Dave Armstrong's Blog, page 46

Dialogue With a Calvinist on Paul's Apostolic Calling and Infallible (?) Church Authority (and the "Dichotomous" Protestant Tendency of Thought)

 John Calvin
This is an exchange I had today with Neil Shenvi, a chemist; in a thread on my friend Alan Sides' Facebook page. Neil's words will be in blue.
* * * * *
. . . I haven't actually been arguing for Sola Scriptura, as I commented to Heather. In fact, it is completely compatible with my argument to claim that there are also traditions passed on by the apostles that are in some way authoritative. What I am asking is whether the words of God are given ultimate authority over everything else, including the practice of the church. Do the church, its traditions, our theology and even the apostles themselves have to submit to God's words or not? Is it the ultimate authority? That is the question.

We've discussed how in Gal. 1:8-9 Paul tells the Galatians to reject his own teaching if it departs from the words of God that he had preached to them. And precisely the same argument applies even if he was speaking only to the judaizers; he was telling clearly telling someone to reject his teaching if it strayed from God's word. Paul wrote:

"But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God's curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God's curse!" (Gal. 1:8-9)

We could also consider how Paul rebukes Peter in Antioch because he 'stood condemned' for 'not acting in line with the truth of the gospel.' Here Paul rebukes a fellow apostle for not conforming his practice to God's word. Again, God's word has authority over even the apostles:

"When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group... When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? "We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. " Gal 2:11-16
When rebuking his people for following pagan religious practices, God told his people through Isaiah:

"To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn." Is. 8:20

Finally, Jesus condemned the religious leaders of his day, saying "You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men....Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that." (Mark 7:8,13)
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I said that my questions were compatible with the idea that tradition is also in some sense authoritative. In fact, the traditional Protestant definition of Sola Scriptura has never held that the Bible is the only authority that exists, but that it is the only infallible and ultimate authority the exists. Anyway, as I said, my point is that the argument does not depend on the rejection of all other authority, it simply asks whether Paul held his apostolic authority under the authority of God's words and commanded the Galatians to do the same. . . .

The real question then seems to be whether Paul received his apostleship from Jesus himself directly or from the other apostles. Here, I again think Galatians is crucial. Paul writes:

"Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead" - Gal. 1:1

"I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ." - Gal. 1:11-12

Or consider:
"Through him [Jesus] and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith." - Rom. 1:5
 "Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? " - 1 Cor. 9:1

* * *  

It is incorrect to regard St. Paul as some kind of spiritual "lone ranger," on his own with no particular ecclesiastical allegiance, since he was commissioned by Jesus Himself as an Apostle. In his very conversion experience, Jesus informed Paul that he would be told what to do (Acts 9:6; cf. 9:17). He went to see St. Peter in Jerusalem for fifteen days in order to be confirmed in his calling (Galatians 1:18), and fourteen years later was commissioned by Peter, James, and John (Galatians 2:1-2,9). He was also sent out by the Church at Antioch (Acts 13:1-4), which was in contact with the Church at Jerusalem (Acts 11:19-27). Later on, Paul reported back to Antioch (Acts 14:26-28).

Acts 15:2 states: ". . . Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question." The next verse refers to Paul and Barnabas "being sent on their way by the church." Paul did what he was told to do by the Jerusalem Council (where he played no huge role), and Paul and Barnabas were sent off, or commissioned by the council (15:22-27), and shared its binding teachings in their missionary journeys: ". . . delivered to them for observance the decisions which had been reached by the apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem" (Acts 16:4).   The Jerusalem Council certainly regarded its teachings as infallible, and guided by the Holy Spirit Himself. The records we have of it don't even record much discussion about biblical prooftexts, and the main issue was circumcision (where there is a lot of Scripture to draw from). Paul accepted its authority and proclaimed its teachings (Acts 16:4).
Furthermore, Paul appears to be passing on his office to Timothy (1 Tim 6:20; 2 Tim 1:6,13-14; 2 Tim 4:1-6), and tells him to pass his office along, in turn (2 Tim 2:1-2) which would be another indication of apostolic succession in the Bible.
The attempt to pretend that St. Paul was somehow on his own, disconnected to the institutional Church, has always failed, as unbiblical. Protestant frown upon institutions, but we Catholics rather like the Church that Jesus Christ set up, initially led by St. Peter. David, if you agree that Paul was commissioned as an apostle "by Jesus Himself" then does he derive his apostleship from Jesus or from Peter? Both. Why do you feel compelled to make a choice? It's the usual Protestant "either/or" dichotomous mentality. Calvin does the same thing repeatedly. And actually, why do you say that "fourteen years later was commissioned by Peter, James, and John (Galatians 2:1-2,9)"? But you leave out the intervening verses where Paul claims that these men "added nothing to his message" and that their high esteem "makes no difference" to Paul or to God. There is also the interesting incident in Gal. 2 where Paul rebukes Peter "to his face" for his "hypocriosy" because he was "not walking in line with the gospel" (Gal. 2:11-15). So what? Peter was a hypocrite in that instance, and so Paul rebuked him. They had no differences theologically. Popes have been rebuked throughout history (e.g., by St. Catherine of Siena, St. Dominic, St. Francis). It doesn't follow that they have no authority. Jesus rebuked and excoriated the Pharisees, but He told His followers to follow their teaching, even though they acted like hypocrites ((Matt 23:2 ff.).  
You're trying to set the Bible against the Church, which is typical Protestant methodology, and ultra-unbiblical. The Bible never does that. I've already given the example of the Jerusalem Council, which plainly shows the infallibility of the Church.

The Bible repeatedly teaches that the Church is indefectible (see my paper on that); therefore, the hypothetical of rejecting the (one true, historic) Church, as supposedly going against the Bible, is impossible according to the Bible. It is not a situation that would ever come up, because of God's promised protection.

What the Bible says is to reject those who cause divisions, which is the very essence of the onset of Protestantism: schism, sectarianism, and division. It is Protestantism that departed from the historic Church, which is indefectible and infallible (see also 1 Tim 3:15).

But again, none of this has direct relevance to the question of whether, in Gal. 1:8-9, Paul says that his authority is derived from preaching the words of God and is to be rejected if he strays from it. Here are the three questions I asked Alan:

1. Do you agree that Paul told the Galatians that his own apostolic authority was derived from preaching God's words and was to be rejected if he departed from God's words (1:8-9)?
 2. Do you agree that the Bible contains God's words?
 3. Do you agree that the current church then still derives its authority from God's words and is to be rejected if it departs from it? Or is the current church's authority different from Paul's?

How would you answer these questions? . . .
Right now, my main questions involve Gal. 1:8-9 and the nature of apostolic authority. . . . they underlie all subsequent questions since they determine whether or not all teachings of any church have to be tested against the words of God. Is the church under the authority of God's words or not? 
The one true Church is and always will be in harmony with God's inspired revelation, the Bible; yes. Thus, we reject any form of Protestantism, because they fail this test. It's not a matter of one thing being "under" the other. All of that is the invention of the 16th century and the biblically bankrupt and meaningless notion of sola Scriptura. The Bible presents Scripture-Tradition-Church as a "three-legged stool": the rule of faith. All are in harmony; all work together.
 


And is any church and any teacher to be rejected who strays from God's words, as Paul commands? That is the fundamental issue.
Sure; this is why we reject any form of Protestantism, because all fail the test of allegiance to God's Word in Holy Scripture, and the historical pedigree that the fathers always taught was necessary. Every heretic in the history of the world thumbed their nose at the institutional Church and went by Scripture alone. It is the heretical worldview to do so, precisely because they know they can't prove that their views were passed down through history in an unbroken succession.

Therefore, heresies and Protestantism either had to play games with history in order to pretend that it fits with their views, or ignore it altogether.

Dave, where does Paul say that he derived his apostleship in any way from Pete or the other apostles? 

I gave several passages showing that Paul was under Church authority, in various ways. Of course, all authority ultimately comes from God (Paul was called before he was born: Gal 1:15). It is the pitting of the ultimate source against the secondary, human source (the Church) which is the problem in your approach and that of Protestantism in general. You guys don't like human, institutional authority and don't have enough faith to believe that God can and does preserve it, so you try to undermine it by fallacious arguments, as presently.

No doubt you aren't even aware that you are doing it. To do this is automatic in Protestantism; it's like breathing. It's like the fish that doesn't know it's in water. It all comes from the rejection of the infallibility of the Church (which is one thing that sola Scriptura always entails).

Aren't the whole first two chapters of Galatians a very exhaustive and emphatic statement by that he did not receive the gospel he preached "from any man, nor by the agency of men"? "Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead" (Gal. 1:1) "I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ." (Gal. 1:11-12). How can it be "both" when Paul says "No, not from man or through man. Only from Jesus himself."

Anyway, as I said, I'm more interested in those three questions, and I'm curious how you'd answer them.

In Galatians 1-2 Paul is referring to his initial conversion. But even then God made sure there was someone else around, to urge him to get baptized (Ananias: Acts 22:12-16). He received the revelation initially and then sought to have it confirmed by Church authority (Gal 2:1-2); then his authority was accepted or verified by James, Peter, and John (Gal 2:9). So we see that the Bible doesn't pit the divine call directly from God, against Church authority, as you do. You do it because it is Protestant man-made tradition to do so; period, and because the Protestant has to always undermine the authority of the Church, and the Catholic Church, in order to bolster his own anti-system, that was set up against the historic Church in the first place.

We believe in faith that the Church is infallible and indefectible, based on many biblical indications. It is theoretically possible (speaking in terms of philosophy or epistemology) that the Church could stray and have to be rejected, but the Bible rules that out. We believe in faith that it has not and will not.

Protestants don't have enough faith to believe that God could preserve an infallible Church, even though they can muster up even more faith than that, which is required to believe in an infallible Bible written by a bunch of sinners and hypocrites.

We simply have more faith than you guys do. It's a supernatural gift. We believe that the authoritative Church is also a key part of God's plan to save the souls of men. We follow the model of the Jerusalem Council, whereas you guys reject that or ignore it, because it doesn't fit in with the man-made tradition of Protestantism and a supposedly non-infallible Church.


Dave, this is the key issue. I asked: "Is the church under the authority of God's words or not?"

Your answer was: "yes." But then just one sentence later, you wrote: "It's not a matter of one thing being "under" the other."

Exactly. You are not really saying "yes". You are trying to say "both." But that is not what Paul is saying in Gal. 1:8-9. He says that he -even as an apostle- is to be rejected if he strays from God's word. If he strays from God's words then he is "accursed" and he commands the Galatians to reject him. Why would he issue such a command unless his own authority -apostle though he was- is derivative from God's words? It's "under" the authority of the Bible in the sense that it will not contradict what is in the Bible. It is not "under" it in terms of the authority of the Bible being intrinsically superior to the authority of the Church. The Bible presents both and never implies that one is "higher" than the other.

