Oh Plotinus, what did you do moving this discussion to OT, we can't possibly reach the standards of the history forum here!
I know, no-one's asked who'd win in a battle between the Romans and the medievals, or even mentioned Zheng He.
But the premise isn't, "interpret the Bible as you please because we don't know who is right." The premise is, "interpret the Bible as you please because everybody is right." Remember, the person that started this discussion was Traitorfish, who originally said, "If an individual truly and sincerely believes that a given form of Christian is imperfect, on what grounds do you oblige him to live, as he sees it, in a state of heresy?" My response was that his personal opinion is irrelevant, because only one interpretation of the Bible can be true. Hence, personal interpretation of the Bible is folly.
All right, I see what you're getting at. I still think this doesn't follow, though.
Remember that Protestants do not - as far as I can tell - think that interpretation of the Bible is simply a matter of people sitting and reading it and coming up with whatever they want. (And I'm taking "Protestants" here to mean biblicists who think the Bible is infallible.) They believe that the Bible must be read with the aid of the Holy Spirit, and that just as God guided the human authors of the Bible to write infallible truth, so too he guides the faithful reader to discern that infallible truth. So it's not a matter of leaving it up to the individual's fallible powers of understanding. One might say that where the Catholic Church holds that there are many interpretations of the Bible, but only one that is trustworthy and true, the Protestants hold exactly the same thing. What they disagree about is the medium by which God shows believers the correct interpretation. For Catholics it's the Catholic Church, while for Protestants it's the action of the Holy Spirit upon the individual reader. And of course the Holy Spirit isn't going to give people variant interpretations any more than the Catholic Church is.
There's surely some discussion at cross-purposes here too. You say that the Catholic interpretation of the Bible is correct, and
given that, there's no sense in interpreting it in any other way. That's fine for anyone who accepts the premise that the Catholic interpretation
is correct. But if people think that the Catholic interpretation is incorrect then what's their motivation for believing it anyway? Is that even possible? Certainly only one interpretation of the Bible can be the correct one, but if someone investigates the matter and it seems to her that the Catholic one is deeply flawed and (say) the Southern Baptist interpretation is the correct one, what's she supposed to do?
This comes back to what I said before. For Catholics, it seems they take it as a basic premise that what the Catholic Church teaches is true, and not only this, that its teaching is incontrovertibly true. It's barely even conceivable that it's not true. From this position, everyone either accepts the truth or deliberately rejects it in favour of error. But of course non-Catholics don't accept this position from the start. They are not deliberately rejecting what is evidently true - they aren't convinced that it's true in the first place or that it has any more legitimacy than any of the other claims to truth that are out there. And until
both sides recognise what the other's starting point is, they'll never even really understand each other's arguments, let alone come to any agreement.
The matter of interpreting the Bible is a bit more complex than I've let on during this discussion; so I will attempt to elaborate here. Yes, Protestant theologians throughout history have grieved themselves to an absurd degree in attempting to reconcile all their beliefs with that of the Bible. But, obviously, they can't all be right. Which is where the matter of an infallible interpreter comes in. People can quibble about the meaning or relation between different passages until the sun collapses, so it's right that we turn to external reason. Obviously God would not be the author of these confusions, because
it's philosophically demonstrable that God loves His creation* and would want us to find the truth. So He must have given some means of interpreting scripture, which would be an infallible Church, which cannot have been corrupted by the flow of history. That's as simple as I can boil it down to without beginning my doctoral thesis in this thread.
Fair enough, but I think any kind of argument like this, based on what we think God would do, is going to be shaky at best. I'll grant that God loves his creation, since I think that something like this must be pretty much part of the definition of God (although I don't think Aquinas' proof of it is so great, but let's not get into this). But I don't see how one could be certain that the fact that God loves his creation means that he would provide us with an infallible means of knowing the truth. Furthermore, even if we did know that God has provided us with an infallible means of knowing the truth, I certainly don't see how we could know that this means must be a church. It could easily be something else - e.g. the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to enable us to read the Bible correctly, as outlined above.
After all, this kind of argument really proves too much. If we could demonstrate with reasonable certainty that God would wish to keep us from error by providing us with a church that issues authoritative and reliable teaching, then it would seem that the same argument should demonstrate that God would wish to keep that church from schism and heresy. Yet we find that the church has fragmented throughout history. Of course you'll say that the Catholic Church has remained steadfast and all that's happened is that heretics and schismatics have chosen to go their own way. But why would God allow that? If the church is such an important part of his plan, why would he allow something like the Reformation to occur, and millions of people in the centuries that follow to be brought up with the wrong interpretation of the Bible?
