourselves, in controversies about religion or matters of faith, to urge our case with only the opinions of the fathers or decrees of councils; much less by received customs, or by the large number of those who share the same opinion, or by the prescription of a long time. Who Is The Judge? Therefore, we do not admit any other judge than God himself, who proclaims by the Holy Scriptures what is true, what is false, what is to be followed, or what to be avoided. So we do assent to the judgments of spiritual men which are drawn from the Word of God. Certainly Jeremiah and other prophets vehemently condemned the assemblies of priests which were set up against the law of God; and diligently admonished us that we should not listen to the fathers, or tread in their path who, walking in their own inventions, swerved from the law of God.

TRADITIONS OF MEN. Likewise we reject human traditions, even if they be adorned with high-sounding titles, as though they were divine and apostolical, delivered to the Church by the living voice of the apostles, and, as it were, through the hands of apostolical men to succeeding bishops which, when compared with the Scriptures, disagree with them; and by their disagreement show that they are not Apostolic at all. For as the apostles did not contradict themselves in doctrine, so the apostolic men did not set forth things contrary to the apostles. On the contrary, it would be wicked to assert that the apostles by a living voice delivered anything contrary to their writings. Paul affirms expressly that he taught the same things in all churches (I Cor. 4:17). And, again, "For we write you nothing but what you can read and understand." (II Cor. 1:13). Also, in another place, he testifies that he and his disciples - that is, apostolic men - walked in the same way, and jointly by the same Spirit did all things (II Cor. 12:18). Moreover, the Jews in former times had the traditions of their elders; but these traditions were severely rejected by the Lord, indicating that the keeping of them hinders God's law, and that God is worshipped in vain by such traditions (Matt. 15:1 ff.; Mark 7:1 ff).

...
CONCERNING MONKS. Since we assuredly know that monks, and the orders or sects of monks, are instituted neither by Christ nor by the apostles, we teach that they are of no use to the Church of God, nay rather, are pernicious. For, although in former times they were tolerable (when they were hermits, earning their living with their own hands, and were not a burden to anyone, but like the laity were everywhere obedient to the pastors of the churches), yet now the whole world sees and knows what they are like. They formulate I know not what vows; but they lead a life quite contrary to their vows, so that the best of them deserves to be numbered among those of whom the apostle said: "We hear that some of you are living an irregular life, mere busybodies, not doing any work" etc. (II Thess. 3:11). Therefore, we neither have such in our churches, nor do we teach that they should be in the churches of Christ.
First, in the paragraphs above, I don't actually disagree with what is said there about ignoring mistaken "traditions" and teachings by fathers. I don't think that Orthodox would typically disagree with that either. However, I will note that the thrust of these passages above are teaching reasonable ways to show that we do not have to follow the Church fathers, without actually asserting that the Fathers are a crucial, central authority for understanding our theology and the Bible. For example, it says "we do not despise the interpretations of the holy Greek and Latin fathers", but it does not say the obverse - that "we do promote and propound the interpretations of the fathers". So it is very hard to find in this a promotion of the Fathers as a sometimes necessary authority, or as a central, crucial one.

Second,
I notice in passing that it rejects monastics out of hand, due to various abuses. Certainly the Fathers would not agree with this blanket rejection, as some of them were themselves monastics. Even though I trust that there were major abuses, I find it hard to agree with this blanket rejection, as in the world today I can see the positive spiritual input made by monastics, including their noteworthy charity, like that of Mother Theresa.

You write:
I know of no Reformed Zionists.
I am fine with being proven incorrect on this count, but as I understand it, "Christian Zionism" is most commonly found among Evangelicals and others who are part of the broad Reformed movement.

It seems a not uncommon idea that there are not a few Calvinist Christian Zionists:

The main Christian Zionist organization in the US is CUFI, who were interviewed in this article: New Poll Reveals Evangelical Christians Fuel Republican Support For Israel
http://forward.com/news/327697/new-...-republican-support-for-israel/#ixzz3zmeKwQpC

That is, in the Reformed movement, it is sharply debated what our faith directs our position, if any, to be on questions related to the Israeli State. PCUSA at the moment has tended to be critical of Israeli militarism, but there is a faction in the PCUSA that takes an opposite stance, and it's a seriously debated issue there.

The relationship of Christianity to rabbinical Judaism is also being debated between liberal and conservative Reformed. Take for example the essay posted on the Calvin College website that note: "Only when the prevalent myths of Christian triumphalism and supersessionism were abandoned was the way open for a new beginning [between the two communities." (http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/akz/akz2502.htm) When one understands what they mean by "triumphalism" (eg. Jesus' extreme, world-saving "triumph"), one can better understand how these positions can create sharp debates.

One of the leading "anti-Supersessionist" writers today is Michael Vlach of the Calvinist John Macarthur's The Master's Seminary. Vlach teaches that:"The New Testament never uses the term "Israel" for those who are not ethnic Jews. Thus, the church is never called "Israel." ...Supersessionists have failed to show that the New Testament identifies the church as 'Israel.'"(http://www.theologicalstudies.org/r...placement-theology-is-not-a-biblical-doctrine) He rejects the idea that the Church is a spiritual "Israel", as you put it.

In any case, these questions related to national Israel's status and the Church's relation to it and Judaism are currently sharply debated among Reformed, like those Evangelicals who mis-cite the Torah as saying God will bless those who bless Israel, and then conclude that we must as a matter of theology strongly support Israeli policies.

You continue with an interesting topic:
I do know of some who believe national Israel (the Jews) have a special place in God's eyes, in that a remnant will be called from out of them as a people. This is a far cry from Zionism, and all the dispensationalist cavils that Reformed Theology is replacement theology (wherein the church supposedly replaces national Israel in the purposes of God). Rather, we do believe that there is one people of God, the elect. In the Old Testament most of the elect are members of the covenant line, culminating the formation of national Israel at Mt. Sinai–although there is some evidence of true believers outside the covenant people (Melchizedek and those who truly repented in Ninevah come to mind). Likewise, there is much biblical evidence that unbelievers are present within the national covenant, hence the distinction made between the visible and invisible church.

As soon as someone uses "Replacement Theology" when discussing covenantalism, it is a signal they don't know what they are talking about.

Covenantalists reject "replacement theology", and I don't think anyone can find a single covenantalist that would accept the term. Covenantalists follow grafted theology. One vine: Christ, one Israel, the people of God. From Ephesians 2:15, Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;

Persons tossing out the "replacement theology" term say so because they have already decided to keep the two distinct. Thus, you will read them saying, " Covenantalists have taken over the promises made to Israel". Error! They should be saying " Covenantalists have joined the true Israel, Christ, along with Old Testament believers, who were "of Israel"." (Romans 9:6).

Contrary to Paul's clear teachings, the persons who toss out "replacement theology" do not believe Christ is the goal of the law (Romans 10:4), that in Him it is finished. These same persons think the goals of the Old Testament have not been accomplished, that the Temple is returning, and that God has two intentions for different "peoples". For more, see: http://rscottclark.org/2003/09/the-israel-of-god/

The person in question is a member of a mainline liberal church that we conservative Reformed consider to be well on its way to apostacy, with very few exceptions remaining in some conservative PC(USA) churches that actually take their confessional standards seriously. I would prefer to leave these sorts out of the discussion.
I agree generally with what you have stated above, AMR. What you have also said agrees with the Orthodox, and generally Catholic, positions on this topic in substance. In 1972-1974 Methodist theologian A.R. Eckardt invented the term "Replacement Theology" to describe the belief that the Christian community "replaced" the Jewish community as the community with the True faith. Eckardt concluded that this New Testament belief was wrong because, he said, the Old Testament did not prophesy Jesus.

Many Reformed (eg. PCUSA) have taken Eckardt's term "Replacement Theology" and used it to mean that national Israel has no meaning of literally any kind for God, and then they claim that the Orthodox Church and the Church fathers teach this "Replacement Theology". But this is simply an incorrect depiction of Orthodox theology. Let me know if you wish to discuss this in more depth, and I will be interested to set up a new thread.

Where is this evidence of private, mutually exclusive interpretation?
You've given it yourself. My claim is that when we take the Reformed approach of following "sola scriptura", intensely downplay or tend to disdain the Church fathers, focusing on our own Reason and where will feel currently "led" by the Spirit, we can end up in a situation where Dispensationalists, PCUSA's two factions, and the nonZionist Reformed can reach opposite conclusions on the topic above, while all claim that their approach is Biblical.


Tradition has authority only so long as it is inscripturated. Nothing more, nothing less.
For purposes of this thread, I don't think I needed to argue to the contrary, since I only strictly aim to relate to "Biblical Christianity". That is, I don't intend to get into areas that aren't directly part of scripture.

However, it does seem to me that if some topic came up that was not addressed in scripture, then Tradition (ie what Christians have taught for the last 1900 years) could help to elucidate this as an authority, even if not "infallibly" so.

we should consult with traditional understandings such that we can understand the writings of men who were men of their times,​

Except that for Orthodox, understanding Tradition is not just about understanding Jesus, the apostles, and the Church fathers who decided the Biblical books and Nicene Creed as "men of their times". Rather, we use these early Christians' writings to reach the meaning of Christianity itself, look to them directly for spiritual inspiration, rather than just engaging in modern Reformed "critical scholarship".


Again, you make a grand statement implying the Reformed view these matters as critical scholarship. We do not, as my posts in this thread clearly demonstrate, yet you ignore. Sigh. We Reformed walk the old paths and generally view attempts at theological novelty, e.g., new perspectives, with much suspicion.
The point I was trying to make was that we don't just use Tradition to interpret the Bible and Patristics as writings by "men of their times." To use Tradition only as a way of understanding the Bible as a writing by "men of its times" would seem to me to take a rather modern "critical scholarship" approach to using Tradition. For us, Tradition is a crucial, in some ways "timeless", spiritual authority in opening up the Bible's deep, timeless meanings. But perhaps I read too much into what you meant by the use of Tradition.