It's a matter of definition and meaning. I know what you are driving at, because I used to believe the same thing myself. But I also have to show where your thinking is unbiblical, and must dispute the premises that underlie your questions. The whole thing is a far more complex matter than Protestants usually comprehend, because they have been taught only one way of looking at things: sola Scriptura and anti-institutionalism, and anti-Catholicism (either subtle or more pernicious opposition). What is straying from God's word is the very notion of denominationalism, which is always considered an outrage in the NT; the rejection of apostolic succession, and of, e.g., bishops (plainly present in the NT), or belief in a non-literal Eucharist, or a baptism that doesn't regenerate, or sola Scriptura or faith alone (separation of justification and sanctification): all the host of unbiblical teachings that are in Protestantism. That's why I left the system; wanting to follow biblical teachings more closely, traditional moral teachings, and the historic Christian Church.   

Dave, are are claiming that Paul's statement in Gal. 1:8-9 is purely hypothetical? In other words, is he not actually telling the Galatians that they should test his words against the words of God because his words and the words of God will never conflict?

If so, you should consider that Paul writes "if we or an angel from heaven... If anyone is preaching a gospel other than what you accepted." Note that Paul is putting himself in the same class as "an angel from heaven" or "anyone" in terms of his condemnation if he strays from God's word. As Alan rightly noted, Galatians is written specifically to convince the Galatians to reject the false gospel of the judaizers which was under God's curse. Paul is calling for a real rejection of real false teachers and then includes himself in the list. He says that all teachers and all people claiming authority are subject to God's words. So the command here cannot possible be purely hypothetical. It is real and it is a command to all Christians. Galatians 1:8-9 is very real; thus, we reject Protestantism where it departs from God's word. The Bible teaches that the true Church is infallible and indefectible. That is a promise of God. One either accepts it in faith or not. That is the task: does one accept all of what the Bible teaches, or just selectively, with man-made traditions added to it?

There is such a thing as a false church and false gospel, that must be rejected, and there is also the one true Church that cannot fail doctrinally, based on God's protection. You assert the first thing but reject the second, which is your difficulty (accepting one part of the Bible but not another). We accept both things and have no difficulty. Incidentally, note the criterion that Paul gives the Galatians for determining false teachers. He does not say "If anyone comes to you and is not authorized by the other apostles" or "If anyone comes to you and is not under the auspices of the official Church". He is very clear. He says "if anyone preaches a gospel to you other than the one that you accepted." That is his criterion. And it is by this criterion that he appeal to the Galatians to reject the judaizers and even himself, if he strays from God's words. So what? It depends on what he is writing about at the time. In Acts 16:4 he appeals to an infallible Church council: telling his followers to obey it as he does himself. Again, you insist on pitting one thing against another (Paul's authority vs. the Church's): a thing that the Bible doesn't do. In Gal 1:8-9 Paul tells the Galatians to reject any gospel that is different from what he presented to them. Duh! Of course he would say that! He preached the truth to them. In the same book he says how this gospel had been confirmed as true by the Church (Gal 1:18; 2:1-2, 9). No opposition. The Church is guided by God to preserve apostolic truth. So you reject Protestantism because "it departs from God's word." But do you test Roman Catholic teaching by the same standard? No, because "The Bible teaches that the true Church is infallible and indefectible...there is also the one true Church that cannot fail doctrinally, based on God's protection.."  Yep; I've made a career out of it. It's my specialty. I've always found Catholic teaching to be in complete harmony with the biblical revelation. 
So wait a minute, aren't you just rejecting Protestantism because it is not Roman Catholicism? I reject it for the reasons I gave: it fails the test of biblical teaching, the historic Church, and also of consistent logic.
Again, this goes directly back to ultimate authority. Are we really going to test all claims against Scripture. Or only the claims of non-Roman Catholics? And what does Paul say? Was he an apostle of the one true Church? And does he command the Galatians to reject his authority if he strays from God's word despite the fact that he is an apostle of the true Church? I've been playing your game all along. You want Scripture; I am giving it to you. Protestantism fails that test. I keep talking about the Jerusalem Council: a very "biblical" thing. You have consistently ignored it because it doesn't fit in with your preconceived notions of authority, that come from man-made traditions. I have given you plenty of Scripture. All you can do is repeat Gal 1;8-9 over and over. After I answer that in ten different ways, it gets old when you repeat it for the eleventh time.

If you want to cry "Bible, Bible" then at least give us more of it than one passage! If all you can do is repeat your mantra, and you refuse to interact with opposing arguments, then the dialogue will soon be over. 
Look at Galatians chapter 1. 
Just as I said. I'm a prophet. I wrote: "All you can do is repeat Gal 1:8-9 over and over." Eleven minutes later you did precisely that. I have provided maybe 25 Bible passages or more. You give one 25 times: Galatians 1. We answer 25 times, then you give the same passage again, as if repeating a falsehood (no infallible Church; St. Paul as a lone ranger) makes it more true. This is supposed to impress anyone who loves the Bible?  

It is God's understand[ing] of the gospel that has authority and God's words that have authority. That is the point that Paul is so clear to make in Gal. 1. The Galatians received the gospel through Paul's preaching, but the message was from God. That is why Paul can say that even he or an angel from heaven is to be rejected if he preaches a different message. Because the different message would not be God's message if you believe (as all of us do) that the message Paul preached to them originally was the true gospel. And that is why Paul states that his authority is derivative and is to be emphatically rejected if he strays from the gospel. He is saying "I entrusted you with the words God gave me. Now you have them. And now you are to reject anyone, even me, if they teach something different." 

Why is this "news" to you, as if it were some big discovery? All this is saying is that the gospel is the gospel. A=a. Did you think anyone would think otherwise? So if even Paul came back and preached a false gospel (because we believe people can fall away from faith, based on the Bible, whereas Calvinists do not), then folks are to reject it and him.

We believe that the Church preserves this true gospel in perpetuity, because it is infallible and indefectible. Even disciples can fall away (Judas is described as "elect" yet fell away). But the one true Church cannot. False claimants of supposed "true Church" status can fall away if they are not the Church established by Jesus Christ, with St. Peter as the first pope.


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Biblical Evidence for Jesus' Omniscience, by Cross-Referencing to Parallel Texts Describing the All-Knowing Attributes of God the Father

 [all Bible passages: RSV]

God Knowing What is in Men's Hearts
God the Father

1 Samuel 16:7 ". . . the LORD sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." 

1 Kings 8:39 . . .  render to each whose heart thou knowest, according to all his ways (for thou, thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men); (cf. 2 Chron 6:30)

Psalm 44:21 . . . For he knows the secrets of the heart.

Luke 16:15 . . . God knows your hearts . . .

Acts 1:24 . . . Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men . . .

Acts 15:8 . . . God who knows the heart. . . 

God the Son (Jesus)
Matthew 9:4 . . .  Jesus, . . . said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts?

Mark 2:8 . . . Jesus, . . . said to them, "Why do you question thus in your hearts?

Luke 5:22 When Jesus perceived their questionings, he answered them, "Why do you question in your hearts?

Luke 9:47 But when Jesus perceived the thought of their hearts,. . .   

John 2:25 . . . he knew all men and needed no one to bear witness of man; for he himself knew what was in man.

God Searching Men's Hearts
God the Father
1 Chronicles 28:9 . . . the LORD searches all hearts, . . .

Psalm 139:3 Thou searchest out my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

Sirach 42:18 He searches out the abyss, and the hearts of men, . . . 

Romans 8:27 . . .  he who searches the hearts of men . . . 

God the Son (Jesus)

Revelation 2:23 . . . I am he who searches mind and heart . . .



God Knowing Men's Thoughts
God the Father
1 Chronicles 28:9 . . . the LORD . . . understands every plan and thought.. . .

Isaiah 66:18 "For I know their works and their thoughts, . . .

Ezekiel 11:5 . . . I know the things that come into your mind.

Matthew 6:8 . . . your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

God the Son (Jesus)
Matthew 9:4 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts,. . .

Matthew 12:25 Knowing their thoughts,. . . 

Mark 2:8 And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves,. . .

Luke 6:8 But he knew their thoughts,. . .


John 6:64 But there are some of you that do not believe . . .

Revelation 2:23 . . . I am he who searches mind and heart . . . 

God Knows All Things / Perfect in Knowledge
God the Father
Job 36:4-5 . . . one who is perfect in knowledge is with you. [5] "Behold, God is mighty, and does not despise any; he is mighty in strength of understanding.

Job 37:16 . . . him who is perfect in knowledge,

Psalm 147:5 Great is our LORD, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.

Proverbs 21:30 No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel, can avail against the LORD.

Isaiah 40:28 . . . his understanding is unsearchable.

Romans 11:33-34 O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! [34] "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?"

Hebrews 4:13 And before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

1 John 3:20 . . . he knows everything.


God the Son (Jesus)
Luke 2:46-47 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions; [47] and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.

John 1:17 . . . grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

John 4:29 "Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" (cf. 4:17-19)

John 7:14-15 About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught. [15] The Jews marveled at it, saying, "How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?"

John 14:6 . . . I am the way, and the truth, and the life . . . (cf. 8:32, 45-46

John 16:30 Now we know that you know all things,. . .

John 18:37 . . . for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice.

John 21:17 . . . Lord, you know everything;. . .

Ephesians 4:21 . . . the truth is in Jesus.

Colossians 2:2-3 that their hearts may be encouraged as they are knit together in love, to have all the riches of assured understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, of Christ, [3] in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

1 John 5:20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, to know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.


God is Perfect in Wisdom
God the Father
Proverbs 21:30 No wisdom, . . . can avail against the LORD.

Romans 11:33 O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! . . .

God the Son (Jesus)
Matthew 13:54 . . . he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? (cf. Lk 2:40)

Colossians 2:2-3 . . . Christ, [3] in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom . . .


God Knows the Future
God the Father
Isaiah 46:10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, . . .

Isaiah 48:3 The former things I declared of old, they went forth from my mouth and I made them known; then suddenly I did them and they came to pass.

Isaiah 48:5 I declared them to you from of old, before they came to pass I announced them to you, . . .

God the Son (Jesus)
Matthew 12:40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (cf. Lk 11:30)

Matthew 16:21 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

Matthew 17:9 . . . Jesus commanded them, "Tell no one the vision, until the Son of man is raised from the dead."

Matthew 17:12 . . . So also the Son of man will suffer at their hands. (cf. Lk 17:25; 22:15)

Matthew 17:22-23 . . .  "The Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men,  [23] and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day." . . . (cf. Lk 9:44)

Matthew 20:18-19  "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death, [19] and deliver him to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day." (cf. Mk 8:31; 9:31; 10:32-34; Lk 9:22; 18:31-33)

Matthew 24:2 But he answered them, "You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down."

Matthew 26:2 "You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of man will be delivered up to be crucified."

Matthew 26:21 and as they were eating, he said, "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me." (cf. Mk 14:18; Lk 22:21-22; Jn 13:18-21)

Matthew 26:31-32 Then Jesus said to them, "You will all fall away because of me this night; for it is written, `I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.' [32] But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee."(cf. Mk 14:27-28)

Mark 14:29-30 Peter said to him, "Even though they all fall away, I will not." [30] And Jesus said to him, "Truly, I say to you, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times."(cf. Lk 22:31-34)

John 2:19-22 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." [20] The Jews then said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?" [21] But he spoke of the temple of his body. [22] When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.

