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Most reliable method of preserving doctrine?
- Thread starter Ortho_Cat
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hedrick said:
Again, I could be mistaken, but it's not Protestant vs. Catholic/Orthodox, it's Sola Scriptura vs. Apostolic Succession. The fact that Sola Scriptura is purely Protestant is incidental. The assumption is the more reliable method will produce less division. So noting that everyone who uses one method disagrees with each other more than those that use the other method shows that one method is more reliable than another.
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But the original question wasn't unity, but doctrinal agreement. That's a different question, with an easier answer. It's not apostolic succession vs sola scripture. Conservative confessional churches can maintain doctrinal agreement with sola scripture, which shows that apostolic succession isn't necessary. And the Anglicans show that apostolic succession isn't sufficient. Doctrinal agreement requires an ecclesiology that places a high priority on doctrinal agreement. There are at least three approaches to this. Confessionalism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy do it somewhat differently, with Catholicism and Orthodoxy closer to each other than to confessionalism.
I also maintain the Catholic doctrinal agreement isn't as tight as either the Protestant confessional churches or the Orthodox. In fact in the current situation, unity is maintain largely because people who disagree with the pope simply roll their eyes, but continue actings as if they were perfectly good Catholics. The conservative confessional churches, and I think the Orthodox, take things more seriously. The liberal confessional churches are more like the Catholic church, although of course we have somewhat different doctrines.
Unity in general is a more complex question, which isn't the one raised in the OP.
[Incidentally, the standard response is "but there's only one Catholic Church and there are multiple Protestant ones." But the only Protestant churches that place a high priority on doctrinal conformance are the confessional ones. And there are only two major confessional traditions, Lutheran and Reformed. I think the Lutheran and Reformed traditions as about as close together in theology as the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Now obviously you can judge churches any way you want. A Catholic can judge every church on whether they're in communion with the Catholic Church if they want to. But in discussions like this, it only makes sense to use doctrinal unity as a way to judge churches where that's a priority. Outside of the confessional churches, "doctrines of man" are not viewed the same way. The priority is on responding personally to Jesus as we meet him in Scripture. Because of conflicts over liberalism, some modern Baptists are inching closer to the confessional approach. But in doing so, they tend to use confessions that have pretty wide acceptance, even among the conservative confessional churches. In the Catholic church, liberalism hasn't resulted in a split, largely because liberals remain in the Church and ignore its doctrine. That's not an approach Protestants are as likely to take. But it's a result of Catholicism placing a higher priority on organizational unity than most of the Protestant tradition. When you value organizational unity higher than theological unity, and consider splits unthinkable, it's not surprising that you end up with organizational unity.
An admirer of Liquori, a Catholic charismatic, and an extreme Catholic feminist are about as close together as a confessional Lutheran, a Pentecostal and a member of the mainline, but the first three all count as Catholics and the last three are part of Protestant divisions. It's not clear to me that the Catholic approach is better. And remember that the three Protestants I mention all accept the Nicene Creed and Protestant distinctives such as justification by faith and sola scripture. They may interpret them differently, but no more differently than you can find in the Catholic Church.
You might find this amusing: a few years ago, the Presbytery of New Brunswick hired a Catholic nun to act as coordinator for local missions work in the city of Trenton. She felt a call to Christian leadership which she could only carry out among Protestants, but also wanted to maintain her Catholic identity. Her order was OK with it. The Church church is theoretically one, but I don't think it's any more unified that the mainstream Protestant Church, by which I mean roughly the Nicene Protestants, which excludes primarily the people you'd think of: JW's, Mormons, Unitarians. If you make us count them as Protestants, then you have to count us as Catholics.]
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tadoflamb
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I started a thread years ago where posed a similar question:
http://www.christianforums.com/t6869557/
IIRC it was a short list.
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It doesn't bother me any....much
http://www.christianforums.com/t7304703-3/#post49232336
4. I take no automatic offense at the labels "Lutheran" or "Protestant." Indeed, I embrace and use them - even aware of their "history." Those registered with the LDS are typically no longer taking offense at "Mormon" (indeed, many of them have embraced it). Catholics (for some reason) occasionally still take offense at "Roman Catholic" but so it goes, that is their choice.
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Of course it was. You would include Jehovah's Witnesses. Why is there any reason to think non-Catholics are a unified group? If you want to count Mormons as Protestants, why not count Protestants as Catholics?
And the number of beliefs specific to Protestants is small by design. The Reformers thought they were restoring Apostolic beliefs. Probably justification by faith and sola scriptura are it. Maybe the priest hood of all believers, though Catholics will accept that, in a somewhat different sense.
Remember that the main complaint was that Catholics had added beliefs and practices that don't trace to the Apostles.