By the way, since you said: "We Reformed walk the old paths and generally view attempts at theological novelty, e.g., new perspectives, with much suspicion".
Yes, I can tell. However, I am not sure if that is definitive for Reformed Theology per se. I could make the argument that if one demands following "old paths", that this is a form of trying to follow some kind of "traditional" reading. What if new theologians came and proposed that their seemingly new reading was the "correct" one? The new theologians would be seen as diverging from the "old paths", I think. Yet this is in effect what happened when the Calvinists argued their symbolic view of the Eucharistic bread. Further, it seems that there are Evangelicals and liberal Reformed who you would agree do not follow the old paths, either. So this is why I doubt that it can be said definitely that Reformed are about walking "old paths" agreed on by the Reformed "founders", although I can respect that conservative Reformed have chosen to in practice.

You wrote:
My point is that misuse of the ECF abounds by those that would cavil about Reformed doctrine. The ECF generally use but the language of the Scriptures upon the topics before us, while they scarcely make any statements which afford us materials for deciding in what precise sense they understood these topics. They rightly leave the matter very much where Scripture leaves it, and where, but for the rise of errors needing to be contradicted and opposed, it might still have been left.
The ECF wrote volumes and volumes on scripture. It is hard to say that they didn't leave materials to decide the precise sense in understanding major topics. You have in mind the topic of the Eucharist, but even there, the ECF go deeper than just what people might find at a routine reading of scripture. For example, Cyprian of Carthage (born 200 AD) writes: "and who is more a priest of the Most High God than our Lord Jesus Christ, who, WHEN HE OFFERED SACRIFICE TO GOD THE FATHER, OFFERED THE VERY SAME WHICH MELCHISEDECH HAD OFFERED, NAMELY BREAD AND WINE, WHICH IS IN FACT HIS BODY AND BLOOD! (Letters 63:4)"

In contrast, it is hard for me to formulate that Calvinists consider the bread to be "in fact" Christ's body. So this statement looks like a good way to help tell how Cyprian understood the body, ie. not in the Calvinist sense.

As long as Rome's and EO's apologists are able to speak in grandiose and general terms of the ECF for their claims, they are able to make it appear to others as though their paradigms for ecclesiology is the answer to all ecclesiastical controversies. But once they try to offer specific examples, where such claims are represented by a particular case, their arguments are usually toppled by overt anachronistic readings of the ECF.
The issue of Covenantalism vs. Dispensationalism & Christian Zionism is a good one where you and I would agree that the Church fathers can be very useful, and one where you would agree with Orthodox reading of them. The issue of homosexual marriage is another where the Church fathers' understanding can be helpful in understanding the Bible. There are not a few other ongoing areas where they should be a major authority.

"Burning in the bosom" and "led by the Spirit" seems to be one of the ways Bible-only-as-I-read-it Reformed sometimes settle on their own interpretations of scripture.

Again, please support sweeping generalizations by actual evidence. I am not going to take the bait here and do the heavy lifting for you to demonstrate the error of your summarizations.
If "feeling led" is not a way that Reformed use to determine the meaning of scripture, for purposes of the thread, the implications are much simpler for this thread's discussions: Reformed follow Reason, the Bible's meaning as they see it per the "formal sufficiency of scripture" with rather minor (if any) use of Tradition and extra-Biblical scholarship, but not modern critical scholarship, nor where they "feel led", nor Tradition as a crucial, central authority.

The Library of Calvinism carries Paul Cook's work that states:
Within Protestantism an appeal to personal experience has frequently been elevated above the authority of Scripture. We have all met those self-opinionated popes of Evangelicalism who pronounce with a note of infallibility upon any question by declaring “God has told me — so I know!” Too many of our popular beliefs and practices have been upheld by the authority of subjective experience.

We need to be careful about using phrases such as “I feel led” and “The Lord has guided me.” They can become an excuse for self-will. Our “guidance” must always be examined by the Word of God otherwise we may find ourselves claiming to be guided by the Spirit quite contrary to the Scriptures which He inspired. When our experiences are truly spiritual they are confirmed by Scriptural authority. But if the teaching of Scripture conflicts with our experience, then that experience is brought into question.

It is true that the Reformers spoke of the internal authority of the Spirit as well as the external authority of the Word. But they never separated the witness of the Spirit from the testimony of the Word. They taught that the internal witness of the Spirit constantly confirms to the believer the external authority of the Scriptures. The Roman Catholics transfer to the Church this function which is the prerogative of the Spirit and in this way elevate the authority of the Church above that of the Scripture and the Spirit.
http://www.the-highway.com/scripture_Cook.html

So if you don't find that the "internal witness of the Spirit" is an additional central authority used by Reformed to reach their conclusions (perhaps one greater than Tradition?), it will make it simpler for this discussion thread. However, I think that feeling guided by the Spirit is probably at least one method that Christians across mainstream denominations commonly try to use to help discern Truth.


Of course, I think theoretically scripture could be sufficient. That is, the scripture has certain meanings, and a person could theoretically read and understand those meanings.

It is not a theoretical basis that the Scripture is sufficient. Scripture is self-attesting to its Author as is innately perspicuous.
Perspicuous - "clearly expressed and easily understood; lucid."

Were it so easily understood, I think we would not in practice find such strongly differing interpretations of it among Protestant theologians who are sincere, faithful, well educated, and adhere to sola scriptura on numerous issues, Christ's direct presence in the bread being just one of them.

That's just reality. I don't know how I could mentally think otherwise. If well educated, sincere Protestants come to opposite conclusions about passages, it looks clear that those passages are not "easily understood".

Take for example Zechariah 12:
11 In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.

If you want to discuss exegesis of Scripture, perhaps another thread is in order. I fear that explaining the verse will only derail the discussion herein. Hadadrimmon was a neighboring town, or a part of that country in which was situated the plain of Megiddon. From 2 Chronicles 35:25, we know that an yearly lamentation (death of Josiah) was appointed as evidence of God's vengeful displeasure with his kingdom and people, which God had intended to be the type and image of the kingdom of Christ, had, as it were, ceased to exist. Hence the lamentation looks forward to the same for the death of Our Lord: that the lamentation in Jerusalem would be like that in Megiddon.
AMR, if scripture were "formally sufficient" or enough on its own, then how would you know that Hadadrimmon refers to a town in Megiddon? Scripture never specifies that elsewhere, and indeed at least one person in the Old Testament is named "Hadadrimmon". The mourning of Hadadrimmon could conceivably be mourning by or for someone named Hadadrimmon.
It's true that Lamentations was appointed in reaction to the defeat in Megiddon.

The commentator Gill, who I think JM considers to be of very high status among the Reformed appeared not to give a definite answer to this question, but rather to propose alternatives:
Pulpit Commentary
....
There is a difficulty about the identification of Hadadrimmon.
...

Gill's Exposition
Lightfoot (i) thinks the prophet alludes to the two great and general lamentations of Israel; the one about the rock Rimmon, where a whole tribe was come to four hundred (it should be six hundred) men, Judges 20:47 and may be rendered, "the sad shout of Rimmon"; and the other in the valley of Megiddo, for the death of Josiah. Some take Hadadrimmon to be the name of a man, as Aben Ezra; and the Targum and Jarchi say who he was, and also make two mournings to be alluded to (k); paraphrasing the words thus,

"at that time mourning shall be multiplied in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Ahab the son of Omri, whom Hadadrimmon the son of Tabrimmon slew in Ramothgilead; and as the mourning of Josiah, the son of Amon, whom Pharaohnecho, or the lame, slew in the valley of Megiddo:''

and so the Syriac version renders it,

"as the mourning of the son of Amon in the valley of Megiddo.''
http://biblehub.com/zechariah/12-11.htm

Were scripture in real life so easily understood and the easily ascertained answer to my question were Hadadrimmon's status as a city, it seems Gill would not have proposed alternatives and the Pulpit commentary would not have said that its identification was difficult.
But in practice there are millions of Christians who find themselves led by the Spirit and read passages and come to very different conclusions. This is why in theory I think formal sufficiency could be considered logical, but in real life it disproves itself.

No. This all denies that truth exists, made by a Truth Maker. That the faculty of some men's minds may be limited such that only approximations of truth is possible, is no warrant to appeal to "real life", counting noses notwithstanding.
If we say that the Truth is easy to understand for God, or that Scripture is easy to understand in its essence, but that Protestant theologians have great difficulty arriving at consensus on some major issues in its meaning, then this seems like calling it "perspicuous" is rather misleading, at least in real life. Usually when I think that something is easy to understand, it seems this is meant to the audience. And it seems that the Protestant audience has trouble sometimes understanding the meaning. Alternately, if we say that it made sense in 100 AD but not today, then it would be better to say that it "was" perspicuous.

It looks more likely that the doctrine of "formal sufficiency" was created to deal with the fact that they rejected Tradition as a crucial authority to understand it. Since the aid of Tradition was rejected, they concluded, the sacred text must be easily understood on its own. They wanted to propose that their own, independent readings of the Bible were correct, and to justify that, they claimed that it could be easily read on its own too. They could not stand as authoritative figures in the church like a Pope or strongly on the basis of Tradition, so they concluded that it could be judged just with what tools and authority they had at hand- the Bible itself.

I understand why they did this, but it seems too radical a step. Even if a religion's Tradition is fallible, it still is a crucial tool in general to understand the intended meanings of that religion's sacred book.

(Catholics) do to deny sola scriptura and place tradition at the level of Scripture.
Like I said, I am skeptical that Catholics actually place Tradition at the level of Scripture, with the exception of the Ecumenical Councils (eg. Nicea) and their anomalous invention of Papal Infallibility, limited to his rare "ex cathedra pronouncements".

So we cave to "real life" difficulties in favor of a methodology that corrupts Scripture? We are forced to accept tradition has a constitutive value, and not merely an explicative one? We are forced to answer in the affrmative the question "Are there revealed truths which can be known only through Tradition?"
You are presenting too much of an "either-or" dilemma: Either we accept that Scripture is "perspicuous" to our theologians and absolutely self sufficient for interpretation, or we raise Tradition to the same level of Scripture and call all kinds of extraBiblical Tradition Infallible.

This is just too much of an absolutist mindset, IMO, demanding from God perfect and infallible "knowledge" of scripture at the individual level, something that in practice he has not made "scripturally perspicuous". In real life we have to deal with a situation where Ecclesial traditions exist handed down through 3000+ years, and the main sacred book in that tradition exists. And we have to find our way through the tools we have and whatever gifts God gives to do so. It's just reality.