John 6:64 . . . For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him.

John 10:17-18 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. [18] No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father."

John 12:32-33 and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself." [33] He said this to show by what death he was to die.

John 13:1 Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, . . . 

John 13:11 For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, "You are not all clean."(cf. Mk 14:42)

John 14:19 Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me;. . .

John 18:4 . . .  Jesus, knowing all that was to befall him, . . . 

John 21:18-19 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go." [19] (This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God.). . . 



***

Antidote to William Whitaker's Sola Scriptura Arguments, Part 18: Further Rebuttals of Whitaker's Absurd Attempted Biblical Arguments Against Apostolic Tradition or Any Tradition Whatsoever

[image error]  St. Paul

See the introductory post, New Upcoming Project: Refutation of William Whitaker's Disputation on Holy Scripture on Sola Scriptura.
I am utilizing a copy of the book available at Internet Archive.
Whitaker's words will be in blue. Page numbers will correspond to the above book version.
* * *
I come now to another argument, the last of those touched upon by Bellarmine, and derived from various passages of scripture wherein traditions are condemned: as, Matth. xv. 6, "Ye have made the commandment of God of none effect by your traditions;" and the words of Isaiah, c. 29, alleged by Christ in that same chapter, "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men:" and Galat. i. 14, where Paul says that, before his conversion, he was "zealous for the traditions of his elders." From these and the like places, we reason thus: Christ and the apostles condemn traditions: therefore, they are not to be received; and consequently scripture is sufficient. (pp. 637-638)
This is the same weak, silly argument that we hear again and again. The gist of it is that, for many Protestants, "tradition is a dirty word." But the Bible presents it in a far more nuanced way than this portrayal would have it. In the Bible there is a legitimate apostolic, divine tradition, that is good, and a false 'tradition of men" over against God. St. Paul contrasts the two in the following passage:

Colossians 2:8 (RSV) See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. (cf. 1 Cor 11:2; 2 Thess 2:15; 3:6; Phil 4:9; 2 Tim 1:13-14; 2:2)

The particular sense being used is always clear from context. Hence, in two of Whitaker's examples above, we see the qualifiers: "your traditions" (i.e., over against God's); "commandments of men" (i.e., ones that contradict the commandments of God). See my paper, Biblical Evidence for True Apostolic Tradition vs. "Traditions of Men".

Galatians 1:14, on the other hand, is a more neutral expression. It's clear that Paul did not reject all traditions in Judaism. After all, he referred to himself as a "Pharisee" twice, after his conversion to Christianity  (Acts 23:6; 26:5). He still acknowledged the authority of the high priest as his "ruler" during his trial, even when the latter had him struck on the mouth (Acts 23:2-5). Paul and Jesus and the early Christians still participated in Temple worship and rituals, and attended synagogues. When addressing non-Christian Jews, Paul calls them "brethren" (Acts 13:26,38; 22:1; 23:1,5-6).

St. Stephen did the same before a council with Jewish elders, scribes, and the high priest (Acts 6:12; 7:1), addressing them as "brethren and fathers" (7:2). Paul was still worshiping and even presiding over the services in synagogues (Acts 13:13-44). For more along these lines, see my paper: Judaism and Christianity: New Testament (Mostly Pauline) Evidence Regarding Their Profound Institutional Closeness.

Bellarmine hath but one reply, namely, that Christ and the apostles did not condemn those traditions which the Jews had received from Moses and the prophets, but those which they had received from certain later persons, whereof some were idle, and some impious. (p. 638)
And St. Robert Bellarmine was exactly right, because this is what Scripture teaches, and it is almost self-evident.

I answer: Firstly, it is false that the Jews received any traditions from Moses and the prophets. He himself does not prove they did, . . . (p. 638)
This is a remarkably clueless, extreme anti-traditional position that virtually no Protestant theologian, Bible scholar, or historian would hold today. It is well-known that the Pharisees accepted the oral tradition, and that early Christianity inherited several beliefs (angelology, the resurrection, notions of purgatory and prayer for the dead), including belief in this oral tradition, from that school. See my papers:

Biblical Evidence for the Oral Torah (Hence, by Analogy, Oral Apostolic Tradition)

Biblical Evidence For Apostolic Oral Tradition

Dialogue on "Tradition" in the New Testament (vs. Eric Svendsen)

Sola Scriptura vs. Ephesians 4 and St. Paul's Word Selection: Scripture(s), Tradition, and Church (+ Body)

The Old Testament, the Ancient Jews, and Sola Scriptura

A Refutation of the Fallacies and Circular Reasoning of James White Regarding "Moses' Seat," Authentic Tradition, and Sola Scriptura (vs. James White)

Refutation of James White: Moses' Seat, the Bible, and Tradition (Introduction) (+ Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Parts VII and VIII)

Finally, it is evident from the scriptures: for Christ says, "Search the scriptures," not tradition; and Abraham says, "They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them." Now by Moses and the prophets the scriptures are meant, as in Luke xxiv. 27. There is no mention in scripture of these traditions: the scriptures say not a single word about them: there were, therefore, none. (p. 638)
Whitaker essentially puts his head in the sand like an ostrich, and covers his eyes and ears like a monkey: he refuses to see the dozens; scores of biblical indications of tradition. He's like the man who can look all over the sky on a clear day at high noon in the summer, and not see the sun. It's such a breathtakingly ridiculous position that I feel like a clown seriously entertaining it at all. But this paragraph of Whitaker's needed to be documented, lest no one believe that it could have been written by an intelligent student of the Bible. I'm embarrassed for my esteemed Protestant friends, that one of their proclaimed "champions" would make such utterly ludicrous "arguments." But this is the pathetic intellectual level of anti-Catholicism. I shouldn't be surprised.

. . . when Christ objects the commandment of God, and opposes the scriptures to tradition, it is plain that he condemns all unwritten traditions. . . . all unwritten traditions are condemned by Christ. (p. 639)

It's not plain at all that this is the case! Jesus qualifies it by noting that mere men's traditions, held in opposition to God, are what should be condemned. If it were a blanket condemnation, the qualification wouldn't be there; it would simply say "tradition." If Jesus were supposedly completely opposed to all Jewish tradition at all (which included oral tradition); even tradition within Christianity, then why in the world would He say?:

Matthew 23:2-3a "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; [3] so practice and observe whatever they tell you, . . . 

Even "Moses' Seat" is not a phrase found in the Old Testament. It is found in the (originally oral) Mishna, where a sort of "teaching succession" from Moses on down is taught. Jesus upholds the Pharisees' teaching authority even though He goes on to say that they are hypocrites, and to not follow what they "do," and lambasts them in no uncertain terms, shortly afterwards, according to Matthew's record. Despite all that, their teachings are still to be followed, even by His disciples.

These are the same people and faction, whom Paul referred to as possessing "traditions" (Gal 1:14; noted by Whitaker himself, at the top of this paper). They're the same ones that Paul identifies himself twice as being a part of ( after his conversion). All this, but there is no legitimate "tradition" whatever in the New Testament, according to "see no evil / hear no evil" Whitaker.

. . . Christ and the apostles always remand us to the scriptures . . . (p. 639)
That's not true at all. There are scores and scores of evidences against such an absurd, unfactual statement. Here are several of the more famous non-biblical references in the New Testament:

1 Corinthians 10:4 and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ.

The Old Testament says nothing about such miraculous movement, in the related passages about Moses striking the rock to produce water (Exodus 17:1-7; Numbers 20:2-13). But rabbinic tradition does.

2 Timothy 3:8 As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith;

These two men cannot be found in the related Old Testament passage (Exodus 7:8 ff.), or anywhere else in the Old Testament.

James 5:17 Eli'jah was a man of like nature with ourselves and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.

The reference to a lack of rain for three years is absent from the relevant Old Testament passage in 1 Kings 17.

1 Peter 3:19 in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison,

This is drawn from the Jewish apocalyptic book 1 Enoch (12-16).

Jude 9 But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, disputed about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a reviling judgment upon him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you."

Not found in the Old Testament (see Deut 34:5-6 for the account of Moses' death), but it was part of a Jewish tradition that Jude assumed his readers were familiar with.

Jude 14-15 It was of these also that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord came with his holy myriads, to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness which they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him."

This is a direct quotation of the apocalyptic book 1 Enoch (1:9). Here is one translation of the latter passage:

And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones To execute judgement upon all, And to destroy all the ungodly: And to convict all flesh Of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, And of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.

That is not from any Scripture; yet it is said that Enoch "prophesied." Thus, authentic, genuine prophecy is not confined to the Old Testament written record. If this is true prophecy (as we know it must be, because it is described as such in inspired revelation), who knows how much more of 1 Enoch or other non-canonical ancient Jewish books also contain true prophecy? That is tradition . . .

Moreover, the New Testament massively cites passages or thought-patterns or concepts found in the Deuterocanon: books that Protestants and Whitaker reject as canonical (and call the "Apocrypha"). Therefore, these are numerous additional examples of "Christ and the apostles" doing what Whitaker tells us they never supposedly do: citations of something other than what he thinks is Scripture. See my series of papers: Possible References to the Deuterocanon (aka "Apocrypha") in the New Testament (RSV) (+ Parts Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine).

Now the papists have run into still more intolerable errors in this matter than the Jews of old, since their religion is wholly occupied in observing and performing not those things which Christ sanctioned and enjoined, but those which man's boldness and curiosity have devised. For example, those who are esteemed religious amongst the papists observe the rules of their founders far more punctiliously than the commands of God: the truth of which remark hath been now for a long time no secret to all the world. (p. 640)
Right. Just a slice of genuine, old-fashioned, bigoted anti-Catholicism, to remind us of the tunnel-vision mentality we are here dealing with. I especially love the imbecilic inanity of the use of "wholly". It's no wonder that Whitaker makes such poor, Scripture-torturing  arguments, in defending sola Scriptura. His judgment is clouded by this sort of purely irrational, self-refuting  nonsense.

At the time he was writing such things, men were having their hearts ripped out of their bodies and intestines slowly drawn out, then legs and arms and heads cut off (along with various other outrageous brutalities) in merrie olde "Reformation" England, for the horrific, treasonous crime of simply believing what their forefathers had believed for many hundreds of years: the Catholic faith of St. Anselm, the Venerable Bede, St. Boniface, Blessed Duns Scotus, St. Thomas Becket, St. Thomas More, St. John Fisher, and Alfred the Great. See details in many of my papers documenting these ghastly atrocities.