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What exactly do you mean by the bolded, ortho? Did not the EOC also canonize the deuterocanonicals?
Dear sister, the reason i used the deutero's canonized by the RCC is because all of the mentioned groups agree on those. The Orthodox deutero list contain a few more than all of the rest agree on. I tried to find all of the deutero's that everyone shares, and that happens to be the list the the RCC has. Does that make sense?
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For simplicity, we can say those who profess SS and adhere to the standard protestant canon (this excludes Mormons at least).
Sola Scriptura is supposed to be the best norm or rule for establishing doctrine. If this is the case, then surely there should be a majority consensus regarding doctrine among those who profess and use this rule, no?
Sola Scriptura is supposed to be the best norm or rule for establishing doctrine. If this is the case, then surely there should be a majority consensus regarding doctrine among those who profess and use this rule, no?
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Ditto.
I am a Christian, I follow Jesus Christ...just because I don't subscribe to RCC beliefs does not make me a protestant.
Fair enough, adhering to the protestant label isn't a requirement. Just those Christians who follow the standard protestant canon and profess SS.
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What about core practices like baptism and communion? Surely there should be agreement on those at least...
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Originally Posted by ortho_catFair enough, adhering to the protestant label isn't a requirement. Just those Christians who follow the standard protestant canon and profess SS.
Is that a trick question?
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No, but it seems for some reason unbeknownst to me, I am labelled a protestant simply for not conforming to the RCC.
I prefer the Christian tag, that's all.
Would you mind voting on my poll thread thread concerning my patron saint, W. Tyndale? Thanks
http://www.christianforums.com/t7495160/#post55593096
Tyndale and defying the Pope
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The OP asks about preserving doctrine. He gives us the options of apostolic succession and sola scriptura. At the start, I note that we are only discussing churches and church groups that accept the Nicene Creed and the Apostle's Creed, or the doctrines contained within them. This is our working definition of Christainity.
APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION
The EO clearly have the answer. Their form of apostolic succession and councils has best at preserving doctrine unchanged from the beginning.
It is a bit interesting to consider the Roman Catholic Church to be unifed in doctrine, now or ever. The same is the case for Anglicans. These wide tents contain and allow much diversity in theological opinion (as do the EO). However there are also wide doctrinal differences within the churches.
Lutherans are reasonably considered as almost AS churches by the OP. Well, they are confressional churches that maintain that their view of doctrine is true to the doctrines of the apostles. This is simply another version of apostolic succession, depending on physical succession or not, depending on who you talk to. But IMHO the doctrinal differences within a confessional church are not as wide as within Anglican or Roman Catholic churches. BTW, Methodists also sometimes care about physcial AS, sometiomes not. They too are a confessional church very close in doctrines to the apostolic churches, as one would expect.
Reformed churches also have a relatively tight view of unchanging doctrine. They do not claim phyiscal apostolic succession.
My BOTTOM line is that the apostolic AND the confessional churches are almost identical in dogma (Nicea and Apostles Creed for all). There are critical doctrinal differences (original sin, TULIP and papal supremacy stand out).
So, yes there are differences in doctrine. But is this because the original doctrine was not preserved? For example, why is there the difference regarding orginal sin? Why is there the difference regarding the role of free will? This is not a matter of preservation of doctrine. These doctrinal issues have arguably been there since the beginning. These differences were certainly there in the time of Augustine.
With regard to scripture, we all hold scripture with high reverance. IMHO, the Sola scriptura of Luther is greatly misunderstood. In today's world, he would fit in well within the apostolic and confessional churches, rather than those who have spouted such nonsense in his name and in the name of his view of scripture. Luther was an Augustine monk, very confortable with Catholic doctrine. What he was appalled at was the errors and perversion of the leadership of the Church at the time.
A FINAL NOTE ON APOSTOLIC CHURCHES
Is preservation of doctrine really a reasonable goal? I would think that we would find the view of forgiveness of the early Christians to be quite foreign. Our understanding of this doctrine developed. This also true for the natures of Christ and of the Trinity itself. And, yes even the doctrine of Grace developed, our rather ourn understanding developed. The Truth can never change, but our understanding through God's revelation can.
========================================
WHAT OF THE NON-AS CHURCHES, THE NON-CONFESSIONAL CHURCHES?
I am told that preservation of doctrine is not important. We are searching to follow Jesus not preserve understandings of the 1st century.
After all, man could have been incomplete is his understanding of doctrine in 100 or 200 or even at Nicea. However, here on this board, we take Nicea for granted. The "other" Christian churches by definition accept Nicea.
Perhaps these groups have additional doctrines. They might think that the solas of the Reformation are not held by others.