There is no methodology that can perfectly guarantee a perfect reading of Scripture unless God actually guides you to the perfect reading each time, since God alone is perfect, and since we have seen in practice the cornucopia of mutually exclusive renderings.

The Bible and Councils could be infallible (I think even Orthodox do not clearly say that), but to say that interpretations of the Bible beyond that are either "infallible" or always easy is harder to claim.

So whether or not you use Tradition, your understanding is human and potentially flawed, unless each time God guides you to the answer. To answer "Are there revealed truths which can be known only through Tradition?" No, because you could have direct revelations, divine guidance, or you could on your own come upon the correct reading. But this doesn't mean you will achieve all the revealed truths, nor does it mean that having a useful, major respect for Tradition will hamper that either.

Next, I will write about the second part of my third question: Could the Reformed approach lead away from Biblical Christianity more generally, beyond the issues of the presence in the bread and of relics.
 
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AMR

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I read the Second Helvetic Confession, which says:

First, it's true that it begins by saying that God spoke through the fathers. So one could conclude from this mention that Church fathers' writings are inspired and are a major guide for our faith.
No. "For God himself spoke to the fathers, prophets, apostles, and still speaks to us through the Holy Scriptures" refers not to the ECF, but Abraham, Moses, in contradistinction with the later statements concerning the interpretations of the holy fathers, which would be the church divines.

in the paragraphs above, I don't actually disagree with what is said there about ignoring mistaken "traditions" and teachings by fathers. I don't think that Orthodox would typically disagree with that either. However, I will note that the thrust of these passages above are teaching reasonable ways to show that we do not have to follow the Church fathers, without actually asserting that the Fathers are a crucial, central authority for understanding our theology and the Bible. For example, it says "we do not despise the interpretations of the holy Greek and Latin fathers", but it does not say the obverse - that "we do promote and propound the interpretations of the fathers". So it is very hard to find in this a promotion of the Fathers as a sometimes necessary authority, or as a central, crucial one.
I am at a loss to see what point you are making, for if it is that we prudently pay attention to those that have come before us, e.g., the ECF, knowing they are not infallible, I do not disagree.

Third, I notice in passing that it rejects monastics out of hand, due to various abuses. Certainly the Fathers would not agree with this blanket rejection, as some of them were themselves monastics. Even though I trust that there were major abuses, I find it hard to agree with this blanket rejection, as in the world today I can see the positive spiritual input made by monastics, including their noteworthy charity, like that of Mother Theresa.
The monastic movement in church history involved the glorification of withdrawal from this world. That said, an element in classical monasticism that is missing from today's neo-monasticism is devotion to theological scholarship. When I speak of neo-monasticism, I am referring to the tendency among some evangelicals to “drop out” of the world. I am describing an attitude as well as a life-style. It is a kind of world denial that includes far more than a rejection of worldliness as it involves a rejection of the world as the primary arena of Christian activity. It restricts the Christian’s activity to a spiritual ghetto. It includes a willful rejection of the study of anything that is not clearly “evangelical.” The effects of neo-monasticism are catastrophic. By retreating from engagement with the world we have suffered defeat by default. We wring our hands at the secularization of American culture and wonder how it could have happened. Sigh.

It seems a not uncommon idea that there are not a few Calvinist Christian Zionists:
Not all Calvinists are Reformed.
All Reformed are Calvinists.
Ted Pike may be a Calvinist.
Ted Pike is most definitely not Reformed.

That is, in the Reformed movement, it is sharply debated what our faith directs our position, if any, to be on questions related to the Israeli State. PCUSA at the moment has tended to be critical of Israeli militarism, but there is a faction in the PCUSA that takes an opposite stance, and it's a seriously debated issue there.
By whom is it "sharply debated" within the Reformed community? The Reformed Confessions are clear about the Israel of God. {Are you reading the links I provide in my responses? This will keep up from covering the same ground.} You are confusing Calvinistic categories with the historical understanding of what is known as Reformed (which includes Calvinisic soteriology and much more). There is a difference. Perhaps others in this thread may chime in, as this particular forum includes Calvinists that are also Baptists. Again, I ask that drawing upon PC(USA) views not be used when discussing the topic with me, a conservative Presbyterian of the PCA denomination.

In any case, these questions related to national Israel's status and the Church's relation to it and Judaism are currently sharply debated among Reformed..
Please refrain from instructing me on what is "sharply debated" among the Reformed. I am Reformed and can assure you I am well aware of where the "sharp" debates lie within that which I hold dear, and Zionism is not one of them.

Many Reformed (eg. PCUSA) have taken Eckardt's term "Replacement Theology" and used it to mean that national Israel has no meaning of literally any kind for God, and then they claim that the Orthodox Church and the Church fathers teach this "Replacement Theology". But this is simply an incorrect depiction of Orthodox theology. Let me know if you wish to discuss this in more depth, and I will be interested to set up a new thread.
I leave the matter of what the PC(USA) is doing to those that may be interested. There are numerous threads related to Reformed covenantalism that you may search out and find at CF, for that is the proper domain of any topic related to how the state of Israel plays into the eschaton.

You've given it yourself.
No I have not given private, mutually exclusive interpretation. I interpret Scripture in community, not "just me and my bible". Can communities of the church militant disagree? I have not claimed otherwise, but unless you find me explicitly stating an expression of a personal opinion as dogma, you cannot assert I am making private, mutually exclusive interpretations.

My claim is that when we take the Reformed approach of following "sola scriptura", intensely downplay or tend to disdain the Church fathers, focusing on our own Reason and where will feel currently "led" by the Spirit, we can end up in a situation where Dispensationalists, PCUSA's two factions, and the nonZionist Reformed can reach opposite conclusions on the topic above, while all claim that their approach is Biblical.
There are no Reformed Zionists, so your "nonZionist Reformed" is noted for what it is intended...more of your attempt at toadying to the hoi polloi.

Further, I have never downplayed or held in disdain the church divines. Nor have I focused on my own "Reason" as if to imply I am the recipient of some special illumination not possessed by those that came before me that were indwelled with the very same Holy Spirit. I categorically reject any charge that would cast me a chronological snob in thinking we moderns somehow know more than that those that tread the old paths before us. You are insulting me by continuing to make sweeping statements like these in this thread. I would ask that you seek a posture displaying more tentativeness when claiming to know what we Reformed believe.

However, it does seem to me that if some topic came up that was not addressed in scripture, then Tradition (ie what Christians have taught for the last 1900 years) could help to elucidate this as an authority, even if not "infallibly" so.
The only tradition is inscripturated tradition, as I have spoken about previously. If no warrant can be found directly or by good and necessary consequence from Scripture for any tradition, then it is to be rejected.

..."men of their times."
..."critical scholarship"
We have discussed this. I am at a loss as to why it is being revisited, to wit: Misuse of the ECF abounds by those that would cavil about Reformed doctrine. The ECF generally use but the language of the Scriptures upon the topics before us, while they scarcely make any statements which afford us materials for deciding in what precise sense they understood these topics. They rightly leave the matter very much where Scripture leaves it, and where, but for the rise of errors needing to be contradicted and opposed, it might still have been left. Hence, men of their times. The reticence of the ECF on many matters was borne from a assumption that their audience understood what they were saying, often polemically. Only when controversy arose, were they specific. Unfortunately today, many will import anachronisms into their words hoping to bolster their own mythologies. Rome excels at this tactic.

By the way, since you said: "We Reformed walk the old paths and generally view attempts at theological novelty, e.g., new perspectives, with much suspicion".
Yes, I can tell. However, I am not sure if that is definitive for Reformed Theology per se. I could make the argument that if one demands following "old paths", that this is a form of trying to follow some kind of "traditional" reading. What if new theologians came and proposed that their seemingly new reading was the "correct" one? The new theologians would be seen as diverging from the "old paths", I think. Yet this is in effect what happened when the Calvinists argued their symbolic view of the Eucharistic bread. Further, it seems that there are Evangelicals and liberal Reformed who you would agree do not follow the old paths, either. So this is why I doubt that it can be said definitely that Reformed are about walking "old paths" agreed on by the Reformed "founders", although I can respect that conservative Reformed have chosen to in practice.
The old path is Reformed Theology qua Reformed Theology. The quest for theological novelty is a chimera that has led to the sad divisions we see today. One need only look to the PC(USA) for prima facie evidence. Another example would be the open theism heresy, a product of "new theologians" proposing new readings and ideas.

For example, Cyprian of Carthage (born 200 AD) writes: "and who is more a priest of the Most High God than our Lord Jesus Christ, who, WHEN HE OFFERED SACRIFICE TO GOD THE FATHER, OFFERED THE VERY SAME WHICH MELCHISEDECH HAD OFFERED, NAMELY BREAD AND WINE, WHICH IS IN FACT HIS BODY AND BLOOD! (Letters 63:4)"
You are not reading my posts as carefully as I am reading yours. I was quite specific about rejecting appeals to the Latins. The Reformed theological view is the subject of the thread, one that you have taken issue with. I and other Reformed respond from within the Reformed community not the Latin.

In contrast, it is hard for me to formulate that Calvinists consider the bread to be "in fact" Christ's body. So this statement looks like a good way to help tell how Cyprian understood the body, ie. not in the Calvinist sense.
I do not know what is meant by "Calvinists consider..." To my knowledge I have not advocated any view of the elements of the Supper that conforms to transubstantiation, which is repugnant not only to Scripture but even to common sense and reason. Rather I have provided you with the Reformed view.

If "feeling led" is not a way that Reformed use to determine the meaning of scripture, for purposes of the thread, the implications are much simpler for this thread's discussions: Reformed follow Reason, the Bible's meaning as they see it per the "formal sufficiency of scripture" with rather minor (if any) use of Tradition and extra-Biblical scholarship, but not modern critical scholarship, nor where they "feel led", nor Tradition as a crucial, central authority.
The "burning in the bosom" and "feeling led" is directed to those who champion their "just me and my Bible" oddities.

Contrary to your statement, the Reformed view is that we may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church to a high and reverent esteem for the Holy Scripture. The heavenly character of its content, the efficacy of its doctrine, the majesty of its style, the agreement of all its parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full disclosure it makes of the only way of man's salvation, its many other incomparable excellencies, and its entire perfection, are arguments by which it gives abundant evidence that it is the Word of God. Nevertheless, our full persuasion and assurance of its infallible truth and divine authority is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.

