So the church fathers, including ten church councils, wrote next to nothing about the person of the Holy Spirit. The Eastern Orthodox, according to a RCC priest and philosophy professor friend of mine, has greatly exceeded knowledge of the HS over and above RCC.
That is the type of knowledge to which I m referring. It is non-canonical. Just as the Church Fathers held the teaching of those called by God to write the scriptures (NT canon) to be higher than the didache, or writings of the Church Fathers.
So we progress in our knowledge, but do we want to say that God stopped nuancing that knowledge with fall of the Roman Empire? I am not a creedal Christian because I read and study the history. These were great historical debates but many of the church fathers called other church fathers, "heretics." They all had some good exegetical practice and some suspect or onerous practice.
Trent was not a council that even appear to seek knowledge but rather change the foundational authority, much the way the masserites destroyed some of the key messianic prophecies in the early 2nd century.
I am suspect of men, and especially groups of politicians calling themselves clergy.
That said. I don't despise what they write due to their character, but due to its poor explanatory power of the scriptural evidence.
Perhaps you don't get a chance to evangelize much, but this is the common view in the Western world for 100 years +
It is called pelagianism
Gandhi is in heaven, with Bhuddha, and other "good" people even though they rejected Christ by name.
Now we are getting to what is important. Our transformation into Christ's likeness is so we can continue the work of advancing the kingdom of God. We are ambassadors representing him, if we are obedient and disciplined in working with the HS on our sanctification we will have evidence of our salvation (James 2)
So here James clearly is not refuting Paul who says in Romans 10, "If you confess Jesus Christ as Lord and believe in your heart, you will be saved."
Demons don't "trust," Jesus!
Trust, not believe in something you can't prove, is the first-century view of faith.
So we don't want to conflate trust in Jesus as savior and invitation for him to be Lord of our life, with demonic knowledge that Jesus exists. That makes a strawman of the semi-Augustinian, and Augustinian views of salvation.
As for. Mary's ever-virgin.
Against Helvidius.
This tract appeared about a.d. 383. The question which gave occasion to it was whether the Mother of our Lord remained a Virgin after His birth. Helvidiusmaintained that the mention in the
Gospels of the sisters and brethren of ourLord was
proof that the Blessed Virgin had subsequent issue, and he supported his opinion by the writings of
Tertullian and Victorinus. The outcome of his views was that
virginity was ranked below matrimony. Jerome vigorously takes the other side, and tries to prove that the sisters and brethren spoken of, were either children of Joseph by a former marriage, or first cousins, children of the sister of the Virgin. A detailed account of the controversy will be found in Farrar'sEarly Days of
Christianity, pp. 124 sq. When Jerome wrote this treatise both he and Helvidius were at
Rome, and Damasus was Pope. The only contemporary notice preserved of Helvidius is that by Jerome in the following pages.
Jerome maintains against Helvidius three propositions:—
1st. That Joseph was only putatively, not really, the husband of Mary.
2d. That the brethren of the Lord were his cousins, not his own brethren.
3d. That
virginity is better than the married state.
Notice how Jerome argues?
From the consequences of virginity being a higher state than matrimony.(fallacy of consequences)
He also suggest brothers are cousins (argument from ignorance) we have no trouble discerning the relations between cousins or various relations in the rest of the gospels.
All of a sudden we have to believe those same authors are NOT able to describe the difference.
Where is the evidence in scripture that Joseph was married before ? (Another argument from ignorance)
These types of rhetorical devices abound in church father's writings, not to mention the magisterium's, or popes. They are fallacious, making them NOT POSSIBLY TRUE (the arguments that is, the propositions could be true).
When I look at some the heretical things Calvin unwittingly wrote or Luther, I'm stunned. But when I recognize that they are just fallible men as I am, it becomes clearer.
My job is to maximize the number of true beliefs I have about the external world, including God, his purpose, how I can be in relationship with him, how I can be transformed into Christ likeness so I can love people the way he did.
Mary has nothing to do with that process whatsoever, in my view, but that could be a false belief on my part.
"5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man[
a] Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time." (1 Tim. 2:5,6)
"Therefore, brothers,[
c] since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our heartssprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." (Hebrews 10:19-22)
Where does Mary play a role? I'm already able to enter the Holy of Holies (God's presence) due to Christ's sacrifice, what could Mary add to the second person of the Trinity's sacrificial death? His sacrifice is sufficient. Nothing else needed. No coredemtrix.
"
"She renounced her mother's rights for the salvation of mankind and, as far as it depended on her, offered her Son to placate divine justice; so we may say that with Christ she redeemed mankind."(pope Benedict XV 1922)
So if she didn't renounce those rights Jesus would have gone home and not done the will of his father?
This is the type of sloppy thinking that runs through the church's history, whether it be early or late, RC! Protestant, EO, SO, GO.
The scriptures mean everything. At 18 years old I was anxious to see how the Early church interpreted these things. But upon doing the research was horrified to see the naive exegetical fallacies by people like Origin and Augustine, and the propaganda and vitriol by Turtulian. If it weren't for ignatius, Papius, Clement, and Polycarp, I would have thrown all the church fathers in the trash.
I am free to interact and learn how they learned of certain doctrines, and their development. But if they arose through fallacy and were propped up through papal political power rather than being the best explanation of what the God-breathed author intended his audience to understand then
I am standing in the direct way of God's communication with man!
I take that seriously.
I think a large number of church leaders will suffer loss in the bema seat judgement due to carelessly trampling underfoot the revelations given by God in the scriptures.
My goal is to avoid that charge at all cost.