You might say that that's free will, and these people chose to break with the church against God's wishes. But then that same argument can be turned against the Catholic Church itself. Presumably the ministers of that church have always had free will too. How do we know that they haven't been misusing it too, just like the Protestants?
In short, the argument from God's intentions is either too weak or too strong. Any argument of this kind that seeks to establish that God would set up the Catholic Church for his purposes could just as easily be used to establish that he would allow the Reformation and similar events. Conversely, any attempt to explain things like the Reformation as occurring through human sinful misuse of freedom also undermines the original argument, because it establishes that God doesn't have control over any of this stuff.
Yes, there is the matter of liberal Christians that reject Biblical infallibility. I do have responses to give to them, but once again, this isn't relevant to the debate at hand, since the premise is that the New Testament is reliable. The question is that of interpretation of infallible scripture; not whether it is wise to consider scripture to be infallible.
But I don't want to just ignore this question. On whether the New Testament is reliable, there's a few sources I can bring to your attention:
Combating Biblical Skepticism by Frederick W. Marks
"Can We Trust the Gospels?: Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John" by Mark D. Roberts
"The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?" by F.F. Bruce
"Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus" by Michael J. Wilkins
I don't want to get into this as it is not really relevant to our discussion here. However, I will say that I'm a little surprised that you should cite F.F. Bruce, especially in the context of this discussion! I've had a look at the Marks article and I'm afraid I'm not very impressed by what he says. Some of it is odd. For example, he claims that Tatian wrote a defence of biblical inerrancy. Well, I don't even know that text that is supposed to be referring to - I know of only two books by Tatian, neither of which matches that description. He also seems to think that denying that the apostle Matthew wrote the Gospel of Matthew is an attack on biblical authority, despite the fact that the Gospel as it appears in the Bible is anonymous. The marshalling of second-century witnesses to the authorship of the Gospels seems impressive, but there are serious problems with these witnesses when you look at them in detail, primarily the fact that the way they describe the writing of the Gospels does not conform to what we can tell from looking at the Gospels themselves. E.P. Sanders and Margaret Davies analysed these problems very carefully in
Studying the synoptic Gospels, which is now a fairly old book but still very useful. For example, Papias states that Matthew's Gospel was written in Hebrew, but every indication is that it is an original Greek text. So either Papias wasn't very reliable or he was talking about a different text altogether, in which case he's not a useful witness for what we call Matthew's Gospel. Again, Marks argues against the nigh-universally accepted conclusion of New Testament scholars that Mark's Gospel was written before Matthew's. But I don't think that this stands up to the evidence in the slightest. Overall I just don't see anything remotely convincing in this article. It's really a collection of assertions that biblical scholars are wrong rather than good evidence that they are.
I must add that in my limited experience this is typical of the site Catholic Answers. I have been dreadfully disappointed and often angered by that site. The articles and answers it hosts seem to me very often woefully lacking in both intellectual rigour and pastoral care to the people who post on it. It seems to reflect not what I have always thought of as mainstream, reasonable Catholicism, but something rather different. The fact that the Marks article is explicitly arguing against the views of Catholic bishops, and in favour of something more conservative and less engaged with secular scholarship than the mainstream Catholic Church, reflects this. Again, though, this isn't very relevant to what we're talking about there.
Before I begin to respond to this objection, let me first admit that you're probably more knowledgeable than me in this particular era. That being said, I've read a lot of secondary material that conforms to the positions I've stated here, and so I'll give my best effort to defend myself. Please just keep in mind that if I have to admit I'm wrong at some point, it's not necessarily because my position is erroneous, but because my expertise is for the proceeding millennium of theology.
Of course, and I'm no expert on this either - my interest in patristics is theological/philosophical, not ecclesiastical.
People don't obey their bishops today, either. But the fact that he's arguing that bishops are to be obeyed indicates that they have a position of authority.
Does it, though? Couldn't it equally mean that he
wants them to have authority? At the very least, it indicates that at least some people thought they didn't have authority in some way or for some reason.