On the matter of tradition, the Reformed declare that the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory and man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly stated in Scripture or by good and necessary inference may be deduced from Scripture, unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or by traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge that the inward illumination of the Spirit of God is necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word. We also acknowledge that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God and the government of the church—circumstances common to human activities and societies—which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.

Were it so easily understood, I think we would not in practice find such strongly differing interpretations of it among Protestant theologians who are sincere, faithful, well educated, and adhere to sola scriptura on numerous issues, Christ's direct presence in the bread being just one of them.
Again, the old path is in view here concerning the word perspicuous, as in capable of being seen through, not opaque (consult an unabridged dictionary). Accordingly, my view is one of plenary perspicuity defined to mean that all that Scripture conveys in all of its teachings can be understood by all believers.

Scripture possesses innate perspicuity, a clarity that inheres Scripture apart from the reader, a clarity not imposed upon Scripture by interpretive frameworks, theological systems, reader’s experiences, nor emotional or rationalistic responses. Innate perspicuity of Scripture does not imply simplicity. Nevertheless, this does not impose a limitation on my view that Scripture is innately perspicuous and perspicuously understandable. I have never claimed understanding of Scripture would be easy.

If Scripture is authoritative, it must be clear to the mind of the believer. If Scripture is not clear, then something else is needed to make it clear. The obvious example of such a view would be the practices of Rome. Nor is a Reformed Confession that something else, for the Confession does not have more clarity of Scripture than Scripture itself. If we are being held responsible for the teachings of Scripture by God, then they must be accessible to us. We are commanded to search the Scriptures (John 5:39; Acts 17:11; 2 Timothy 3:15-17) and the Scriptures are declared to be perspicuous (Psalm 105; 119; 130; 2 Corinthians 3:14; 2 Peter 1:18-19; 2 Timothy 3:15-17).

The fathers proved their opinions out of Scripture. Therefore Scripture is clearer than the writings and commentaries of the fathers: for no one proves what is unknown by what is still more unknown. And doubtless if we will compare the Scripture with the writings of the fathers, we shall generally find greater obscurity and difficulty in the latter than in the former. There is no less perspicuity in the Gospel of John or in the Epistles of Paul, than in Tertullian, in Irenaeus, in certain books of Origen and Jerome, and in some other writings of the fathers. But in all the schoolmen there is such obscurity as is nowhere found in Scripture.

For that matter, contrary to Rome and others, even if there were some obscurity in the words of Scripture greater than in those of the fathers, it would not nevertheless be a just consequence that the scriptures were so obscure that they should not be read by the people. This should rather rouse men to an attentive reading than deter them from reading altogether. Besides, the scriptures speak of necessary things no less plainly than any fathers, or even much more plainly, because the Holy Spirit excels in all powers of expression.

Like I said, I am skeptical that Catholics actually place Tradition at the level of Scripture, with the exception of the Ecumenical Councils (eg. Nicea) and their anomalous invention of Papal Infallibility, limited to his rare "ex cathedra pronouncements".
Your skepticism is in need of correction. The position of the Rome with reference to tradition has been officially declared by the Council of Trent. It is found in the 'Decree concerning the Canonical Scriptures' of April 8, 1546. The Council declares that the Gospel
"of old promised through the Prophets in the Holy Scriptures, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, promulgated first with His own mouth, and then commanded it to be preached by all His Apostles to every creature as the source at once of all saving truth and rules of conduct. It also clearly perceives that these truths and rules are contained in the written books and in the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ Himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down to us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand. Following, then, the examples of the orthodox Fathers, it receives and venerates with a feeling of piety and reverence all the books both of the Old and New Testaments, since one God is the author of both; also the traditions, whether they relate to faith or to morals, as having been dictated either orally by Christ or by the Holy Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church in unbroken succession"​

In Orthodoxy, we would agree with that first part of the Second Helvetica Confession that the Fathers were "inspired",
See above for the error you have made about exactly who the inspired "fathers" were here.
 
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JM

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Not all Calvinists are Reformed.
All Reformed are Calvinists.
Ted Pike may be a Calvinist.
Ted Pike is most definitely not Reformed.

This is important to note. Calvinism refers to soteriology. Reformed theology is covers all aspects of theology and is not limited to what is known as the Five Points or TULIP, that is why it is important to read the Reformed Confessions of Faith. I know some Calvinists claim to be Reformed when they are really just referring to their understanding of salvation and not Covenant theology or the Regulative Principle, etc.
 
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AMR

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Indeed, JM.

There is also the matter of how Reformed Presbyterians, Baptists, and Reformed or Particular Baptists view church polity, baptism, covenantalism, eschatology, and so on. It would help if our interlocutor, rakovsky, understood these distinctions before importing his ideas of what he thinks "the Reformed" believe about this or that.

A good starting point for getting familiar with the differences and the alignments:

http://www.baptistcenter.net/papers/Lemke_Nine_Marks_That_Separate_Baptists_From_Presbyterians.pdf

http://www.theopedia.com/reformed-baptist

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformed_Baptists {no implied approval of the content here, but worth reviewing}

The LBCF and commentary:
http://www.vor.org/truth/1689/1689bc00.html
http://1689commentary.org/ {not the best, and is incomplete}

For a more reliable commentary on the LBCF, see "A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith", Samuel E. Waldron, Evangelical Press, 1989.

See also this page for useful comparisons between LBCF and the WCF, and more:
https://www.monergism.com/topics/creeds-and-confessions/1689-baptist-confession-faith
{Note, you may have to refresh the page if you get a link error—a common problem with this site.}
 
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JM

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Just to make it clear to our Orthodox brother, in essential biblical doctrines of the Christian faith regarding God, salvation and sanctification all Reformed folks are in agreement. Credobaptists do not differ at all from Reformed Paedobaptists on these essential Gospel doctrines. This is why 17th century Baptists made use of the Savoy Declaration (1658) and the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) when framing the London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677 published after the Act of Toleration in 1689).

Yours in the Lord,

jm
 
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rakovsky

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Let us now turn to the second part of my Third Question:
Could the Reformed Approach lead out of Biblical Christianity, more generally than just the issues of the Eucharistic bread and role of relics in miracleworking?

I. Calvin developed his ideas during the Age of Discovery.
People were developing, seeking, and finding out scientific and philosophical beliefs that differed from those of the institutions of the Christian community of their time (the Church). Good examples of this were Copernicus and Galileo, whose heliocentric model went enough against Catholic institutional beliefs that the inquisition procured a retraction from Galileo of his beliefs. Thus, populations were beginning to believe that they no longer needed to conform their beliefs about reality to the beliefs of the institutional Christian community. And this was the larger philosophical social context in which Calvin developed his teachings and they took hold among major populations like the Swiss, Scots, French Huguenots and Dutch.

II. The two main bases on which Calvinism professed to develop its teaching were the Scriptures - as its theologians interpreted them- and Reason. Some Reformed also see their sense of guidance by the Spirit as another major factor. According to the Reformed approach, Tradition is recognized as having some role, but it's a minor one.

Before we look at these elements, let's note that in practice, very conservative Reformed, who don't want any new ideas introduced beyond what they currently have, will find it difficult for that very reason to go beyond whatever divergences from the Bible that it has already attained. By strongly holding onto whatever interpretations they already have and passing those explanations down through centuries, the teachings effectively act as a very strong, central "Tradition". However, others those who have come out of the larger Reformed movement who follow the Reformed approach without holding to the substance of the original Reformed "traditions" may diverge considerably from them. That is, the Reformed approach does not openly require following early Reformed traditions, but rather emphasizes "sola scriptura". Thus, if one concludes that the "true" teachings of scripture diverges from the current Reformed traditions, under the Reformed approach, one is obliged to follow the newly discovered "true" meaning of scripture. In such cases, the Reformed who does not feel compelled to follow the original "Reformed" interpretations diverges from them.

Let's look at these elements more closely:
A. Sola Scriptura and the Formal Sufficiency of Scripture:
Under this teaching, one definitely must follow the meaning of scripture and its teachings. Further, the Bible is perspicuous, as AMR wrote. That is, "easy to understand and lucid". And per its formal "sufficiency", there is no need to bring in outside sources to understand its meaning- the Bible stands on its own and a reasonable, normal, literate human should by default be able to understand it.
Where Bible passages are certainly "perspicuous", this is not problem. It is pretty hard to argue that the Torah does not teach Jews to observe the Sabbath as a rest day.

Unfortunately, for those who don't adhere to "formal sufficiency of scripture", this doctrine looks unrealistic. That is, theoretically, it's true that the Bible verses each have some specific meaning, and so any person could understand that meaning. The problem in reality is that we are dealing with texts 1850 to over 3000 years old. I don't even know how far back these fascinating narratives go. Since we don't have the authors directly with us, we can't question them to get a straight, full answer on each meaning.

So in practice, educated, sincere Protestant theologians who adhere to sola scriptura and read these verses occasionally come to divergent or even opposite understandings of these verses. Some cases we already discussed are Lutherans and Reformed on whether Christ's body is in the Eucharist bread, the relationship of the Church to Israel, and Dispensationalism. So in reality, it looks like sometimes a sincere adherents of sola scriptura diverge in their teachings from the actual Biblical teachings due to a failure to understand the Bible's correct meaning.

B. The Role of Reason

Of course, the Bible demands interpretation for it to be understood. And what is the operation and tool for achieving that understanding? Certainly it must be the mind and its basic tools of reason. For Calvin, the role of Reason, a philosophical science being sharpened in his era, did play a major role.

