I find that people often appeal to patristics as a backup to support something not clearly taught in scripture.
Indeed but there are a number of things not clearly taught in Scripture, or not taught at all, that we are doctrinally reliant upon. For example, the 27 book New Testament canon.
On this important subject, for example, all we know from Scripture is that according to St. Peter, in his second epistle, the epistles of St. Paul are important and can be misinterpreted if read out of context, and the first patriarch of Antioch and of Rome goes on to explain in the same epistle the importance of the Church in interpretation by explaining how no prophecy is of any private interpretation, but we don’t get a complete list of the Pauline epistles, and that the Acts of the Apostles follows from the Gospel According to Luke (hence some theologians like to refer to both works as Luke-Acts.
Likewise the structure of the Eucharistic Liturgy or Mass, the system of thrice-daily prayers (Vespers, Compline, Matins) and the additional services which are commonly celebrated with them (Nocturns or the Midnight Office, Lauds and the Hours) and the ways of compressing them (Morning and Evening Prayer), the lectionaries used for reading Scripture, the Christian calendar (which most churches follow, with the exception of some denominations like the Covenanting Presbyterians which very strictly follow the ”regulative principle of worship” (to an extent which itself exceeds any Scriptural mandate, for example, St. Paul does not say that only the Psalms may be sung, rather he uses the phrase “Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” which clearly leaves room for the Evangelical Canticles in Luke chapter 1 and other Scriptural canticles such as the Songs of the Suffering Servant, the Canticle of the Three Children (both the short initial canticle and the longer subsequent canticle found in the Septuagint, Benedicite Omni Opera), the hymn of Habakuk, and other canticles, and also various hymns, both ancient and modern, for instance, the Trisagion, Te Deum Laudamus, the Creed itself (traditionally always sung, indeed Bach’s
Mass in B Minor is dominated by a very long and very beautiful setting of the Nicene Creed, with the other hymns such as the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei also being exquisite but also comparatively shorter), and later hymns such as various Orthodox akathists and troparia, the lovely chorales of the likes of Luther and Wesley and Sullivan (for instance, “Christ Our Lord Is Risen Today” and “Nearer My God to Thee”) and more recent settings of ancient hymns such as the lovely settings of the Cherubic Hymn by Bortniansky, Chesnokov and Rachmaninoff. And the early church, in allowing such hymns, established a precedent, part of Holy Tradition, the Apostolic and Patristic Kerygma, a Magisterial point of referenence, that legitimizes such hymns.
The majority of errors I see on ChristianForums are the result of people who claim to reject Holy Tradition insisting that they alone (where “they” is in some cases the individual themselves, or in other cases their denomination) have interpreted Scripture correctly, that no other interpretations are valid, that their interpretation is the only obvious interpretation, that to disagree with them is to disagree with Scripture, and the fact that no one else has taught anything like their doctrine in the 1,993 years since the descent of the Holy Spirit in the Cenacle is either (a) irrelevant, (b) not true due to some conspiracy involving the Pope, the Jesuits, and sometimes Freemasons, (c) not true due to the autonomous existence of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrians and the traditional Anglicans, Lutherans and other liturgical Protestants as being independent of Rome being another falsehood maintained by another sinister conspiracy involving the Pope, the Jesuits and/or the Freemasons, or (d) any combination of a, b, and c.
Now, I do on occasion also encounter those who insist on strange doctrines based on eisegetical misinterpretation of the Early Church Fathers. This is less common in the general areas of Christian Fathers but more common among divergent groups within denominations, for example, those who try to deny traditional Eastern Orthodox eschatology and other doctrines such as Dr. David Bentley Hart (who has sadly gone from being a spectacular contender for the faith against Richard Dawkins to being a crypto-Marcionite), and those in the various traditional or formerly traditional denominations who want to change (or in some cases, such as the United Methodist Church, wanted to change and were successful in changing, the doctrine of the church on human sexuality away from the Scriptural-Patristic norm and to the worldly embrace of pride, promiscuity and perversion). This also extends to eisegetical quotations from or outright misquotation of not only the early church fathers but also more recent denominational leaders, for example in the case of the UMC, the author of a heterodox (by CF standards) blog called “Hacking Christianity” (an apt name) quoted Wesley out of context in order to make the claim that John Wesley thought that creeds were “weeksauce” (that is to say, he was trying to make an anti-creedal statement, but his quotation of Wesley was eisegetical and ignored historical context, including the fact the praise John Wesley showered upon the 1662 Anglican Book of Common Prayer, which includes the Nicene and Apostles’ Creed, and which he used as the basis for his own “Sunday Service Book for the Methodists in North America” which was an abbreviated version (whether or not he desired the abbreviations or if they were necessary for space constraints I can’t say; the latter included the Apostles’ Creed as part of all services).
Now in cases where its a denominational belief, it is not necessarily pride but indoctrination, although pride can be a component, since some sectarian groups will cultivate passions such as pride as a means of controlling the loyalty of their members, including those on the fringes of Christianity (such as the Unitarian Universalists; I don’t see much evidence of humility in recent UUA preaching) with many stroking the egos of members based on the idea that they’re an elite which is holier and more pure than everyone else. In cases where the anomalous belief is individual, it usually involves pride and some measure of what we Orthodox call prelest, that is to say, spiritual delusion.