As I said, we must be wary of assuming the existence of (what we would recognise as) an episcopal system at all. We mustn't assume that each of these churches even had "a" bishop in the first place - not even one who was struggling to assert his authority. Some may have been governed by a group, with no clear leader (see below on this). Some may have been split into factions, each with its own leader - perhaps all striving to be recognised as the overall leader, or perhaps not. Some may not have had institutional leadership at all, but been governed by itinerant prophets who moved from church to church. Now when Ignatius talks about "the" bishop, perhaps that's because he assumes that these churches have "a" bishop - maybe because that's the situation in his own church and he assumes that they're the same as his. Or perhaps he's well aware of the different situations in the different churches, and he's trying to drag them into line with the situation that he thinks is the correct one. That is, he's trying to impose his view of how churches should be run on them all. Or perhaps he favours particular individuals in these churches not because he is committed to a certain model of church leadership, but because he is committed to certain doctrines or liturgical practices, and he is basically endorsing the leader in each church who most closely matches his views on these matters. In this case, all the stuff about the necessity of obeying the bishop as God's representative is there because Ignatius wants the people to obey the person who has the right understanding of the Christian faith.
All of these are perfectly possible explanations for why Ignatius says what he does about the episcopate. This is why we can't take Ignatius' views as evidence that the ideal he describes was actually in practice.
That there were rival claimants to the episcopate doesn't surprise me. But there were a great deal of early Church Fathers that strongly indicated that bishops had a special ordination based on apostolic succession. For instance:
"And do ye also reverence your bishop as Christ Himself, according as the blessed apostles have enjoined you. He that is within the altar is pure, wherefore also he is obedient to the bishop and presbyters: but he that is without is one that does anything apart from the bishop, the presbyters, and the deacons. Such a person is defiled in his conscience, and is worse than an infidel.
For what is the bishop but one who beyond all others possesses all power and authority, so far as it is possible for a man to possess it, who according to his ability has been made an imitator of the Christ Of God? And what is the presbytery but a sacred assembly, the counselors and assessors of the bishop? And what are the deacons but imitators of the angelic powers, fulfilling a pure and blameless ministry unto him,
as the holy Stephen did to the blessed James, Timothy and Linus to Paul, Anencletus and Clement to Peter? He, therefore, that will not yield obedience to such, must needs be one utterly without God, an impious man who despises Christ,
and depreciates His appointments." Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Trallians, 7 (c. A.D. 110).
Source
Certainly, but again, the fact that Ignatius feels compelled to go on about this at such length is itself evidence that it was, at the very least, not a unanimous view at the time. And perhaps it was only a minority one. Which leads us to:
That's extremely debatable.
This is the nub of the matter. I don't think it's enormously debatable that there was variety in how churches were governed in this period. What may be debatable is how great that variety was. What we do find is that different sources from this period speak of different kinds of leadership. I'll summarise what they seem to indicate.
Paul (50s). Testifies to a sort of charismatic ministry where different people are called to perform different functions in the church according to their abilities (1 Cor. 12). There are people in charge (1 Thess. 5:12-13). But there seems to be no-one in charge of the Eucharist, where he tells people to behave in an orderly way but makes no mention of anyone in charge (1 Corinthians 11). He mentions titles of church leaders only once: bishops and deacons (Philippians 1:1). No indication of what these titles mean or who these people were.
Revelation (probably 90s). Speaks of prophets, male and female (1:10; 2:20-23). Also apostles (2:20). These are probably itinerant, going from church to church and exercising their ministry there, since they are described as being judged and found wanting by certain churches.
Didache (uncertain date, probably late first century). Says a great deal about prophets and apostles. Both groups are itinerant. Prophets can stay for a while in an individual church, but apostles may stay for no more than two days before moving on. Unclear what apostles do, but prophets speak "in the Spirit". Bishops and deacons are also mentioned. They are apparently not itinerant, and they are apparently subordinate to the prophets and apostles and assist them, but it is unclear in what way.
1 Peter (uncertain date, probably late first century). The church is ruled by presbyters (5:1-5).
Pastoral epistles (probably late first century). Bishops and deacons mentioned frequently. A single bishop in each church, assisted by a number of deacons. Clear rules for selecting them. Also mentions of presbyters. Unclear who these are or how they relate to bishops and deacons. Sometimes the presbyters are said to rule the church (1 Tim. 5:17-19), but at other times they are identified with bishops (Tit. 1:5-9).
1 Clement (90s). The church is ruled by presbyters, in the plural. Bishops and deacons also mentioned on occasion, apparently taking "bishop" and "presbyter" to be synonymous.