To begin with, Evangelical focus proposes that Calvin had a different attitude than Luther:
As we read the sermons of the two men, Calvin’s musings are directed much more to the intellect and to sound reason than Luther’s. Even in the pulpit, Luther was always something of a ‘heart’ man, more concerned about the maids and the children than about the doctors in his congregation.
http://evangelicalfocus.com/magazine/1085/10_differences_between_martin_luther_and_john_calvin

More specifically, Calvinist theologian Hans Mol writes in Calvin for the Third Millenium:
To Calvin, reason is the most excellent blessing of the divine spirit and 'one of the essential properties of our nature.' (p. vii , citing the Institutes)

Calvin assumes that science, intelligence, and reason... exist harmoniously within God's order. To Calvin, God comes into the picture in the realm of mystery and revelation beyond what reason can discover. (p. 20)

God, he says, is the only governor of our sols and if princes and magistrates claim 'any part o God's authority' one has the right not to obey them any further... Conscience also has an individual right's aspect that Calvin assumes and the Bible clearly adopts... This may also explain why Calvin puts so much emphasis on individualism. Not only does he start the Institutes with a clearly unBiblical, Greek principle of self-knowledge, but he elevates both conscience and individual reason as God given. (pp. 42,44)

Considering the special role of "Reason" and self-knowledge in Calvin's system, I can tell why, if Philip Cary of the Protestant Eastern University is right, it demands the idea of a moment after baptism when the believer has a strong conscious "moment" of choice, when Cary writes:
If an American revivalist could ask Luther whether he was a born again(i.e., regenerate) Christian, his answer would surely be: "Of course I'm a born again Christian. I am baptized." Someone who gives such an answer does not think a decision for Christ or a conversion experience is necessary in order to be a Christian. It is enough to be baptized as aninfant and then believe what you are taught, for instance, in a catechism. Hence it is notsurprising that there is no revivalist tradition native to Lutheranism, much less to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, all of which teach baptismal regeneration and practice infant baptism...
But beginning with the Reformed tradition Protestantism has been characterized by a soteriology in which the decisive moment of passing from death in sin to life in Christ is not baptism but a conversion to faith that happens once in a lifetime. This is a departure from Luther, based on a fundamental but seldom-noticed divergence on the doctrine of justification. Whereas all agree that one is born again only once in a lifetime (either in baptism or in conversion) for Luther justification is a different matter: it is not tied to any single event but occurs as often as a Christian repents and returns to the power of baptism.
(http://www.academia.edu/185285/Why_...t_The_Logic_of_Faith_in_a_Sacramental_Promise)

Kilian Mcdonnell notes that the Lutheran Joachim Westphal complained of Calvin's use of Reason against the Lutheran view of Christ's bodily presence in the Eucharistic bread, and Mcdonnell writes in John Calvin, the Church, and the Eucharist:
Calvin... invokes reason in his polemic against both the Lutherans and the Romans. (p. 55)

[Calvin wrote:]"A doctrine carrying many absurdities with it is not true. The doctrine of the corporeal presence of Christ is involved in many absurdities; therefore it follows that it is not true..." (pp.207-208)

"There is nothing more incredible than that things severed and removed from one another by the whole space between heaven and earth should not only be connected across such a great distance..."
Though Calvin would not admit that he was measuring the divine by the human, he did insist that even in these mysteries reason and common sense had a role.... "there is a third kind of reason which both the Spirit of God and the Scripture sanction." It is this third kind of reason which Calvin invokes to prove whether a theological statement has... become involved in absurdities. This kind of reason functions within the faith, and permits no theological declarations with regard to one doctrine, which are.. in contradiction to, theological declarations... [E]ucharistic doctrine must be in harmony with Christology...(p. 208)
First, one problem is that to assert that "A doctrine carrying many absurdities with it is not true" makes an arbitrary judgment based on Reason that has the potential to go against basic Christian beliefs. That is, what one set of scholars or teachers finds to have multiple absurdities (ie. ridiculousness, preposterousness, things to be laughed at) may in fact be Biblically Christian. The Greek pagans like Celsus and the nonChristian rabbis since find it absurd that God who is One could have another Person in Him who would incarnate and get brutally crucified by pagan enemies, and that by this "God-man's" death, others' own sins would be removed.

As Paul wrote: "But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness". (1 Cor. 1:23)

Reformed might respond that "Christ crucified" is not really absurd in multiple ways like the Greek pagans with their philosophical learning perceived it. But in truth, since one style of reasoning or community finds it absurd, and another does not creates an arbitrary standard. Just as Greeks and Christians argue whether Christ Crucified is "really" absurd, so the Calvinists argue against more traditional Christians whether the Lutheran/Catholic/Orthodox teaching Christ's direct presence in the bread is "really" absurd.

Second, one of his bases for deciding whether something was absurd, or as he said above, "incredible", (could not be believed) was in fact whether they violated the "ordinary laws of nature", as he himself complained in his Institutes of the doctrine of Christ's presence in the bread itself. (Chp. 17, s.29 http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.vi.xviii.html) That is, to say that a body could be in heaven and on earth would mean that a body was in two places at once, and for a body to be in two places at once was to him "incredible". However, it is only credible in normal naturalistic modern-era Reason.

It's conceivable that a body could be in two places at once, crossing two planes of existence, just as Lutherans were able to conceive that Christ's body was in the bread. (And in fact, Einstein taught centuries later that a body could be in two places at once: "Einstein was right, you can be in two places at once" www.independent.co.uk) But it appears absurd, unbelievable, ridiculous - all arbitrary criteria based on normal human scientific understanding of nature.

Third, it's true that theological doctrines, including Christology should be harmony and not in contradiction, as Calvin proposed. However, this cannot be understood strictly. One of the rabbis' claims for example, was that for God to consist of another person would contradict Monotheism - the blief that God was one. They claimed that for Jesus, a man, to have his death take away another's sins would contradict the Psalm that "Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life". (Psalm 49:7)
The traditional Christian answer is that many things in theology should be considered a mystery, rather than discarded just because we in our human Reason we fail to understand it fully. Job may not have been able to understand fully why God tested him, but it did not prove that God did not exist. The rabbis did not understand how God could include in Himself persons, but for a Christian viewpoint, that does not mean that it did not really describe Him. Calvin found it "absurd" and "incredible" that a body could be on earth and in heaven at once, but for Catholics and Lutherans it was conceivable and the natural "absurdity" was insufficient to rule it out, centuries before Einstein taught that according to Science, a body really could be in two places at once.

Calvin used the standard of "perplexity" and "repugnancy to Reason again in his Institutes:
For, had it not occurred to the apostles that the bread was called the body figuratively, as being a symbol of the body, the extraordinary nature of the thing would doubtless have filled them with perplexity. For, at this very period, John relates, that the slightest difficulties perplexed them (John 14:5, 8; 16:17)... How, then, could they have been so ready to believe what is repugnant to all reason viz. that Christ was seated at table under their eye, and yet was contained invisible under the bread?
http://www.theologywebsite.com/etext/calvin/institutes/bookiv19.htm
Calvin must have been using a more modern, scientific, rationalistic standard for Reason than just basic comprehension. The apostles need not have found the Presence in the Eucharist so unthinkable if most of the world's Christians conceive of it. (Probably at least 2/3 of the world are Lutherans/Catholics/Orthodox)
It's true though that some disciples did have trouble with the concept of eating Christ's body and as Credo House explains about John 6, those "perplexed" disciples who found Jesus' teaching about eating his body "repugnant" left. These apostles then at the Last Supper were those who stayed despite many other disciples who found it repugnant leaving previously.

C. The Spirit's Guidance as a possible key tool

As Paul Cook explains in his essay on the Library of Calvinism website:
Within Protestantism an appeal to personal experience has frequently been elevated above the authority of Scripture. We have all met those self-opinionated popes of Evangelicalism who pronounce with a note of infallibility upon any question by declaring “God has told me — so I know!” Too many of our popular beliefs and practices have been upheld by the authority of subjective experience.

We need to be careful about using phrases such as “I feel led” and “The Lord has guided me.” They can become an excuse for self-will. Our “guidance” must always be examined by the Word of God otherwise we may find ourselves claiming to be guided by the Spirit quite contrary to the Scriptures which He inspired. When our experiences are truly spiritual they are confirmed by Scriptural authority. But if the teaching of Scripture conflicts with our experience, then that experience is brought into question.

It is true that the Reformers spoke of the internal authority of the Spirit as well as the external authority of the Word. But they never separated the witness of the Spirit from the testimony of the Word. They taught that the internal witness of the Spirit constantly confirms to the believer the external authority of the Scriptures. The Roman Catholics transfer to the Church this function which is the prerogative of the Spirit and in this way elevate the authority of the Church above that of the Scripture and the Spirit.
http://www.the-highway.com/scripture_Cook.html
That is, for Cook, the teaching authority that Catholicism gives to the Church, Reformed give to the Spirit. By analogy, if Catholicism says: "The Church confirms that this passage means ____", Reformed would say: "The Spirit confirms that this passage means _____". But in fact, what is considered to the spirit's guidance can be the "teacher's" own subjective sense of that guidance, as Cook says at the beginning of the passage.

If, however, Reformed disagree with Cook and don't find "the Spirit" or "feeling led" to be a major authority for them, this simply makes the analysis of the Reformed Approach simpler for purposes of this thread.

D. Tradition as a minor potential tool

In the Second Helvetica Confession, there are a few references to early Church fathers. In Calvin's Institutes, he does on rare occasion refer to them. He had a good opinion of Augustine and sometimes used Augustine in formulating his own theological teachings.

In practice however it is commonly something that they downgrade considerably. When the Second Helvetica confession goes to talk about the Church Fathers' importance, the thrust is to talk about ways that they don't need to be respected, how the Fathers sometimes contradicted Scripture, etc. The Second Helvetica Confession doesn't teach that the Fathers are a crucial or major authority.

Multiple Reformed writings that I have seen on the issue of Covenantalism/Replacement Theology have an occasional, but serious practice of disdaining the Church fathers, saying that the Church fathers were wrong in their teaching about the relationship of the Church to Israel, even though in substance it looks to me on closer evaluation that the Church fathers taught the same thing as nonZionist conservative Reformed do on this question. For their part, those nonZionist Reformed who teach the substance o the Traditional theology on the question do not generally emphasize the Church fathers to do so.

The approach of Reformed, therefore, when it comes to Tradition is not to use it as a major authority. What then is the result of this severe downgrading of Tradition in deducing theology? It must be that Reformed Theology relies on just the Scripture itself and on the "Reason" of the individual theologians or their Reformed groups in interpreting that scripture, and only marginally on the Traditions of the rest of the Christian community (Church) passed down over the last 1900 years.