The fourth place is taken from Luke xxiv. 25 and 27. Christ, in verse 25, blames the disciples for being slow "to beheve all that the prophets have spoken." But where can those things be found? This appears from verse 27. There it follows: "Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." Hence we frame the following argument: If all the things that the prophets spoke may be found in the scriptures, then may those also which the apostles spoke be found in the scriptures also. The first is true: therefore also the second. The force of the consequence is manifest. For the same reason which impelled the prophets to commit all they said to writing, led the apostles also to take a similar course. For if the prophets wrote all that they spoke, why should we not suppose that the apostles and evangelists, proceeding with the same prudence, governed by the same Spirit, and having the same end in view, committed likewise to writing the sum of that doctrine which they delivered to the churches? The same judgment should be passed where the cases are the same. And hence those are refuted, who dream of the existence of some unwritten prophetic traditions. For Luke makes all that the prophets spake to be comprised in the scriptures. Therefore, there were no unwritten traditions of the prophets. Therefore, there were no unwritten traditions of the apostles. The reason is precisely the same. If the ancient church had every thing in scripture, the christian church likewise hath every thing in scripture. The antecedent is plain ; therefore also the consequent. Otherwise God provided better for the Jews than for us. (pp. 643-644)
This whole line of reasoning collapses, by the numerous examples I have provided above, which show that the writers of the New Testament, our Lord, the apostles, disciples, and early Christians all acknowledge traditions (and non-recorded acts) that go beyond the letter of the Bible. No passage in the Bible says that the entirety of the prophetic message (let alone the apostolic message) was committed to writing, in the Bible alone. That is simply a tradition of men, invented out of whole cloth. It is not deduced by the passages that Whitaker produces. It's a mere fancy. There is no need to even refute it because no evidence (let alone biblical evidence) is given for it. Whitaker's supposed strong deductions are simply faulty, wishful thinking "logic."

It's refuted also in the inspired New Testament, in examples we have already seen. James 5:17 informs us that Elijah the prophet prayed and caused rain to cease for three-and-a-half years. Why, then, was this not recorded in the Old Testament? Surely it was very significant: a miracle even greater than the plagues of Moses upon Egypt. It is used as an illustration of the power of the righteous man's prayers. But it's not there.

If Whitaker supposedly excels at logical deduction, perhaps he can grasp this one. This event occurred, because we know it for sure from inspired revelation in the New Testament. But it was not recorded. Therefore, it follows that extraordinary miracles from prophets were not all recorded in writing (or in the Bible), and were preserved, rather, in non-biblical tradition of some sort: precisely the opposite of what Whitaker would have us believe. Elijah lived about a thousand years before James, so that tradition had to be passed down somewhere other than in the Bible. It probably was an oral tradition at first.  James cites the tradition matter-of-factly, as if there would be no doubt as to its authenticity.

Jude 14-15 said that Enoch (who lived much further back in history than Elijah) "prophesied." Therefore, a prophecy occurred in remote centuries past, that was not a biblical one; yet regarded as authoritative by a New Testament writer and apostle: significant enough to be cited. How can this be, under Whitaker's (false) premises? It cannot. His view is overthrown by Holy Scripture itself.

Likewise with Jude 9, which appears as a factual account, having to do with Moses, the devil, and the archangel Michael: nowhere to be seen in the Old Testament. So why is it cited as an authentic narrative of actual history? The New Testament was not dictated from above by God. The Bible writers utilized their own knowledge, which was preserved from error and inspired by God.

The seventh place is taken from Acts xvii. 2, 3, where Luke writes that Paul reasoned for three sabbath-days out of the scriptures, . . . that Christ had suffered; so that this was the Christ whom he preached unto them. Paul then discoursed from the scriptures, and confirmed his whole doctrine by the scriptures. Hence we gather the following argument: If Paul used no other evidence than that of scripture in teaching and delivering the gospel, and refuting the Jews; then all testimonies which are requisite either to confirm the true doctrine of the gospel or to refute heresies may be taken out of scripture. The former is true, and therefore the latter. The consequence is manifest. For if any other testimony had been necessary, the apostle would have used it. But he confirmed his doctrine only by the scriptures; and therefore, in verse 11, the Bereans are praised for having searched the scriptures, and examined Paul's teaching by them. Therefore we ought to do likewise. Now no heretics are more keen disputers, or more difficult to be refuted, than the Jews. (pp. 645-646)

This is altogether silly, because it is amply refuted by Paul himself. When preaching to the Athenians (no intellectual slouches themselves, as the founders of philosophy), and doing his best to persuade them of the truth of the gospel, the great apostle didn't stick to Scripture alone; he cited their own poets and philosophers:

Acts 17:22-28 So Paul, standing in the middle of the Are-op'agus, said: "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. [23] For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, `To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. [24] The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, [25] nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything. [26] And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation, [27] that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us, [28] for `In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your poets have said, `For we are indeed his offspring.'

Here he was citing the Greek poet Aratus: (c. 315-240 B.C.), and philosopher-poet Epimenides (6th c. B.C.). As I wrote elsewhere (one bracketed footnote presently added):

. . . the line that Paul cited on Mars Hill in Athens (Acts 17:28), from Aratus, was actually, in context, talking about Zeus:Let us begin with Zeus, whom we mortals never leave unspoken.For every street, every market-place is full of Zeus.Even the sea and the harbour are full of this deity.Everywhere everyone is indebted to Zeus.For we are indeed his offspring... (Phaenomena 1-5).So Paul used a pagan poet, talking about a false god (Zeus) and "Christianized" the thought, applying it to the true God. That's Pauline apologetic method, . . . The Church has done this, historically, by "co-opting" pagan holidays and "baptizing" them, thus eventually wiping out the old pagan holidays.

The citation from Epimenides (the poem Cretica) involves the same thing; it was originally written about Zeus; Paul (Acts 17:28 again) takes it and applies it to Yahweh, the true God:They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one—The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies! [used by Paul at Titus 1:12]But thou art not dead: thou livest and abidest forever,For in thee we live and move and have our being.St. Paul expressly cites these pagan Greek poets and philosophers precisely because that is what his sophisticated Athens audience (including "Epicurean and Stoic philosophers" -- 17:18) could understand and relate to. He was using wise apologetic method and strategy.

Paul also cited the Greek dramatist  Menander (c.342-291 B.C.) at 1 Corinthians 15:33: "bad company ruins good morals". Thus, Whitaker's claim, "if any other testimony had been necessary, the apostle would have used it. But he confirmed his doctrine only by the scriptures" is shown from Holy Scripture (three times) to be a falsehood (and we know where falsehood derives).

The eighth place is taken from Acts xviii. 24 and 28. Apollos was mighty in the scriptures, and refuted the Jews forcibly, . . . out of the scriptures. We may argue here as in the former case: If Apollos made use only of the scriptures in refuting the Jews and confirming the doctrine of the gospel, then the gospel may be confirmed and heresies refuted by the scriptures alone. The former is true, and consequently the latter also. (p. 646)
But the text doesn't say that Apollos "made use only of the scriptures" (my italics). This is yet another of the now notorious incorrect deductions from plain biblical texts that Whitaker is a master of (one might call this sophistry). Acts 18:28 describes him as "showing by the scriptures that the Christ was Jesus." But it doesn't say that he made no arguments besides ones drawn from Scripture. To show that the Messiah (often mentioned in the Old Testament) was Jesus was something specifically related to the Bible and to the Jews (over against the Gentiles). So that is to be expected.

But in Acts 18:25 it states: "he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus." Unless he was prooftexting the OT messianic texts, and only doing that (as in 18:28), virtually anything else about what Jesus was doing or teaching was based on present eyewitness accounts, and was not "arguing from the Bible" (the Gospels not having yet been written) but rather, from experience (i.e., oral tradition at that point). Thus it is quite likely and plausible (though not certain) that he also talked about things other than (OT) biblical texts.

It may be a fine point but it is a crucial technical distinction. Whitaker merely reads into the text what he already assumes. It's not present in the text. The text is consistent with a hypothetical scenario whereby only Scripture was used, but it doesn't prove that or disallow another scenario. It's not conclusive in and of itself. This sort of bad logic and unwarranted leaps from texts is almost a constant in Protestant apologias for sola Scriptura. Then Whitaker makes a false deduction from a false conclusion: if the example is of using Scripture alone in sharing the Christian faith, then we should do the same.

The tenth place is taken from Acts xxvi. 22, where Paul says, that through the divine assistance he continued up to that very day, witnessing both to small and great, saying nothing beside, . . . "those things which Moses and the prophets did say should come." Therefore Paul in preaching the gospel uttered not a word extraneous to the scriptures of the law and the prophets. From this passage we reason thus: If Paul, when he preached the gospel, uttered not a word beside the Mosaic and prophetical scriptures, then all things necessary to the preaching of the gospel are contained in the scriptures. Now the former is true, and therefore also the second. The consequence holds: for Paul preached the whole gospel, being designed for this special purpose by God, and in the whole explication of it spoke nothing beside the scriptures. In Acts XX. 27, he says that he declared to the Ephesians "the whole counsel of God." Therefore the whole counsel of God in announcing the gospel may be learned from the scriptures. Hence another syllogism follows: If Paul taught nothing beside the scriptures, then neither is it now lawful for any one to deliver anything beside the scripture. But the former is true, and therefore the second. For who will dare to assume to himself what Paul could not or ought not to do? (p. 647)
Good grief. I have already shown that Paul did not cite only Scripture, in noting his four citations of pagan poets, philosophers and dramatists: two of them in the very act of preaching the gospel on Mars Hill in Athens. Therefore, since he is our model (as he said many times, and as Whitaker says), we don't have to do so, either. Is Whitaker unable to read the biblical text for himself without missing so many obvious things in it? Who in the world does he think Paul was quoting in Acts 17:28, 1 Corinthians 15:33, and Titus 1:12? Paul also cites many times from the Deuterocanon, as documented in my paper on NT citations of those biblical books that Protestants reject. Every time Paul does that, it refutes Whitaker's contention that he supposedly never does (since Whitaker thinks he never cites anything but Scripture, and for him, this is not Scripture).

Matters entrusted to men's memories are easily consigned to oblivion. These are notorious truths. Let us see how our opponent meets this argument. He answers very confidently, that it is impossible that these traditions should not be preserved, because the care of them rests not on men, but on God. Here he notices God's care in preserving his church; how God preserved traditions inviolate from Adam to the time of Moses, and the scriptures from Moses down to our times. Therefore, says he, God can now also preserve unwritten traditions. I answer; In the first place, I confess that the divine Providence can preserve from destruction whatever it chooses; for God can do whatever he wills. But if we choose thus to abuse the divine Providence, we may, in the same manner, infer that there is no need of the scriptures, that every thing should be trusted to the Divine Providence, and nothing committed to writing, because God can preserve religion safe without the scriptures. (p. 652)


Nice try. This is a failed reductio ad absurdum (a logical technique of trying to draw from opposing premises an absurd conclusion: I use it all the time). Whitaker takes the opposing position to a supposed necessary extreme, in order to dismiss it as absurd. He concedes that "the divine Providence can preserve from destruction whatever it chooses," which is nearly the entire point and argument. Then he goes off and mocks a notion of having no Scripture at all as a result. But Catholics accept and revere Scripture as much as Protestants do. We are simply saying that there is tradition and an authoritative Church also.






