Skala, I can see that you are 100% sincere in what you're saying. I don't question that your motives are pure and pious. I get it. I was there. I don't know whether you fall into a particular Reformed denomination (mine was OPC) but I, too, wanted to purely extract only what author intended, to sweep away all the clutter and distractions I'd been told were added to the "pure faith" by the Church over time. And make no mistake, I still belive clutter and distractions were added. Some are still there, in Orthodoxy as much as anywhere.
Years ago, I (as a good, staunch Calvinist) was asked by a grieving Catholic family member to read a passage at a great aunt's funeral. I didn't want to turn them down, so I figured "Even if it's a Mass, at least I'll be reading the Scriptures." I showed up the next morning to find that the passage was from the Wisdom of Solomon. Oh boy. Well, too late to turn back in front of a church packed with grieving family, I read it. Then that night read the entire book on my tiny cell phone screen. And said "why on earth isn't this part of Scripture?" More than a year later I finally had to conclude "I dont' accept this book purely because my Protestant TRADITION tells me not to."
My Reformed pastor once told me that RCC and EO "cancel each other out" because they are just "dueling traditions" showing the need to "just read the Bible." I came to see that mine was actually just a third...yours a fourth...the Baptists a fifth (and 6th, 7th, 8th...1001st...
)
A couple comments for you:
To answer all of your questions above:
Honest to goodness: exegesis
My goal when I'm reading the Bible is to extract what the author intended me to. I want to walk away with the conclusion the author intended for me.
The author didn't intend anything
for you or for me. The author intended the message
for the church. Here's the key distinction, brother. It wasn't written to a bunch of individuals who then assemble to become the Church. It was written to the Church, who includes within herself a bunch of individuals. So off the bat, interpreting Scripture is an act that must happen
within the Church. And the Reformed teach this very thing...they just have a circular method by which "the Church" becomes "those who interpret Scripture the way I do." That aside, however, the message is never aimed at me personally.
And it can't be denied that the reformers and puritans were some of the best exegetes in our history.
Depends on how you define it. Best educated in matters of grammatical-historical interpretation, maybe? Sharpest logicians? Maybe. But if they came to wrong conclusions (which they did, by the standards of Christian doctrine up until...well, them basically) then they were excellent scholars and misguided exegetes.
True, but ultimately we're trusting God to guide his church and establish his canon through those men, right?
Bingo. They didn't make the canon. They recognized and received it. Why can't we also trust God to guide his church and establish doctrine and liturgy also through those same men?
Not necessarily true if your goal is exegesis. Which mine is. So my defense is exegesis (drawing out the intended meaning of the text). What is the EO's goal? it can't be exegesis because you guys seem to put a lot of stock in tradition, almost to be equal with scripture. This is a disagreement that I don't see us reconciling. I fully agree with the reformers that scripture alone is the final authority on matters of faith and practice.
In other words, my goal can't be exegesis because I don't reach your conclusions. And you're right, there is no reconciliation. When I realized this, I wrestled for a good long while before deciding I had to move. The goal for the EO, in reading Scripture and everything, is to draw closer to God and to purify myself of error and sinful passion. The reading of Scripture is sacramental...not in the formal sense of "one out of seven" (which Orthodoxy really only adopted late in history, mainly following the Catholic numbering, and I'm not a fan of it)...but in the sense that one actually encounters Christ in and through Scripture. But not when it's wrested from its context and read as a book of facts...when it's read within the Body of Christ. Which is why we put so much stock in Tradition. It forms the stream within which we swim as we read and apply Scripture. No, the opinions of the men who first read it are not extra books of Scripture. They certainly never thought they were. But they are the continuing voice of our ancestors guiding us as we read the very books they received from their own ancestors, back to the source.
I also agree with the reformers "semper reformanda" which means "always reforming". We should always be checking ourself to see if we have strayed from the path. But in order to do so, you have to establish what that standard is, and to us, that is the Bible. hence sola scriptura. It i sthe standard that we are constantly checking ot see if we match up with it.
If one assigns tradition as an authority, he cannot "semper reformanda" can he? Because if tradition is authority, then your current situation might have become tradition. So there is no objective unchanging standard to measure up against.
If only it were that simple. To elaborate I'd say your standard is the early Church's tradition of the New Testament, with the Protestant tradition of the Old Testament, interpreted according to the Grammatical-Historical method, after presupposing a particular definition of the Church that frees you from the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
What I believe you're missing, however sincerely, is that your own "current situation" has, in fact, become tradition.
That is not to say there were not also synergists in church history
,
The vast majority, let's be clear.
*** Let me conclude by asking one question. Are you willing to admit that "sola scriptura" is, itself, a tradition? ***