III. How Rejecting the Crucial Role of Tradition can Lead Away from Biblical Christianity


Under the Reformed approach, you start with the scripture and treat it as self-sufficient. But something must always be brought to bear to use and understand it in practice. Basic tools must be used like grammar and basic linguistics. Along with them must come basic comprehension. To these universal necessities, Calvin added, in practice, another crucial authority or tool- Reason. And by reason he did not just mean basic comprehension - like basic acceptance that Christ was present in the bread, making it his body, but higher "Reason" that rejects contradictions and "absurdities" and what he finds not believable, or "incredible". Previously, Christians could point to the Traditions passed down since the 1st-3rd centuries in order to help decide debates to a major extent, but this was not part of the paradigm anymore. Nor were appeals to Church leadership (bishops) or unity, since everyone could go and start their own "church".

In practice what this means is that many educated scholars can look at scripture, take it on its own without much regard for Tradition, and read it as it speaks to them, interpreting what they see as its own meaning based on their own tools of Reason. So long as everyone agrees on their own based on what the Bible says and means, based on their own sense of Reason and their own judgments, there is not much divergence. But it need not take long before, cut from the anchor of Tradition, educated scholars begin to sail their own way on what passages in scripture on crucial issues of theology "really" mean.

As the novelist William Simpson explained over 100 years ago in his book hypothesizing about a fictional religion of aliens:
The intention of the new church (reformed church) was to do away with those rituals and ceremonies, which had been adopted from paganism a compromise in the second and third centuries, and to bring their church back as far as possible, to that simplicity which characterized the first teachings of Christianity. ... There were questions enough however within the limits of safe discussion, to set agoing those unending controversies which distinguished Protestantism to this day. The newly acquired privilege of discussing sacred affairs among laymen as well as others, were indulged in to such an extent that the debate between the sects, in defense of their several interpretations of scriptural texts, monopolized in society its hours of intercourse and conversation...Questions that had been settled centuries before by authority in the old church were dragged forth to renewed discussion.

If we have, for more than fifteen centuries, yielded ourselves to doctrines conveyed to us through all the highways of life, so assiduously, that neither infancy, youth, manhood, or old age, have escaped their tireless importunities for acceptance’ doctrines, which consign seven eighths of humanity to eternal torture for no faults to most of them but a lack of opportunity, which under (Calvin’s) Providence has been denied, it is not unreasonable to conclude, with this experience of the mutability of human understanding, that there are other beliefs fastened on our minds by ages of custom and mistaken thought, equally untenable, which may be as justly placed in our catalog of errors.
http://www.frederick.com/The_Expurg...ting_the_Doctrines_of_John_Calvin-a-1151.html

Cutting free from the Traditions of the Church and its understandings of the meaning of scripture opened the floodgates. For example, even though I believe that the Old Testament intentionally teaches that the Messiah would get killed and resurrect, based especially on Isaiah 53, numerous Protestant Bible commentaries are taking an opposite view. We are talking about a fundamental of the Nicene Faith, that the scriptures predicted the Messiah's death and resurrection, mentioned in the Nicene Creed (and incidentally in the "Our Faith" document of ChristianForums.com), and even in the NT (eg. Acts and 1 Peter). This has long been the point of view of Christians in their debates with the rabbis going back to at least the time of Origen, when he debated the jewish elders on the question. Yet the Protestant commentaries in question take the view that Isaiah 53 was intentionally talking about the ancient Israelite nation's suffering and that the Christians used this inherently nationalist prophecy to their own ends:

The HarperCollins Study Bible (Wayne Meeks, et al., edd.; HarperCollins, 1993) says: "The early church identified the servant in this passage [Isaiah 52:13-15:12] with Jesus, and Jesus' own sense of identity and mission may have been shaped by this figure. In the original historical context, however, the servant appears to have been exiled Israel." (p. 1089)

Revised Standard Version - Oxford Study Edition
Footnote on p. 889 52.13-53.12: The fourth Servant Song (see 42.1-4 n.) 52.13-15: God will exalt his brutally disfigured Servant (Israel) to the numbed astonishment of the world's rulers (49.7,23).

The New English Bible - Oxford Study Edition
Footnote on p. 788: 52.13-53.12: Fourth Servant Song. The suffering servant. See 42,1-4 n. Israel, the servant of God, has suffered as a humiliated individual. However, the servant endured without complaint because it was vicarious suffering (suffering for others). 13-15: Nations and kings will be surprised to see the servant exalted. 53.1: The crowds, pagan nations, among whom the servant (Israel) lived, speak here (through v. 9), saying that the significance of Israel's humiliation and exaltation is hard to believe. ...9: The death probably refers to the destruction and Exile of Israel.

The Interpreter's Bible
From the commentary, p. 614: 52:13-53:12. The Exaltation and Suffering of the Lord's Sin-bearing Servant. -- This is the most influential poem in any literature. Its insight that the suffering of the righteous may bring redemption to many is an answer to pain and grief which supplies courage and comfort. Its interpretation of the God-appointed role of Israel, his servant, furnished to the Christian church the explanation of the death of the Son of God which has formed a principal part of her gospel.

Concise Bible Commentary (by the Reverend W. K. Lowther Clarke)
From the commentary on p. 542: 13-LIII The fourth Servant-song. For the purposes of the Commentary the Servant will here be identified with the ideal Israel or with the purified remnant of Israel. But no interpretation is wholly satisfactory.
That is, when these educated Protestants go to read the scripture on its own and by their own Reason, without considering Christian Tradition a key authority, they conclude that Isaiah 53 is originally talking about the Israelite nation's sufferings in exile (eg. the Old Testament Babylonian exile), not the sufferings of the Messiah. Personally, I disagree with their belief and interpretation. But that is where going by just the Scripture and their own Reason without caring much about the longstanding Christians traditions has led these major, influential, educated Protestants.

Most importantly, some non-Traditional scholars are claiming that the New Testament does not actually teach that Jesus rose bodily or that Jesus is God or one of the Trinity.
Even though I believe that the New Testament actually intends to teach both, I have found it intensely frustrating trying to argue and persuade those who teach the opposite from my and the Church's interpretation, as per modern Protestant and Enlightenment sentiments I cannot resort to the "authority" of other early Christian writings to prove this.

Personally I think that is a huge error on the part of those who fully "spiritualize" the resurrection narratives in the Bible and who exclude Jesus' divinity. I think that it should be part of common sense and Reason that it's crucial to read a religion's main book in light of the other major writings by that same religious community from that era. The Hadiths should be important to understanding the Quran, the writings of other major Lutherans besides Luther and the official documents agreed on by the Lutheran Church should be crucial to understanding Lutheranism too.

Be that as it may, how can I, in practice, persuade them? To prove the bodily resurrection, I can point to the fact that the women found the body empty, and they claim that someone else took the body, maybe the gardener. I can point to John 21, where it says that Jesus has flesh and bones after the resurrection, but they can argue that here that flesh and bones is not "literal".

Even harder to argue with are those who claim that the gospel, taken by itself (ie. without resort to traditions surrounding the Bible), is just a parable or allegory. For me, this is untrue, and the Bible is presented at face value to an audience as a real account. However, they argue that we are not living in 36 AD, so we don't know how that story was originally presented. When these symbolists or allegoricists read the gospels, they read them as "a story", not as a real history. For example, many times in the gospels, Jesus gave parables. He narrated how a certain group of people had certain experiences. But he didn't always preface it with "this is a parable". Taken by itself outside the context of the Bible, one might not clearly see whether such a parable was a real historic account or just an allegory. Likewise, taken by themselves, outside the context of later Tradition, these allegoricists don't accept that the gospels are meant as real historic accounts, but rather see them as embellishments and allegories.

Then there are the Jehovah's Witnesses who teach that Jesus was not God, and they go through interpret the Bible according to that teaching. Indeed there has been a long trend of those who deny the Trinity, and some of them are even on ChristianForums.com, claiming that their rejection of this teaching accords with Scripture.

IV. How Calvin's use of the Ordinary Laws of Nature to Deny Christ's Direct Bodily Presence in the Eucharist Bread itself Could Lead away

These men [Lutherans] teach that he is in every place, but without form. They say that it is unfair to subject a glorious body to the ordinary laws of nature. But this answer draws along with it the delirious dream of Servetus[burned by Swiss Reformed], which all pious minds justly abhor, that his body was absorbed by his divinity. I do not say that this is their opinion; but if it is considered one of the properties of a glorified body to fill all things in an invisible manner, it is plain that the corporeal substance is abolished, and no distinction is left between his Godhead and his human nature. Again, if the body of Christ is so multiform and diversified, that it appears in one place, and in another is invisible, where is there anything of the nature of body with its proper dimensions, and where is its unity?
...
The objection, that Christ came forth from the closed sepulchre, and came in to his disciples while the doors were shut (Mt. 28:6; John 20:19), gives no better support to their error. ... To enter while the doors were shut, was not so much to penetrate through solid matter, as to make a passage for himself by divine power, and stand in the midst of his disciples in a most miraculous manner. ...They gain nothing by quoting the passage from Luke, in which it is said, that Christ suddenly vanished from the eyes of the disciples, with whom he had journed to Emmaus (Luke 24:31). In withdrawing from their sight, he did not become invisible: he only disappeared. Thus Luke declares that, on the journeying with them, he did not assume a new form, but that “ their eyes were holden.” But these men not only transform Christ that he may live on the earth, but pretend that there is another elsewhere of a different description. In short, by thus trifling, they, not in direct terms indeed, but by a circumlocution, make a spirit of the flesh of Christ; and, not contented with this, give him properties altogether opposite.
For Calvin, to object to subjecting a glorified body to the ordinary laws of nature is delirious and would deny his body's humanity.
Biblical Christianity, of course does not fit Christ's body into the "ordinary laws of nature". A mentality that does so can eventually end up denying those events that defy the "ordinary laws of nature", such as the Ascension, and the other extreme miracle stories about Jesus that defy those "ordinary laws".