So some texts, such as Paul's, seem to suggest a situation with almost no formal leadership. Some, such as Revelation, suggest one with a shifting, charismatic ministry of prophets and apostles. Others, such as 1 Peter, suggest a localised ministry of presbyters. Others, such as 1 Clement, also suggest one where the church is ruled by presbyters, but mention bishops and deacons as well in a rather off-hand way. Others, such as the pastorals, are the reverse: they emphasise the bishops and deacons, and are unclear about the presbyters. Others still suggest situations of transitions, so in the Didache we find apostles and prophets in charge but bishops and deacons also present.
Of course a biblicist Protestant would reject the distinction between Paul and the pastorals, so that would simplify things somewhat. However, even if we merge those two groups and suppose that they testify to a single situation of charismatic leadership and bishops/deacons, we still have a wide range of different situations.
Now all of this is clearly very confusing. One possible explanation is that after the initial period suggested by Paul's letters, in which church ministry was basically charismatic, three different systems appeared in different churches. In some, the ministry continued to be charismatic, and it revolved around these prophets and apostles who travelled from church to church. This system is associated especially with the churches of Asia Minor. Other churches developed a presbyterian system, in which the church was governed by a sort of college of presbyters. Presumably these were originally the oldest and wisest among the church, since "presbyter" just means "old man". It is not clear at what point, if at all, this became an official title rather than a description. And other churches still developed the episcopal system, with a single leader - the bishop - and his helpers - the deacons. Again, it's not clear at which point these names developed from descriptions (they just mean "overseer") into official titles. And some churches mixed these different systems, in different ways.
Again, this is just a possible interpretation. On this interpretation, when Ignatius of Antioch - writing in the early years of the second century - tells people to obey their bishop, he's assuming a system like the third one mentioned above. And as I suggested before, perhaps he is deliberately trying to champion that system as opposed to the others.
But it is important to recognise that even after this time, things took a while to settle into the familiar episcopal system. Remember that the Montanists, who were widespread and popular in Asia Minor, seem to have operated a system not unlike that reflected in Revelation and the Didache. They also had apostles and prophets who moved from church to church. Again, in some churches in the second century, administration seems to have been done by people without formal titles. Irenaeus of Lyon may be an example. He apparently ran the church there, but there is no evidence that he held the title of "bishop" or occupied any official post. Finally and most striking, there is the case of Noetus, who got into trouble in Rome for his views about the relation between the Father and the Son. According to Hippolytus, he was brought before the presbyters and his views were examined; they were found wanting, and he was expelled from the church. So it seems that this church was still being run on the presbyterian model, not the episcopal one. And this was Rome at the end of the second century! It is only after this date that we hear of a bishop of Rome actually doing anything at all (as opposed to merely appearing in a list of names) - namely Callistus, who shocked other leading Christians with his relatively liberal attitude to morality, and who may have been locked in some kind of power struggle with Hippolytus. The fact that this power struggle is rather obscure and we don't even know whether Hippolytus regarded himself as bishop of Rome, bishop of somewhere else such as Ostia, or even a bishop at all is again consistent with the view that the organisational structure of the church was still rather fluid even at this time.
Excuse me if I misunderstand your point, but I don't see how this refutes the Catholic belief in apostolic succession. It seems like most of these problems can be explained; for instance, perhaps the lack of a bishop in X area is a result of the fact that it wasn't populated enough to require its own bishop, or because there was a lack of clergy and one bishop had to manage his diocese from a very long ways away.
Certainly it can all be explained. If it couldn't, the Catholic position would be untenable. But all of this does weaken the argument for that position. That is, all of the evidence I've just outlined is consistent with the claim that in all these places there was, in fact, a single bishop in charge. Perhaps those sources that speak of prophets and apostles are describing other groups of leaders who existed alongside the bishop and had a different sort of role; and perhaps they just happen not to mention the bishop. And so on for the others. Perhaps Irenaeus was bishop of Lyon, and this fact just wasn't mentioned in contemporary texts; perhaps the presbyters dealt with Noetus because the bishop was away. Of course all of this is possible. But the problem is that even if this is true, it's hardly supported by the evidence. On the face of it, the evidence points away from the episcopal system existing in the way that the Catholic position suggests. You certainly can't say, as you did, that there is "as much [historical proof] as you can possibly ask for in historical evidence pertaining to the antiquity era" for this. And this is why I think the Catholic argument is very weak at this point. You just don't have the evidence of a clear succession of authoritative and reliable successors to the apostles that you need to argue for your position.