Whitaker grants an indefectible Church in the following section, but in order to do so he has to (as an Anglican) redefine "the Church" as always historically understood, and give up many biblical attributes of it. He says that God can preserve what He wants to preserve, yet he has to fight against all semblance of tradition whatsoever, in defending his extreme sola Scriptura viewpoint. His position is incoherent and internally inconsistent (as all Protestant variations always are, in the final analysis).


But God hath nowhere promised that he will save and protect unwritten traditions from being lost: consequently, the church and tradition are not parallel cases. I can produce innumerable testimonies and promises wherewith God hath bound himself to the church to preserve it: let them produce any such promises of God respecting the preservation of traditions. Now this they cannot do. Secondly, I confess that God preserved his doctrine from Adam to Moses orally transmitted, that is, in the form of unwritten tradition. It cannot be denied. But then it was amongst exceeding few persons: for the great majority had corrupted this doctrine. (p. 652)
This is a fascinating study in illogic and cognitive dissonance. Whitaker denies that apostolic tradition could be preserved. Then he turns around and concedes that there was indeed an oral tradition and doctrine from Adam to Moses: an extraordinary concession indeed! He says that is possible and factual, but apostolic tradition, with the fuller revelation of the new covenant, and an indwelling and guiding Holy Spirit is not. Whether it was preserved by a few or ten million is irrelevant. It was preserved by God. New Testament tradition is indicated in many passages that I have already alluded to in the course of this series of refutations. It is always casually assumed to exist and to be authoritative.


Besides, God frequently and familiarly shewed himself to the holy fathers who then lived; conversed with them, and often renewed and restored the doctrine orally delivered, and brought it back to its integrity and purity, when not preserved from all corruption even by those godly men themselves. Thus God conversed familiarly with those ancient patriarchs: and if the reasoning of our opponent were of any weight now, God would still treat us in the same manner. But there is the greatest difference between those things and ours; and consequently his reasoning hath no weight. (p. 652)
The Bible says that we have far more privileges and access to God than the patriarchs of old. They were only selectively filled with the Holy Spirit, but every Christian is now. We have a much fuller, developed revelation. We have the appearance of Jesus, and all His teaching. We have a Church that even Whitaker grants is protected by God and indefectible. Yet Whitaker oddly concludes that oral tradition is far less possible now than it was then, and that we are vastly different from the great men of old. Jesus said of John the Baptist, who is considered the last of the prophets:

Luke 7:28 I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John; yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.

Thirdly, the fact of Moses having written his heavenly doctrine is a point of great importance against tradition, and strongly confirmatory of our opinion. For if God had seen that religion could have been preserved entire and uncorrupted without the scriptures, he would not have enjoined Moses to consign it in the lasting monuments of written records . . . (pp. 652-653)

More self-serving straw men . . . The argument is not over whether Scripture is necessary. No Catholic has ever denied it. The argument is whether there is such a thing as an authoritative Christian tradition. All of this writing wasted on defending the usefulness and great utility and blessing of Holy Scripture is a perfect non sequitur, because the parties are in total agreement. We're not the ones who want things to be alone (like "Scripture Alone"). Our view is neither solo traditio nor sola ecclesia (if that is proper Latin). Apparently, Whitaker, not able to grasp this, thinks that in defending tradition, we must somehow denigrate Scripture, as if it were a zero sum game. Therefore, tradition could be defended to such an extent that Scripture is conceivably ditched altogether. But we haven't ever thought or done so! It is Protestantism that has unbiblically ditched both tradition and an authoritative, infallible Church.


END OF ENTIRE SERIES

***

Antidote to William Whitaker's Sola Scriptura Arguments, Part 17: Oral Tradition / Desperate Anti-Traditional Exegetical Arguments / St. John Chrysostom on Tradition / Whitaker's Near-Bibliolatry

See the introductory post, New Upcoming Project: Refutation of William Whitaker's Disputation on Holy Scripture on Sola Scriptura.
I am utilizing a copy of the book available at Internet Archive.
Whitaker's words will be in blue. Page numbers will correspond to the above book version.
* * *
There is no consequential force then in the argument, that because he says "which I command," not, "which I have written," therefore this word was not committed to writing, but delivered by oral tradition. Besides, if Moses had entrusted some things orally to certain persons, which he considered unfit to be written; to whom could he have committed them rather than to Joshua, to whom he imparted all his counsels, and who was his successor in office? . . . when God forbids them to add, he signifies that this body of doctrine was so perfect as that nothing could or should be added to it; and that, therefore, we should acquiesce in it, be satisfied with it, and cleave to it alone. They add, therefore, who determine that this teaching is not complete and full. And when we shew that this word is written, we shew that the written word contains a full and perfect body of doctrine, to which nothing should be added. The ancient Jews understood and explained these words to mean that nothing should be added to the written word. (p. 617)
In fact, the Jews believed that Moses received an oral law on Mt. Sinai, in addition to the written Torah. This was the mainstream position, which was held by the Pharisees, and denied by the Sadducees, and it was followed by Jesus and the early Christians. I have provided nine biblical proofs that this is the case in my paper, Biblical Evidence for the Oral Torah (Hence, by Analogy, Oral Apostolic Tradition).

Jesus even utilized oral tradition, as codified in the Talmud, in His Sermon on the Mount. If in fact it is the case that oral tradition was considered authoritative by Jesus and the first Christians, then Whitaker's contentions about "written-only" and sola Scriptura are so much hooey. We are to follow the example of our Lord and the apostles, not unbiblical traditions of men that contradict them. Whitaker comments on the following Bible passage:

Galatians 1:8 (RSV) But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed.

. . . if an angel from heaven preach to you anything besides what you have received in the scriptures of the law and of the gospel, let him be accursed!" In these words we should observe and consider the following points: First, that all that Paul taught may be found in the scriptures. . . . whatever is preached or announced besides what is contained in these scriptures, is to be wholly rejected. His words are, "besides what is written:" therefore not only that which is contrary to, but that also which is beside the scriptures, should be refused. . . . Paul is here speaking of the scriptures, and condemning every doctrine not therein delivered . . . It appears therefore hence, that whatever is beside the scriptures, is alien from them, and therefore should be rejected. (pp. 624-625)

Whitaker is contending that Paul condemns anything (i.e., tradition) "besides" the gospel, which is contained in its entirety (as we agree) in Scripture. But this is not what the text says. "Contrary" to the gospel, doesn't necessarily preclude traditions that are not expressly laid out in Scripture, as Whitaker conceded (at least partially) in the citation from p. 625 (next one below): since traditions may indeed be fully in accord with the gospel. In other words, if this is used as an argument against tradition per se, it fails. Paul's statement is only an argument against doctrines contrary to the gospel. It is not an "unwrittten" (tradition) vs. "written" (Bible / gospel in the Bible) dichotomy but rather, a "gospel" vs. "contrary to the gospel" dichotomy.

. . . Traditions are either consonant to scripture, and then they should be received, and those who do not receive them are condemned in these words; or they are, as Basil expresses it, alien from scripture, and then they should be rejected. These fathers speak of those traditions which are consonant to scripture, not of such as are alien from it. (p. 625)
Amen! This is what Catholics have been saying all along: our traditions (apostolic traditions) are completely in harmony with Scripture and are indicated there either explicitly, implicitly, or straightforwardly deduced from the same sort of evidences. If Whitaker goes this far in espousing traditions, then he shoots himself in the foot insofar as he wishes to defend sola Scriptura. He concedes too much. He also fails to grasp that the Catholic Church holds to exactly this, so that he is unaware of the position of his opponent. But, having stumbled upon the truth in this instance, Whitaker immediately qualifies (or contradicts?) it, in replying to Bellarmine's argument, which he summarizes:

He says, in the second place, that the word "beside" in this place is equivalent to "against:" so as that Paul here anathematizes those who deliver anything against, not beside, the scriptures; consequently, that new doctrines are not here prohibited, provided they do not contradict the scriptures. . . . We, however, take the word "beside" in its strict sense, so as to bring under this denunciation whatever is delivered beside that gospel delivered by the apostle. (p. 625)

This is an absurd position because it massively contradicts Paul's frequent reference to (in a positive sense) apostolic tradition and traditions, and oral teaching (1 Cor 11:2; 2 Thess 2:15; 3:6; Phil 4:9; Col 2:8; 2 Tim 1:13-14; 2:2). Whitaker interprets the word rendered "contrary to" in RSV and "besides" in his own translation as "anything besides the gospel" rather than "anything contrary to the gospel." He moves the emphasis from being contrary, to being simply other. Whitaker keeps up his odd and, I think, implausible (but interesting and clever) textual argument (italics added to highlight the words under consideration):


But the apostle does not use the term against, because the false apostles would have denied that it was against that gospel which Paul himself had delivered. In order, therefore, to obviate this false pretence, the apostle says, "beside what I preached unto you, and ye received;" as if he had said, I taught you nothing of the kind; therefore those who introduce such things are to be avoided, and by no means to be listened to. Thus it is certain that beside suits the apostle's design much better than against. (p. 626)
Alright; we have heard Whitaker's opinion on how it ought to be translated, to best convey Paul's meaning in Galatians 1:8. Now let's see what Bible translators think, in order to best determine or ascertain exactly what Paul intended. None use "besides." Several use "other." I have placed those in Whitaker's favor, as a synonym of "besides," even though it is quite arguable that "other" is closer to "contradicts" (or similar concept) than "besides". To say "other than" or "another so-and-so" is usually (though not necessarily) to indicate a contradiction or a contrary position.

If I say, "the Jehovah's Witnesses believe in a doctrine other than trinitarianism," they obviously contradict trinitarianism. Since there is only one gospel, "another" or "any other" gospel obviously contradicts it; if it didn't, it would be the same in the first place. Thus, Whitaker's emphasis on this textual argument is mostly a distinction without a difference; much ado about nothing. Nevertheless, let's see how many (non-Catholic) translations opted for the more directly, explicitly "contradictory" sense, over against Whitaker's position (that he seems quite irrationally dogmatic about):

Versions Opposed to Whitaker's Interpretation [11]

RSV . . . a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you . . .
NEB . . . a gospel at variance with . . .
NASB . . . a gospel contrary to . . .
Williams . . . a good news that is contrary . . .
Goodspeed . . . good news that contradicts . . .
Moffatt . . . a gospel that contradicts . . .
Amplified . . . a gospel contrary to and different . . .
Wuest . . . a gospel . . . which goes beyond that which you took so eagerly . . .
Barclay . . . a gospel . . . which is at variance with . . .
CEV . . . anything different from our message . . .
TEV . . . a gospel that is different . . .

Versions in Favor of Whitaker's Interpretation [9]

KJV / Phillips . . . any other gospel . . .
NKJV / Lamsa . . . any other gospel . . . 
NIV / REB / ASV . . . a gospel other than . . .
Beck . . . any other good news . . .
Living . . . any other message . . .

The tally is 11-9 against Whitaker's interpretation: no slam-dunk for his side. And granting my remarks about the meaning of "other", arguably he has little or no case at all. In any event, he certainly has no warrant to be dogmatic based on this text (and one word) alone. He goes on to argue in the same manner, regarding a similar passage:

Romans 16:17 (RSV) I appeal to you, brethren, to take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them.