Calvin objects that a body cannot be in two places. Putting aside that Einstein taught that actually a body can be in two places, Calvin's problem is that again he relies on the "ordinary laws of nature". Ordinarily, a body is not in two places at once. But nor are many other mysteries found to accord with our ordinary conceptions of reality, like whether God can be one yet in three persons, or God can become man, or God or an angel can speak real words out of a burning bush, or matter can be created out of nothing (ex nihilio). Theoretically, God can do whatever He wants, including with normal matter itself! To deny this is to send us back to the scientific drawing boards of the late Renaissance in order to judge whether Jes's experiences and teachings could occur or not.

Calvin's explanations to avoid the Lutheran objections that Christ could be invisible in the bread are themselves a contradiction. Calvin claims that when Christ multiple times vanished in front of the apostles, Christ "did not become invisible: he only disappeared". This is a distinction without a difference. If something is right in front of you and disappears while still there, that means it is invisible. To argue otherwise is irrational and thus flunks Calvin's "absurdity/incredibility" test.

Likewise, Calvin's excuse that Christ did not penetrate the closed door, but only made "passage" through it and that it was a miracle is another distinction without a difference. If Jesus did not penetrate a door, but fit inside or "make passage through" it, he can fit inside or pass into a piece of bread too.

Since Calvin has just used "absurd", "incredible" logic to escape the Lutheran explanations and to justify subordinating Christ's body to the "ordinary laws of nature", it is only natural that eventually scholars of the Reformed tradition who choose consistency while holding to Calvin's precepts of the ordinary laws of nature will conclude that Christ did not pass through doors or lose appearance in front of the apostles, because that would violate his "human nature" too.

Indeed, many things throughout the gospels that Christ does are contrary to human nature, including walking on water, ascending, turning water into wine miraculously, transfiguring on the mount, sitting up on the clouds in the sky where Stephen saw him in Acts, and perhaps even having a virgin birth as a male (because there would be no human father to give a Y chromosome) and then resurrecting after being fully dead.

Calvin's and Zwingli's solution to what they saw as the contradiction between the concept of Christ's body being in the bread and Christ's body being in the sky was that the bread was itself only Christ's body as a "symbol" or "token". For Calvin (not Zwingli), the bread was also a tool in the ritual for uniting the believer's spirit with Christ. But it was not actually Christ's transformed body.

Were I to make my own theology, perhaps I might imagine that Christ's spirit is directly present in the bread, and that as such the bread becomes the "body" for Christ's spirit. But anyway, I could imagine multiple ways to resolve the contradiction while upholding Christ's direct presence.
For Calvin, things were different - the bread was just a symbol and a ritual tool for effecting the believer's union with Christ.


The modern "spiritualists" and "allegoricists" use this style of reasoning when it comes to the Resurrection. They reason that Christ did not "transform", which Calvin himself denies, and demand Christ's body's obedience to the "ordinary laws of nature". Since Christ's body could not violate those laws, they reason, it did not do such "incredible" things as resurrect after being fully dead, pass through walls, Ascend bodily, etc. The Resurrection is a symbol. These "incredible" miracles are "symbols", allegories, and "stories". Jesus' Resurrection was "spiritual". The Christian believers are just "spiritually" changed, and the gospels are a tool or vehicle for that.

The Calvinist approach to demanding obedience to the "ordinary laws of nature" and viewing departures from them as either physical absurdities or "symbols" is thus fully compatible with the modern claims of those who see the extremely supernatural gospel miracle stories as allegories and spiritual tools.

V. How Reformed Principles against Holy Objects' Involvement in Miracles Could Lead Away from Biblical Christianity

Calvin repeated his principle many times that holy objects' involvement was superstition:
In short, the desire for relics is never without superstition, and what is worse, it is usually the parent of idolatry...
Paul... protests that he knew him[Christ] not according to the flesh, but only after his resurrection, signifying by these words, that all that is carnal in Jesus Christ must be forgotten and put aside, and that we should employ and direct our whole affections to seek and possess him according to the spirit...

Consequently the pretense that it is a good thing to have some memorials either of himself or of the saints, to stimulate our piety, is nothing but a cloak for indulging our foolish cravings which have no reasonable foundation;
http://www.godrules.net/library/calvin/176calvin4.htm
Calvin's logic is that Paul said he did not know Christ according to the flesh, but only after the Resurrection, therefore we must forget what is carnal about Christ, and since objects that give memory of Christ are carnal in form, and therefore they are just a cloak for "foolish cravings" that aren't "reasonable".
There's that word "reason" again. Yet do we see that Calvin's "reasoning" requires multiple jumps? What about the memorial of the cross and the "memorial" meal that requires physical bread? it can't even be said that mainstream Reformed "forget" anything "carnal".
But regardless, the point is that Reformed Principles are against holy objects' involvement in miracles.

And this principle can lead Reformed away from the Biblical stories on miracles.
For example, when I proposed that the story of Elisha's bones showed relics were involved in a miracle, one low Church Protestant expressed his skepticism that touching Elisha's bones really brought someone to life:
"Remember also the time in 2 Kings when an Israelite resurrected after touching Elijah's dead bones..."~Rako
"It does not say the man they cast down there was dead, does it? You are assuming something that is not stated." ~Civil War Buff
http://www.christianforums.com/thre...-of-christianity.7929431/page-7#post-69196526
So their reaction as a Reformed was to be very skeptical that this was a major miracle, even though at face value the Bible does present it as a major miracle. Otherwise, why was the Israelite being buried when he touched Elisha's bones?

Likewise, when I explained the contradiction to Hedrick, he replied:
There are few examples of relics in the Bible, and the three or so are pretty restrained compared to later practice. That allowed Calvin and other Reformers to draw a line between Scriptural examples and medieval practice. I think the few examples that do occur in Scripture show the same kind of popular piety that resulted in later relic-mania. With Elisha’s bones, Jesus’ garment, and Peter’s shadow, we have holy figures whose holiness became a force in itself. It’s not so clear whether that is true of Paul’s effects. But the principle is there.

If you agree that the late medieval situation is unacceptable, one can take several approaches:
* try to make a distinction between the Biblical examples and what was done
* accept that in principle relics can have power, but demand more careful investigation
* reject the principle

Calvin seems to have done both 1 and 3. I think the Catholic tradition has ended up doing 2. My reading of Calvin’s treatise is that he rejected relics completely. I don’t think he just called for more care.

I believe modern theology would be likely to do just 3, and see the Scriptural examples of popular piety having made its way into Scripture. Critical scholarship does not, of course, reject the supernatural as a matter of principle. However it is aware of the tendency for supernatural accounts to be attached to holy figures. Hence not all supernatural elements in Scripture will be accepted.

I’m sure the OP will see this as rationalism. I’m not so sure that’s actually a correct use of the word. But it is surely the case that Calvin’s attitude is a precursor to the modern one.
http://www.christianforums.com/thre...of-christianity.7929431/page-16#post-69230667
I'm aware that Hedrick does not represent conservative Reformed or conservative Calvinism. What is relevant here is that he does strongly uphold Reformed principles against saints' objects' use in miracles, and this wholesale Reformed principle against relics has led him to see the Biblical accounts involving them as "relic mania" and to conclude about them that "not all supernatural elements in Scripture will be accepted."

Continuing this trajectory one can see how other Christian miracles can become rejected too. Tens or hundreds of thousands of Catholics have claimed miracles involving holy relics. However, the Reformed principles would have us say that this is "superstition" and does not have a "reasonable foundation", per the Institutes. However, if tens or hundreds of thousands of Catholics' miracle claims with relics turn out to be "superstition", what does that say about comparable numbers of miracle claims by Reformed over the last 450 years or so that don't involve relics? Plenty of Reformed, particularly Evangelicals, claim miracles with visions and healings. What is to make their testimony more "reasonable", if they go against "ordinary laws of nature" as we commonly understand them? Perhaps we are to teach an extreme form of Cessationism, so that Christian miracles after the mid second century or so are "superstition". But then what are we to make of the "reasonableness" of the Biblical miracles themselves? Is it really "reasonable" and consistent with "ordinary" science to claim that about a dozen people saw Jesus in a physical body appear and "disappear" in a closed room?

thermo-bench11.gif


It appears that if we follow the modern, naturalistic or rationalistic Reformed approach that does not treat Christian tradition as a key authority to its ultimate conclusion, we could end up teaching that the extreme Biblical miracles were just "spiritual", "allegories", or otherwise didn't physically happen because they would be "superstitions" that violate "the ordinary laws of nature".

VI. How Some Major Scholars and Groups in the broader Reformed Community have Come Away from the foundations of Biblical Christianity

There are many examples of this in real life. Reformed and Calvinism make up by far the largest branch of Protestants in America, so there are many opportunities as well.

  • I cited numerous modern Protestant Bibles teaching that Isaiah's authors did not intend for their 53rd chapter to be about the Messiah.
  • As a youth, I wanted to study Mark's gospel, so I read it over a dozen times and then read a commentary by early 20th century Methodist pastor Vincent Taylor, wherein he described Jesus' miracle healings as not really "supernatural", but cases where Jesus encouraged handicapped people to use willpower, in effect, to walk and see, etc. Seeing this kind of thinking may have created my first doubts about what I was reading in the gospels, ie. my own "critical scholarship", in a way. Taylor was not Reformed, but I imagine his approach to Tradition, the Eucharist and relics would be similar.
  • A relative attended a college (PCUSA), where the chaplain told him that the apostles were, to use an analogy, on drugs. (I think this was about their visions)
  • The Protestant "Jesus Seminar" was founded by pastor Marcus Borg, who said in a debate with William Lane Craig that the post-Resurrection events were "stories" and he asked rhetorically about the appearance to the apostles: "If you were there with a video camera, do you think you could film it?"
  • The "Christian Zionist" Protestant theologian A.R. Eckardt, who coined the term "Replacement Theology" to describe the Biblical/Traditional belief that the Christian community "replaced" ancient Israel as the visible community with a right understanding of theology, decided that the Old Testament didn't predict Jesus as the Messiah, and that the Holocaust proves that Jesus didn't resurrect. (See eg. The Author Replies to Alice and Roy Eckardt https://www.jstor.org/stable/27943775?seq=1#fndtn-page_scan_tab_contents) A major section of Reformed now profess rejection of "Replacement Theology".