With regard to scripture, there are several doctrines that seem to be added and held by most of these church group. WARNNG: my biases will now show.
A) Scripture is the only source of Truth.
B) Scripture speaks for itself. This suggests that all interpretation are equal and that no interpretation is necessay. It is difficult to have meaningful discussions on this basis.
C) Scripture is inerrant in all that it says.
D) Rules of the NT are not in any way culture-bound. All are want for us today.
E) There is an index somewhere of 66 volumes of scripture, clearly translated into the vernacular, with no addition or changes in interpretation form the words gioven by God. I apologize for the excess in this stement, but for me, the American evangelical view of scripture is more Muslim than Christian,
APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION
The EO clearly have the answer. Their form of apostolic succession and councils has best at preserving doctrine unchanged from the beginning.
It is a bit interesting to consider the Roman Catholic Church to be unifed in doctrine, now or ever. The same is the case for Anglicans. These wide tents contain and allow much diversity in theological opinion (as do the EO). However there are also wide doctrinal differences within the churches.
Lutherans are reasonably considered as almost AS churches by the OP. Well, they are confressional churches that maintain that their view of doctrine is true to the doctrines of the apostles. This is simply another version of apostolic succession, depending on physical succession or not, depending on who you talk to. But IMHO the doctrinal differences within a confessional church are not as wide as within Anglican or Roman Catholic churches. BTW, Methodists also sometimes care about physcial AS, sometiomes not. They too are a confessional church very close in doctrines to the apostolic churches, as one would expect.
Reformed churches also have a relatively tight view of unchanging doctrine. They do not claim phyiscal apostolic succession.
My BOTTOM line is that the apostolic AND the confessional churches are almost identical in dogma (Nicea and Apostles Creed for all). There are critical doctrinal differences (original sin, TULIP and papal supremacy stand out).
So, yes there are differences in doctrine. But is this because the original doctrine was not preserved? For example, why is there the difference regarding orginal sin? Why is there the difference regarding the role of free will? This is not a matter of preservation of doctrine. These doctrinal issues have arguably been there since the beginning. These differences were certainly there in the time of Augustine.
With regard to scripture, we all hold scripture with high reverance. IMHO, the Sola scriptura of Luther is greatly misunderstood. In today's world, he would fit in well within the apostolic and confessional churches, rather than those who have spouted such nonsense in his name and in the name of his view of scripture. Luther was an Augustine monk, very confortable with Catholic doctrine. What he was appalled at was the errors and perversion of the leadership of the Church at the time.
A FINAL NOTE ON APOSTOLIC CHURCHES
Is preservation of doctrine really a reasonable goal? I would think that we would find the view of forgiveness of the early Christians to be quite foreign. Our understanding of this doctrine developed. This also true for the natures of Christ and of the Trinity itself. And, yes even the doctrine of Grace developed, our rather ourn understanding developed. The Truth can never change, but our understanding through God's revelation can.
========================================
WHAT OF THE NON-AS CHURCHES, THE NON-CONFESSIONAL CHURCHES?
I am told that preservation of doctrine is not important. We are searching to follow Jesus not preserve understandings of the 1st century.
After all, man could have been incomplete is his understanding of doctrine in 100 or 200 or even at Nicea. However, here on this board, we take Nicea for granted. The "other" Christian churches by definition accept Nicea.
Perhaps these groups have additional doctrines. They might think that the solas of the Reformation are not held by others.
With regard to scripture, there are several doctrines that seem to be added and held by most of these church group. WARNNG: my biases will now show.
A) Scripture is the only source of Truth.
B) Scripture speaks for itself. This suggests that all interpretation are equal and that no interpretation is necessay. It is difficult to have meaningful discussions on this basis.
C) Scripture is inerrant in all that it says.
D) Rules of the NT are not in any way culture-bound. All are want for us today.
E) There is an index somewhere of 66 volumes of scripture, clearly translated into the vernacular, with no addition or changes in interpretation form the words gioven by God. I apologize for the excess in this stement, but for me, the American evangelical view of scripture is more Muslim than Christian,
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List as AS churches are EO, RCC, OO and Anglicans. Then there are the Protestants, those who follow the doctrines and traditions of Christ as put together by those of the Protestant Reformation.
If you are not Protestant, then fine.
Perhaps you can help us understand better. What doctrines do you hold that are different from those held by the churches of the Refiormation (Reformed, Lutheran and anabaptist)?
If you are not Protestant, then fine.
Perhaps you can help us understand better. What doctrines do you hold that are different from those held by the churches of the Refiormation (Reformed, Lutheran and anabaptist)?
No, but it seems for some reason unbeknownst to me, I am labelled a protestant simply for not conforming to the RCC.
I prefer the Christian tag, that's all.
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