I confess it, and so does Beza: for whatever is against scripture is also beside it; and, conversely also, whatever in our holy religion is taught beside the scriptures, is against the scriptures too, if it carry with it any notion of necessity, that is, if it be proposed as a necessary doctrine. Since the apostles delivered abundantly all necessary things in the scriptures, whatever is urged as necessary beside the scriptures is justly deemed contrary to them. I confess that Trapd may sometimes be conveniently translated against, but not in this place. . . . in religious matters beside is equivalent to against the scriptures: but we have already shewn the reason why the apostle uses the term beside rather than against, because it suited his purpose better. (pp. 626-627; italics added for the references to particular words in the biblical text)

We agree that all that is necessary in Christian doctrine is in Scripture (this is material sufficiency): just not always explicitly so: as Whitaker and most Protestants tend to irrationally require. But he has taken his argument to the extreme again, foolishly insisting on a certain translation, when there is plenty of room for different, honestly-held opinions. Let's do a tally again, with the same twenty translations. At least last time it was "close"; this time it is unanimous against Whitaker's dogmatic take on the passage:

Versions Opposed to Whitaker's Interpretation [20]

RSV / Amplified . . . opposition to the doctrine . . .
NEB / NASB / Wuest / NIV / REB . . . contrary to the teaching . . .

Williams / Goodspeed . . . opposition to the instruction . . .

Moffatt / KJV / MKJV / Lamsa / ASV . . . contrary to the doctrine . . .

Barclay . . . in defiance of the teaching . . .
CEV . . . refusing to do what all of you were taught . . .
TEV . . . against the teaching . . .

Phillips . . . plain opposition to the teaching . . .
Beck . . .going against the teaching . . .
Living . . .contrary to what you have been taught . . .

Versions in Favor of Whitaker's Interpretation [none]

. . . it is certain that Chrysostom maintains the perfection of scripture, and is on our side against the papists: for in these words he subverts both the Jesuit's answers, since he determines that the apostle both speaks of the written word of God, and condemns whatever is preached not only against, but beside the scriptures. (p. 627)
St. John Chrysostom was only asserting the material sufficiency of Scripture in the passage that Whitaker seized upon (not sola Scriptura). But of course (as usual) he ignored the many places in the same saint's writing where he explicitly espouses the authority of extra-biblical tradition. I have documented these in my book, The Church Fathers Were Catholic :

[T]here was much also that was not written. Like that which is written, the unwritten too is worthy of belief. So let us regard the Tradition of the Church also as worthy of belief. (Homilies on 2 Thess 4:2; commenting on 2 Thess 2:15)

"That ye remember me in all things, and hold fast the traditions, even as I delivered them to you." It appears then that he used at that time to deliver many things also not in writing, which he shows too in many other places. But at that time he only delivered them, whereas now he adds an explanation of their reason: thus both rendering the one sort, the obedient, more steadfast, and pulling down the others' pride, who oppose themselves. (Homily XXVI on 1 Corinthians; commenting on 1 Cor 11:2; NPNF 1, Vol. XII)

"So then, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye were taught, whether by word, or by Epistle of ours." Hence it is manifest, that they did not deliver all things by Epistle, but many things also unwritten, and in like manner both the one and the other are worthy of credit. Therefore let us think the tradition of the Church also worthy of credit. It is a tradition, seek no farther. Here he shows that there were many who were shaken. (On Second Thessalonians, Homily IV)

Not by letters alone did Paul instruct his disciple in his duty, but before by words also which he shows, both in many other passages, as where he says, "whether by word or our Epistle" (2 Thess. ii. 15.), and especially here. Let us not therefore suppose that anything relating to doctrine was spoken imperfectly. For many things he delivered to him without writing. Of these therefore he reminds him, when he says, "Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me." (Homily III on 2 Timothy - on 2 Tim 1:13-18; NPNF 1, Vol. XIII)

[I]t was no object with them to be writers of books: in fact, there are many things which they have delivered by unwritten tradition. (On Acts of the Apostles, Homily 1; NPNF 1, Vol. XI)

Ver. 8. "Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth." Who are these? The magicians in the time of Moses. But how is it their names are nowhere else introduced? Either they were handed down by tradition, or it is probable that Paul knew them by inspiration. (Homily VIII on 2 Timothy; NPNF 1, Vol. XIII)

For, "remember," he says, "the words of the Lord which he spake: It is more blessed to give than to receive." (v. 35.) And where said He this? Perhaps the Apostles delivered it by unwritten tradition; or else it is plain from (recorded sayings, from) which one could infer it. (Homily XLV on Acts 20:32; NPNF 1, Vol. XIII)

Now the fourth passage of scripture which we cite against traditions is contained in the last verse of the twentieth chapter of John, . . . (p. 628)

John 20:31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. 

It is manifest from these words, that all necessary things may be found in those which are written, because by these a full and perfect faith may be produced, inasmuch as such a faith is capable of procuring eternal life. (p. 628)
It doesn't follow logically, from the statement, "written document x produces faith and salvation", that the statement, "only written document x produces faith and salvation" is also true. Whitaker has falsely assumed  that the second proposition is 1) stated in the passage, and 2) if not stated, necessarily flows from the first. It does not. And in fact, this is asserted repeatedly in Scripture itself.

Most (possibly all) recorded conversions or new professions of faith or baptisms in the New Testament came as a result of preaching (or sometimes signs), not a written text (see, e.g., Lk 8:12; Acts 4:4; 8:12; 10:44; 11:14; Rom 10:14, 17; 1 Cor 1:21; 15:11; Eph 1:13; 1 Thess 2:16), so it is foolish to assert that only the written word can produce this result. This is obvious today as well. Someone could observe a Christian and be so moved, as to want to believe as he or she does. This is stated in 1 Peter 3:1: ". . . some, though they do not obey the word, may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives,". St. Paul states something very similar:

1 Corinthians 10:33 just as I try to please all men in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.

2 Corinthians 3:2-3 You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on your hearts, to be known and read by all men; [3] and you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

St. Paul strongly implies that men can be saved without hearing the gospel (analogy to "the law") at all, in Romans 2:11-16. There are many ways of obtaining salvation, therefore, beside through the medium of the written word of Scripture. Paul says, for example, that a woman having a child may save her soul primarily by that action (1 Tim 2:15). Works (and not faith, let alone Bible-reading) are the central criteria for entrance into heaven at the judgment (see 50 passages that assert this).


Although the evangelist does mention miracles in the preceding verse, yet the word Tavra, which he subjoins in this, is to be understood of doctrine rather than of miracles. (p. 628)


John 20:30 reads: "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;". Certainly some of these signs produced new believers and disciples. I have no idea what he means or what he is referring to when he claims that the passage is also or mostly about "doctrine", but it sure sounds like special pleading.

For miracles do not properly produce faith in us, but rather confirm and support it when it hath been produced, and miracles minister to and win credence for the doctrine. (p. 628)

This is not untrue as a generality (it is often or usually the case); yet there is a passage in Scripture such as John 2:23: ". . . many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did". This implies that the miracle or sign directly led to proclamations of faith in Jesus as His disciples. There are more such passages:

John 7:31 Yet many of the people believed in him; they said, "When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?" 

John 11:4  Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did [raised Lazarus from the dead], believed in him;

John 20:29 Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe."

. . . Scripture is not only one of those means which relate to salvation, but the entire and sole medium, the perfect and complete medium, because it produces a perfect faith. For that faith which brings salvation is perfect; and consequently the medium whereby that faith is produced is also perfect. (p. 629)
But we have seen again and again in Scripture itself that this is not true. I have followed what the Bible itself teaches, all through these critiques of Whitaker, whereas we have seen that he often invents (in his eternal struggle against the truth of the "papists") non-biblical traditions that cannot be found there, and foolishly pretends that they are scriptural teachings. Merely stating a thing does not make it so.

Whitaker's views here border on bibliolatry: making the Bible an idol and more important to salvation than Jesus' work on the cross on our behalf. Our Lord Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer, not the Bible. God's written revelation, inspired and wonderful and unique as it is, is not God Himself. Words in and of themselves (even biblical ones) do not save us; they merely convey the gospel of Jesus' death on the cross, which saves us by God's grace and power. It's like saying that the tube that carries blood saves the person who receives a blood transfusion, rather than the blood itself.




***

Antidote to William Whitaker's Sola Scriptura Arguments, Part 17: Oral Tradition / Desperate Anti-Traditional Exegetical Arguments / Chysostom on Tradition / Whitaker's Near-Bibliolatry

See the introductory post, New Upcoming Project: Refutation of William Whitaker's Disputation on Holy Scripture on Sola Scriptura.
I am utilizing a copy of the book available at Internet Archive.
Whitaker's words will be in blue. Page numbers will correspond to the above book version.
* * *
There is no consequential force then in the argument, that because he says "which I command," not, "which I have written," therefore this word was not committed to writing, but delivered by oral tradition. Besides, if Moses had entrusted some things orally to certain persons, which he considered unfit to be written; to whom could he have committed them rather than to Joshua, to whom he imparted all his counsels, and who was his successor in office? . . . when God forbids them to add, he signifies that this body of doctrine was so perfect as that nothing could or should be added to it; and that, therefore, we should acquiesce in it, be satisfied with it, and cleave to it alone. They add, therefore, who determine that this teaching is not complete and full. And when we shew that this word is written, we shew that the written word contains a full and perfect body of doctrine, to which nothing should be added. The ancient Jews understood and explained these words to mean that nothing should be added to the written word. (p. 617)
In fact, the Jews believed that Moses received an oral law on Mt. Sinai, in addition to the written Torah. This was the mainstream position, which was held by the Pharisees, and denied by the Sadducees, and it was followed by Jesus and the early Christians. I have provided nine biblical proofs that this is the case in my paper, Biblical Evidence for the Oral Torah (Hence, by Analogy, Oral Apostolic Tradition).

Jesus even utilized oral tradition, as codified in the Talmud, in His Sermon on the Mount. If in fact it is the case that oral tradition was considered authoritative by Jesus and the first Christians, then Whitaker's contentions about "written-only" and sola Scriptura are so much hooey. We are to follow the example of our Lord and the apostles, not unbiblical traditions of men that contradict them. Whitaker comments on the following Bible passage:

Galatians 1:8 (RSV) But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed.

. . . if an angel from heaven preach to you anything besides what you have received in the scriptures of the law and of the gospel, let him be accursed!" In these words we should observe and consider the following points: First, that all that Paul taught may be found in the scriptures. . . . whatever is preached or announced besides what is contained in these scriptures, is to be wholly rejected. His words are, "besides what is written:" therefore not only that which is contrary to, but that also which is beside the scriptures, should be refused. . . . Paul is here speaking of the scriptures, and condemning every doctrine not therein delivered . . . It appears therefore hence, that whatever is beside the scriptures, is alien from them, and therefore should be rejected. (pp. 624-625)

Whitaker is contending that Paul condemns anything (i.e., tradition) "besides" the gospel, which is contained in its entirety (as we agree) in Scripture. But this is not what the text says. "Contrary" to the gospel, doesn't necessarily preclude traditions that are not expressly laid out in Scripture, as Whitaker conceded (at least partially) in the citation from p. 625 (next one below): since traditions may indeed be fully in accord with the gospel. In other words, if this is used as an argument against tradition per se, it fails. Paul's statement is only an argument against doctrines contrary to the gospel. It is not an "unwrittten" (tradition) vs. "written" (Bible / gospel in the Bible) dichotomy but rather, a "gospel" vs. "contrary to the gospel" dichotomy.