I don't see why the episocal system has to be perfectly in place in every Christianized area in order for the apostolic succession to be considered legitimate. It could've gone horribly awry in some places, even, but so long as the core succession was still valid, it could've been rectified.
Yes, but I don't think you can show even that core succession.
Don't these two possibilities indicate my point, if anything?
I wouldn't have said so. All they indicate, if they are the correct interpretation, is that Ignatius thought that an episcopal system where the bishop has very great authority is the correct one. It doesn't indicate that such a system was in widespread use or indeed existed outside Ignatius' own head.
This is a good objection. I'm going to ask somebody more educated than me about this. My immediate response, however, is that almost all of the early heresies, obviously were heresies because they were unreasonable and contradicted the Judaic premises of Christianity. For instance, apostolic tradition isn't necessary in order to refute Gnosticism. Their belief that matter is evil is immediately contradictory of Genesis 1. And, the notion that Jesus was somehow a dissenter against Jewish theology contradicts basically everything we know against about Him. So the fact that Ignatius and Clement and others survived and went on to preserve the Catholic Church, seems somewhat obvious to me, because only their beliefs were internally consistent.
I don't quite follow what you're arguing here - if you can explain what you mean I'd be grateful.
Of course there were heresies (I'm using this term in the Catholic sense of course) which weren't necessarily unreasonable or anti-Jewish. Ebionism is the obvious example, although we don't know much about it. Montanism is another example; indeed as far as we know the Montanists didn't teach any heretical doctrines at all, but were regarded as heretics (rather than merely schismatics - to the extent that a distinction between these existed at all at the time) because they accepted prophecies as genuine which other people didn't. And the spate of heresies at the end of the second century and start of the third don't seem obviously anti-Jewish or irrational, such as Sabellianism, the views of Hermogenes, and so on.
It's tempting to argue this, but that would be inconsistent with my other arguments. St. Augustine said, "For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church." So no.
OK then! I'll be interested to see what you do say.
uh more like
Catholicism: Jesus and the Apostles knew God best
Protestantism: People living 1500-2000 years after the Bible was written by the Apostles reading a mangled copy of the Bible with parts gouged out and gone through 3+ translations know God as well if not better than Jesus and the Apostles
That's a great strawman, but it's not very conducive to mutual understanding. As I said at the start of this apparently endless post, that's not the Protestant position. Protestants would agree that Jesus and the apostles knew God best. They would say that the apostles wrote what they knew in the New Testament, under the guidance of God. That is where revelation and truth are to be found. After that point, no-one has a monopoly on interpreting it, and no-one is better at interpreting it than anyone else just because they have a pointy hat or indeed a degree in biblical studies. This is because the Holy Spirit is given to all believers and guides them as they read it.
Now this may or may not be true. (Of course I don't think it's true.) But I don't see how it's any dafter than the Catholic position. As I said before, both groups believe that the authoritative interpretation of the Bible comes from God, not from merely human understanding. They differ only on the question of what means, or what medium, God uses to provide that interpretation. Now there may be good reasons for thinking (from a Christian point of view) that one or the other model is the correct one, but you cannot just assume that one's obviously reasonable and mock the other as absurd.
if the Protestant version of it is the truth then Jesus was a snake oil salesman and Christianity is absolutely worthless
as LightSpectra mentions below if the founders claim that there is only one interpretation and they tell the people this interpretation than by default all other interpretations are a perversion of the meaning
Yes, you're still assuming that Protestants ignore "the founders", namely Jesus and the apostles. As I said, Protestants think that what they said is completely authoritative. What they deny is the claim that what
their successors said is authoritative. The Catholic view is that Jesus and the apostles said some stuff, and after this the church retains the rights to it (as it were) and has the authority to explain what they meant. The Protestant view is that Jesus and the apostles speak for themselves, they left us the record of what they said, and that if we need any help in understanding it, God will give it to us.
Divine revelations through dreams? In the New Testament???
Matthew 1:20-24
Matthew 2:12
Matthew 2:13
Matthew 2:19-20
Acts 2:17
Acts 10:10-16
Acts 16:9
Not that it has much relevance to this discussion, but perhaps you ought to read the Bible more carefully before attacking other people for their knowledge of it!