  • Quakers, which developed during the rulership of the Reformed military commander Oliver Cromwell, took Zwingli's teaching to its natural conclusion. Since, per Zwingli, the Eucharist was only an outward symbol, and as Calvin said, we must get rid of "carnal" "memorials", it followed that we should get rid of these outward memorials in the rituals too. As such, the Quakers read the Bible to mean that the Eucharist meal just referred to fellowship meals that everyone had together like Jesus did in the last supper, and they shouldn't be ritualized. Communion meals just meant our hearts came together in meals with other believers.
  • Unitarians in Romania and Poland in the 18th century emerged from the Reformed communities. In the US, I heard that they emerged from Reformed communities too. The Unitarians, at least originally, accepted the New Testament, but interpreted the Bible to say that God was not a "Trinity". I think that they were in a sense, therefore, Arians, who taught that Jesus was in some sense divine, but still not God Himself.
  • Then there is the field of critical scholarship itself. "Historical criticism began in the 17th century and gained popular recognition in the 19th and 20th centuries. The perspective of the early historical critic was rooted in Protestant reformation ideology, inasmuch as their approach to biblical studies was free from the influence of traditional interpretation." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_criticism). Once you become free of traditional interpretations as your guide, you can move into the direction of the Jesus Seminar, use "historical criticism" to decide whether Jesus' Resurrection physically occurred, and reaching opposing conclusions on this question.
So in summary, if one takes the Reformed approach of just going by what the Bible says and understanding that in terms of Reason, submitting Jesus' post-incarnation experiences to tests of "absurdity," "incredibility", and the "ordinary laws of nature", while simultaneously severely downgrading the authority of Tradition, such an approach can ultimately lead away from Biblical Christianity. Protestant-educated scholars can and have fundamentally diverged on interpretations of major doctrines and passages, and to submit these interpretations to those tests of "reasonableness", excluding those interpretations and teachings, however longstanding, that seem to have "superstition", "absurdity", and contradict the application of the "ordinary laws of nature" to Jesus' body can ultimately lead away from Biblical Christianity in the course of those divergences among Reformed scholars. This is because Christianity does fundamentally have supernatural teachings about the post-incarnation Jesus and about many miracles that could appear "incredible", "absurd", or "superstitious".

As the apostle Paul wrote:
19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;

24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
(1 Corinthians 1)
 
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JM

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Notice, a poisoning of the well with a dash of sophistry.


I. Calvin developed his ideas during the Age of Discovery. People were developing, seeking, and finding out scientific and philosophical beliefs…


I. One could easily point out how the Eastern Orthodox developed during a time when Platonism was being used by the church, in heavy doses, changing and mixing up previously held theological categories. Not to mention, scholasticism was being used in both the East and West…


II. The two main bases on which Calvinism professed to develop its teaching were the Scriptures - as its theologians interpreted them- and Reason. Some Reformed also see their sense of guidance by the Spirit as another major factor. According to the Reformed approach, Tradition is recognized as having some role, but it's a minor one.


II. The Eastern Orthodox developed a hierarchy during the 4th and 5th centuries, often assuming roles and titles previously held by Pagan Priests and religions. This was in opposition to previously held beliefs, for example the very nature of the Kingdom of God was altered to suit the developing needs of a church hierarchy. The Easterners often used extra biblical philosophical categories to explain away or negate, clearly revealed doctrines that Christ would never had believed (see my post concerning Icons). Importing Greek philosophical ideas allowed the Eastern Orthodox church to bolster its own authority, scripture is given a role, but it is a minor one.


Before we look at these elements, let's note that in practice, very conservative Reformed, who don't want any new ideas introduced beyond what they currently have…


Are called Confessionally Reformed Christians. Rak is implying that Reformed Christians are open to new doctrines but this is far, far from the case. Even non-Reformed, Arminian Christians avoid new and novel doctrines…as per scriptural command.


A. Sola Scriptura and the Formal Sufficiency of Scripture:
Under this teaching, one definitely must follow the meaning of scripture and its teachings. Further, the Bible is perspicuous, as AMR wrote. That is, "easy to understand and lucid". And per its formal "sufficiency", there is no need to bring in outside sources to understand its meaning- the Bible stands on its own and a reasonable, normal, literate human should by default be able to understand it.
Where Bible passages are certainly "perspicuous", this is not problem.


I can’t speak for AMR but yes, the Gospel as found in the Bible is clear.


It is pretty hard to argue that the Torah does not teach Jews to observe the Sabbath as a rest day.


Ahh, who is being overly rational? Scripture gives the reason why Israel did not believe, “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.” You are rationalizing and giving to mankind more credit than due.



The Eastern Orthodox claim to be the one and only true church established by Christ,


… this doctrine looks unrealistic. That is, theoretically,


…whose tradition is legit? Is it the Roman tradition? The church of the East? Which one and why? Which biblical canon is legit? The “traditional” churches claiming roots in Apostolic times differ on some of the most basic teachings. These arguments for tradition boil down to human reasoning, considering facts and historical data and then, using “necessary consequence” (reason), a person selects the “tradition” they deem accurate.


it's true that the Bible verses each have some specific meaning, and so any person could understand that meaning. The problem in reality is that we are dealing with texts 1850 to over 3000 years old. I don't even know how far back these fascinating narratives go. Since we don't have the authors directly with us, we can't question them to get a straight, full answer on each meaning.


Ahh, the ol’ “the Bible is too difficult to understand. It shouldn’t be read without [insert your denominational authority here].”

Folks, my Reformed bros and sisters, is it worth continuing? If so I'll carve out time but if not I'm done. I'm too busy to labour over such nonsense.

Yours in the Lord,

jm
 
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AMR

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Too disappointed to respond. I have provided careful responses to all questions, yet they appear to be dismissed. My initial response to the OP included:

Let's not play Twenty Questions or Whack-A-Mole. I have no quibbles with a Socratic method for a season, but eventually the ball cannot remain hidden. State your opening operating views plainly, for it is clear from the poll that you presuppose naked philosophy is at work in our Reformed theological traditions and that we presumedly have no warrant from Scripture in support of our traditions therein. A short summary, e.g., "In this thread I intend to show that the Reformed view is...my reasons for this are as follows..." will move the discussion forward efficiently such that we can all be good stewards of the spare time from our normal duties as unprofitable servants God has granted us for these occasions.

Many posts in, we now come to the fellow's agenda in its fullness: a cavil that the Reformed are rationalists, seasoned with the very odious and noticeable capital "R" in "Reason".

My kingdom for a honest man seeking to know more about what we believe versus the man who will belie well-intentioned dialog all the while waiting for his interlocutors to just stop talking so he can get on with what he really wanted to say. Sigh.

Beloved, we've been had. I suspected as much from the start, but decided it was better to offer up responses on precious and sacred matters that the discerning might find edifying for future occasions. My burden has been met and I will now rest comfortably in the knowledge that there are really no new objections that may be raised against that which we hold dear. What is "new" is but the fellow who thinks he has divined a defeater for which no refutation is possible or has not already been given time and again.
 
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rakovsky

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Too disappointed to respond. I have provided careful responses to all questions, yet they appear to be dismissed. My initial response to the OP included:



Many posts in, we now come to the fellow's agenda in its fullness: a cavil that the Reformed are rationalists, seasoned with the very odious and noticeable capital "R" in "Reason".

My kingdom for a honest man seeking to know more about what we believe versus the man who will belie well-intentioned dialog all the while waiting for his interlocutors to just stop talking so he can get on with what he really wanted to say. Sigh.

Beloved, we've been had. I suspected as much from the start, but decided it was better to offer up responses on precious and sacred matters that the discerning might find edifying for future occasions. My burden has been met and I will now rest comfortably in the knowledge that there are really no new objections that may be raised against that which we hold dear. What is "new" is but the fellow who thinks he has divined a defeater for which no refutation is possible or has not already been given time and again.
Hello, AMR,

I enjoyed writing with you and found it interesting. You had asked for me to state my view, and I summarized them in response in #9 (http://www.christianforums.com/thre...ad-out-of-christianity.7931022/#post-69218145).

A reason I did not say them in full detail like I did in laying out Question 3B was because the full details are long and have numerous points. It made it easier for me to formulate mentally by breaking them up into different messages and also to discuss them one by one. That is, since there are different ideas that make it up, it's easier to go over each idea one at a time. For me anyway it's much easier mentally. The alternative is to write a long essay about it and discuss the essay all at once, but that's tough. Even as it is, Question 3B is long.

Another reason is that the earlier Questions were not really foregone conclusions. I actually didn't know whether there were early Christian writings outside the Bible that would support the Calvinist position. I didn't expect either that Hedrick would come out and say that the Bible's instances of relic use were popular piety and relic mania. Nor did I know beforehand that Luther actually made these criticisms of the Reformed views himself - that it was based on Reason over the combination of tradition and plain meanings.

I intended to go back to your earlier messages before Q.3B that I hadn't answered, but I also wanted to move on with the discussion to get in the other issues, as I stated earlier.

If you don't want to continue the discussion, it's OK. One of the requirements is that people have basic trust, and if you don't think that I am "honest" because of this format issue, then it's unfortunate, but how could we continue to have a good discussion on the topic? Also, you said " there are really no new objections". So it looks like you have said all you feel that needs to be said on these issues.

Peace.

peace-in-sand.jpg
 
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AMR

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The fact that you proceeded to show up at another discussion site, TOL, and start the very same discussion says all that needs to be said on this topic. You have an agenda. It has been made manifestly clear. You have been given proper responses. Accept them, consider them, or not, and may peace be upon you.
 
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rakovsky

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The fact that you proceeded to show up at another discussion site, TOL, and start the very same discussion says all that needs to be said on this topic. You have an agenda. It has been made manifestly clear. You have been given proper responses. Accept them, consider them, or not, and may peace be upon you.
I think that it's OK to discuss the same questions and topics with different people. Had I not considered both rabinnical and Christian views on Isaiah 53 and discussed at length with both camps, I would not have come to as strong a conclusion that the Christian view of a suffering Messiah was in Isaiah 53. As I mentioned, when I came here, I did not know if there were early Christian writings that clearly considered Jesus not to be in the bread, or how much Calvin relied on Reason v. "foolishness" as his standard for judging Christian teachings.

Have you heard the story of the young traveling Gautama Buddha and his teachers?
 
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