. . . Traditions are either consonant to scripture, and then they should be received, and those who do not receive them are condemned in these words; or they are, as Basil expresses it, alien from scripture, and then they should be rejected. These fathers speak of those traditions which are consonant to scripture, not of such as are alien from it. (p. 625)
Amen! This is what Catholics have been saying all along: our traditions (apostolic traditions) are completely in harmony with Scripture and are indicated there either explicitly, implicitly, or straightforwardly deduced from the same sort of evidences. If Whitaker goes this far in espousing traditions, then he shoots himself in the foot insofar as he wishes to defend sola Scriptura. He concedes too much. He also fails to grasp that the Catholic Church holds to exactly this, so that he is unaware of the position of his opponent. But, having stumbled upon the truth in this instance, Whitaker immediately qualifies (or contradicts?) it, in replying to Bellarmine's argument, which he summarizes:

He says, in the second place, that the word "beside" in this place is equivalent to "against:" so as that Paul here anathematizes those who deliver anything against, not beside, the scriptures; consequently, that new doctrines are not here prohibited, provided they do not contradict the scriptures. . . . We, however, take the word "beside" in its strict sense, so as to bring under this denunciation whatever is delivered beside that gospel delivered by the apostle. (p. 625)

This is an absurd position because it massively contradicts Paul's frequent reference to (in a positive sense) apostolic tradition and traditions, and oral teaching (1 Cor 11:2; 2 Thess 2:15; 3:6; Phil 4:9; Col 2:8; 2 Tim 1:13-14; 2:2). Whitaker interprets the word rendered "contrary to" in RSV and "besides" in his own translation as "anything besides the gospel" rather than "anything contrary to the gospel." He moves the emphasis from being contrary, to being simply other. Whitaker keeps up his odd and, I think, implausible (but interesting and clever) textual argument (italics added to highlight the words under consideration):


But the apostle does not use the term against, because the false apostles would have denied that it was against that gospel which Paul himself had delivered. In order, therefore, to obviate this false pretence, the apostle says, "beside what I preached unto you, and ye received;" as if he had said, I taught you nothing of the kind; therefore those who introduce such things are to be avoided, and by no means to be listened to. Thus it is certain that beside suits the apostle's design much better than against. (p. 626)
Alright; we have heard Whitaker's opinion on how it ought to be translated, to best convey Paul's meaning in Galatians 1:8. Now let's see what Bible translators think, in order to best determine or ascertain exactly what Paul intended. None use "besides." Several use "other." I have placed those in Whitaker's favor, as a synonym of "besides," even though it is quite arguable that "other" is closer to "contradicts" (or similar concept) than "besides". To say "other than" or "another so-and-so" is usually (though not necessarily) to indicate a contradiction or a contrary position.

If I say, "the Jehovah's Witnesses believe in a doctrine other than trinitarianism," they obviously contradict trinitarianism. Since there is only one gospel, "another" or "any other" gospel obviously contradicts it; if it didn't, it would be the same in the first place. Thus, Whitaker's emphasis on this textual argument is mostly a distinction without a difference; much ado about nothing. Nevertheless, let's see how many (non-Catholic) translations opted for the more directly, explicitly "contradictory" sense, over against Whitaker's position (that he seems quite irrationally dogmatic about):

Versions Opposed to Whitaker's Interpretation [11]

RSV . . . a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you . . .
NEB . . . a gospel at variance with . . .
NASB . . . a gospel contrary to . . .
Williams . . . a good news that is contrary . . .
Goodspeed . . . good news that contradicts . . .
Moffatt . . . a gospel that contradicts . . .
Amplified . . . a gospel contrary to and different . . .
Wuest . . . a gospel . . . which goes beyond that which you took so eagerly . . .
Barclay . . . a gospel . . . which is at variance with . . .
CEV . . . anything different from our message . . .
TEV . . . a gospel that is different . . .

Versions in Favor of Whitaker's Interpretation [9]

KJV / Phillips . . . any other gospel . . .
NKJV / Lamsa . . . any other gospel . . . 
NIV / REB / ASV . . . a gospel other than . . .
Beck . . . any other good news . . .
Living . . . any other message . . .

The tally is 11-9 against Whitaker's interpretation: no slam-dunk for his side. And granting my remarks about the meaning of "other", arguably he has little or no case at all. In any event, he certainly has no warrant to be dogmatic based on this text (and one word) alone. He goes on to argue in the same manner, regarding a similar passage:

Romans 16:17 (RSV) I appeal to you, brethren, to take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them.

I confess it, and so does Beza: for whatever is against scripture is also beside it; and, conversely also, whatever in our holy religion is taught beside the scriptures, is against the scriptures too, if it carry with it any notion of necessity, that is, if it be proposed as a necessary doctrine. Since the apostles delivered abundantly all necessary things in the scriptures, whatever is urged as necessary beside the scriptures is justly deemed contrary to them. I confess that Trapd may sometimes be conveniently translated against, but not in this place. . . . in religious matters beside is equivalent to against the scriptures: but we have already shewn the reason why the apostle uses the term beside rather than against, because it suited his purpose better. (pp. 626-627; italics added for the references to particular words in the biblical text)

We agree that all that is necessary in Christian doctrine is in Scripture (this is material sufficiency): just not always explicitly so: as Whitaker and most Protestants tend to irrationally require. But he has taken his argument to the extreme again, foolishly insisting on a certain translation, when there is plenty of room for different, honestly-held opinions. Let's do a tally again, with the same twenty translations. At least last time it was "close"; this time it is unanimous against Whitaker's dogmatic take on the passage:

Versions Opposed to Whitaker's Interpretation [20]

RSV / Amplified . . . opposition to the doctrine . . .
NEB / NASB / Wuest / NIV / REB . . . contrary to the teaching . . .

Williams / Goodspeed . . . opposition to the instruction . . .

Moffatt / KJV / MKJV / Lamsa / ASV . . . contrary to the doctrine . . .

Barclay . . . in defiance of the teaching . . .
CEV . . . refusing to do what all of you were taught . . .
TEV . . . against the teaching . . .

Phillips . . . plain opposition to the teaching . . .
Beck . . .going against the teaching . . .
Living . . .contrary to what you have been taught . . .

Versions in Favor of Whitaker's Interpretation [none]

. . . it is certain that Chrysostom maintains the perfection of scripture, and is on our side against the papists: for in these words he subverts both the Jesuit's answers, since he determines that the apostle both speaks of the written word of God, and condemns whatever is preached not only against, but beside the scriptures. (p. 627)
St. John Chrysostom was only asserting the material sufficiency of Scripture in the passage that Whitaker seized upon (not sola Scriptura). But of course (as usual) he ignored the many places in the same saint's writing where he explicitly espouses the authority of extra-biblical tradition. I have documented these in my book, The Church Fathers Were Catholic :

[T]here was much also that was not written. Like that which is written, the unwritten too is worthy of belief. So let us regard the Tradition of the Church also as worthy of belief. (Homilies on 2 Thess 4:2; commenting on 2 Thess 2:15)

"That ye remember me in all things, and hold fast the traditions, even as I delivered them to you." It appears then that he used at that time to deliver many things also not in writing, which he shows too in many other places. But at that time he only delivered them, whereas now he adds an explanation of their reason: thus both rendering the one sort, the obedient, more steadfast, and pulling down the others' pride, who oppose themselves. (Homily XXVI on 1 Corinthians; commenting on 1 Cor 11:2; NPNF 1, Vol. XII)

"So then, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye were taught, whether by word, or by Epistle of ours." Hence it is manifest, that they did not deliver all things by Epistle, but many things also unwritten, and in like manner both the one and the other are worthy of credit. Therefore let us think the tradition of the Church also worthy of credit. It is a tradition, seek no farther. Here he shows that there were many who were shaken. (On Second Thessalonians, Homily IV)

Not by letters alone did Paul instruct his disciple in his duty, but before by words also which he shows, both in many other passages, as where he says, "whether by word or our Epistle" (2 Thess. ii. 15.), and especially here. Let us not therefore suppose that anything relating to doctrine was spoken imperfectly. For many things he delivered to him without writing. Of these therefore he reminds him, when he says, "Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me." (Homily III on 2 Timothy - on 2 Tim 1:13-18; NPNF 1, Vol. XIII)

[I]t was no object with them to be writers of books: in fact, there are many things which they have delivered by unwritten tradition. (On Acts of the Apostles, Homily 1; NPNF 1, Vol. XI)

Ver. 8. "Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth." Who are these? The magicians in the time of Moses. But how is it their names are nowhere else introduced? Either they were handed down by tradition, or it is probable that Paul knew them by inspiration. (Homily VIII on 2 Timothy; NPNF 1, Vol. XIII)

For, "remember," he says, "the words of the Lord which he spake: It is more blessed to give than to receive." (v. 35.) And where said He this? Perhaps the Apostles delivered it by unwritten tradition; or else it is plain from (recorded sayings, from) which one could infer it. (Homily XLV on Acts 20:32; NPNF 1, Vol. XIII)

Now the fourth passage of scripture which we cite against traditions is contained in the last verse of the twentieth chapter of John, . . . (p. 628)

John 20:31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. 

It is manifest from these words, that all necessary things may be found in those which are written, because by these a full and perfect faith may be produced, inasmuch as such a faith is capable of procuring eternal life. (p. 628)
It doesn't follow logically, from the statement, "written document x produces faith and salvation", that the statement, "only written document x produces faith and salvation" is also true. Whitaker has falsely assumed  that the second proposition is 1) stated in the passage, and 2) if not stated, necessarily flows from the first. It does not. And in fact, this is asserted repeatedly in Scripture itself.

Most (possibly all) recorded conversions or repentances or new professions of faith or baptisms in the New Testament came as a result of preaching (or sometimes signs), not a written text (see, e.g., Lk 8:12; Acts 4:4; 8:12; 10:44; 11:14; Rom 10:14, 17; 1 Cor 1:21; 15:11; Eph 1:13; 1 Thess 2:16), so it is foolish to assert that only the written word can produce this result. This is obvious today as well. Someone could observe a Christian and be so moved, as to want to believe as he or she does. This is stated in 1 Peter 3:1: ". . . some, though they do not obey the word, may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives,". St. Paul states something very similar:

1 Corinthians 10:33 just as I try to please all men in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.

2 Corinthians 3:2-3 You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on your hearts, to be known and read by all men; [3] and you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

St. Paul strongly implies that men can be saved without hearing the gospel (analogy to "the law") at all, in Romans 2:11-16. There are many ways of obtaining salvation, therefore, beside through the medium of the written word of Scripture. Paul says, for example, that a woman having a child may save her soul primarily by that action (1 Tim 2:15). Works (and not faith, let alone Bible-reading) are the central criteria for entrance into heaven at the judgment (see 50 passages that assert this).


Although the evangelist does mention miracles in the preceding verse, yet the word Tavra, which he subjoins in this, is to be understood of doctrine rather than of miracles. (p. 628)


John 20:30 reads: "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;". Certainly some of these signs produced new believers and disciples. I have no idea what he means or what he is referring to when he claims that the passage is also or mostly about "doctrine", but it sure sounds like special pleading.

For miracles do not properly produce faith in us, but rather confirm and support it when it hath been produced, and miracles minister to and win credence for the doctrine. (p. 628)

This is not untrue as a generality (it is often or usually the case); yet there is a passage in Scripture such as John 2:23: ". . . many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did". This implies that the miracle or sign directly led to proclamations of faith in Jesus as His disciples. There are more such passages:

John 7:31 Yet many of the people believed in him; they said, "When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?" 

John 11:4  Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did [raised Lazarus from the dead], believed in him;

John 20:29 Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe."

. . . Scripture is not only one of those means which relate to salvation, but the entire and sole medium, the perfect and complete medium, because it produces a perfect faith. For that faith which brings salvation is perfect; and consequently the medium whereby that faith is produced is also perfect. (p. 629)
But we have seen again and again in Scripture itself that this is not true. I have followed what the Bible itself teaches, all through these critiques of Whitaker, whereas we have seen that he often invents (in his eternal struggle against the truth of the "papists") non-biblical traditions that cannot be found there, and foolishly pretends that they are scriptural teachings. Merely stating a thing does not make it so.

Whitaker's views here border on bibliolatry: making the Bible an idol and more important to salvation than Jesus' work on the cross on our behalf. Our Lord Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer, not the Bible. God's written revelation, inspired and wonderful and unique as it is, is not God Himself. Words in and of themselves (even biblical ones) do not save us; they merely convey the gospel of Jesus' death on the cross, which saves us by God's grace and power. It's like saying that the tube that carries blood saves the person who receives a blood transfusion, rather than the blood itself.




***

Did Jesus Condemn Masturbation? It Appears So (Striking Talmudic Parallels to the Sermon on the Mount)

[image error]  Babylonian Talmud
I ran across this argument today in an article bristling with insight, by a Messianic Jew, Reb Yhoshua, entitled, The Oral Torah and the Messianic Jew. In my resulting paper, Biblical Evidence for the Oral Torah (Hence, by Analogy, Oral Apostolic Tradition), I noted (from the article) that his teaching on visual lust and on prayer (in the Sermon on the Mount) look to be almost direct citations, or at least strong reflections of the thought, of portions of the Talmud, which was an encapsulation of Jewish traditions: much of which were believed to have been passed down as oral Torah: initially received by Moses on Mt. Sinai, along with the written law.

In the same passage on lust, where a "hand" causing trouble is mentioned, Reb Yhoshua noted that this may very well hearken back to a talmudic injunction that was clearly about masturbation. First, let's look at the passage (RSV):

Matthew 5:28-30 But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. [29] If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. [30] And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. 

It had never occurred to me in 34 years of committed Christianity, and seeing this passage countless times, to see an indication of masturbation here, but now that someone suggests it, it makes perfect sense. Context is everything. Verse 30 (so I had thought) was moving onto another subject matter (hence I made no connection).

But now it seems more sensible that the topic remains within the general subject of sexuality and marriage, since Jesus continues after this, discussing divorce in the following two verses. A "flow" of 1) lust / adultery, 2) some kind of (unspecified) sin with the hand, and 3) marriage and divorce, doesn't make much sense. What sin with the hand? What would Jesus mean? But the second of three prohibitions referring to masturbation does seem a great deal more plausible in context. Jewish traditional background makes the merely plausible become quite likely. Reb Yhoshua comments (footnote incorporated):

Some, understanding that vv. 27-30 are all teachings on lust, have suggested Jesus condoned castration. Origen, for example, castrated himself to fulfill Jesus' command.. . . Jesus certainly didn't mean for his followers to emasculate themselves. G-d forbade the Israelites to subject even their animals to painful castration. (Lev. 22:24) Mention of cutting off one's hand within the context of a teaching on lustful thoughts and improper glances was simply a quote from the oral Torah, "The hand that frequently touches [the genitals]…in the case of a man, should be cut off." [Mishnah Nidah 2:1] Jesus was using the same hyperbole with his audience that G-d used with Moses to communicate the sinfulness of masturbation. It is extremely unlikely that he ever intended for any kind of amputation to take place.

An article on "Kosher Sex" at the Judaism 101 website confirms this:

Jewish law clearly prohibits male masturbation. . . . Jewish law . . . forbids any act of ha-sh'cha'tat zerah (destruction of the seed), that is, ejaculation outside of the vagina. In fact, the prohibition is so strict that one passage in the Talmud states, "in the case of a man, the hand that reaches below the navel should be chopped off." (Niddah 13a)

[see a translation of the entirety of Tractate Niddah, 13, from the Babylonian Talmud. It translates the same phrase: "Whosoever puts his hand below his belly that hand shall be cut off" (13b). The same section has the following statement: "It was taught at the school of R. Ishmael, Thou shalt not commit adultery [Ex. XX, 13] implies, Thou shalt not practise masturbation either with hand or with foot."]

With this previous Talmudic terminology and tradition brought to bear on the subject, not just of a hand  "cut off" but also a tie-in of masturbation as a species of adultery absolutely forbidden, it seems clear that Matthew 5:30 was referring to masturbation. Thus, Jesus condemned it in no uncertain terms (virtually making it a variant of the adultery prohibited in the Ten Commandments), while not suggesting a literal amputation (since it was understood in the culture as hyperbole). The strong hyperbolic visual was the ancient Jewish literary way of expressing the thought, "this is really really bad and immoral. Don't do it!"

Moreover, it is another instance of Jesus acknowledging the authority of the original oral Torah, that was later summarized in the Talmud. Jesus observed Pharisaic regulations and teaching (Matthew 23:2); hence He accepted the oral law as a matter of course, and consistently opposed the Sadducees, who denied that an oral law was passed down as a set of traditions: originally received by Moses from God on Mt. Sinai.


***

Biblical Evidence for the Oral Torah (Hence, by Analogy, Oral Apostolic Tradition)

 Mt. Sinai
I drew the following information from a fabulous article by a Messianic Jew, Reb Yhoshua, entitled, The Oral Torah and the Messianic Jew. I have been curious about this for some time, and found this article in a search. It's a goldmine. The arguments are fascinating: agree or disagree. All Bible passages are RSV (and not directly cited from the article above, since he used different versions).
* * *
Reb Yhoshua gives his introduction to the topic:

The doctrine of the Oral Torah is one of the defining beliefs of traditional Judaism. Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon (Maimonides) included it among his Thirteen Principles of the Jewish Faith, [2] all of which a Jew must believe in order to be religiously identified with the people of Israel. Most Messianic Jews reject it as mere tradition, but for Orthodox Jews, it is the backbone of halakha, Jewish Law. It is the flesh on the liv-ing frame provided by the Pentateuch. In his introduction to Mishnah Torah Maimon-ides wrote, "All the precepts which Moses received on Sinai were given together with their interpretation." [3] Contrary to the perception of many Messianic believers, the Oral Torah is not believed by Orthodox Jews to be the collective teachings of the Rabbinical Sages. Traditional Judaism holds that it was divinely revealed to Moses, and passed down to the sages by word of mouth until it was partially codified by Yhudah HaNasi, who gathered it into the Mishnah. [4] Further codification was resisted at first. The oral Torah was meant to be oral. But when it became clear that the transmission process was decaying even more, Rav Ashi gathered the tradition into the [Gemara]. [5] Together the [Gemara] and the Mishnah comprise the Talmud, the modern embodiment of the Oral Torah. The Talmud, however, is not simply a book filled with laws. It was written in very compact language that was designed to keep the Oral Torah largely oral.

[2] Maimonides, Commentary to Mishnah, (Sanhedrin ch. 10). Maimonide does not use 'Oral Torah' in his Ani Maamin. It is universally accepted that Principles eight and nine refer to both the Written and Oral Torahs.

[3] Isadore Twersky. A Maimonides Reader. (New York: Luhrman House, Inc. 1972), p35

[4] Ibid p36

[5] Ibid p37

First, he provides the example of the prophet Samuel sacrificing in the high places: [1]

According to the written Torah, sacrifices were not permitted anywhere but at the Tabernacle. (Lev 17:1-5) . . . After the Tabernacle was erected the written Torah does not seem to endorse the High Places at all. (Lev 17:8-9) One of the most startling proofs that an oral Torah existed is that the prophet Samuel con-tinued to sacrifice at the High Places after the Tabernacle had been built. When Saul first met Samuel, Samuel was preparing a sacrifice at one of the High Places. (1Sam 9:12-13) Later in Israel's history, Israel would be strongly rebuked for sacrificing at such cult sites, but because the Tabernacle was not at Shiloh or Jerusalem, the text of 1 Samuel seems to defer to the oral Torah, and allows the apparent transgression to pass without comment.. . . The only explanations possible are that either a leni-ency existed that was not mentioned in the written text of the Pentateuch, but was ordained by G-d and known to Samuel; or that Samuel was spiritually severed from Israel on the same day that he met Saul. Because Samuel continued to serve G-d and Israel for many more years, it is doubtful that he had been spiritually cut off from his people.

God had made the following condemnation in the Torah: ". . . I will destroy your high places . . ." (Lev 26:30). And it had been written a few hundred years before Samuel's time:

Joshua 22:29 Far be it from us that we should rebel against the LORD, and turn away this day from following the LORD by building an altar for burnt offering, cereal offering, or sacrifice, other than the altar of the LORD our God that stands before his tabernacle!"

Reb Yhoshua then shows how Sabbath regulations [2] went far beyond the written Torah:

Jeremiah 17:21-22 Thus says the LORD: Take heed for the sake of your lives, and do not bear a burden on the sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. [22] And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the sabbath or do any work, but keep the sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers. 

He comments:

In all the passages in the Pentateuch regarding the Sabbath, none of them ever forbids carrying objects out of one's dwelling. . . . According to the book of Jeremiah, however, Jerusalem was destroyed for violating this oral tradition. 

Jeremiah 17:27 But if you do not listen to me, to keep the sabbath day holy, and not to bear a burden and enter by the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem and shall not be quenched.

Surprisingly enough, the written Torah never specifies that Jerusalem [3] would be the central place of worship, or that a Temple [4] was to be built there (neither the words "temple" -- in this sense -- nor "Jerusalem" ever appears in the Pentateuch or Torah: first five books of the Bible).

The written Torah never acknowl-edges Jerusalem as the proper place for worship, and only briefly mentions that the L-rd will someday chose a special place for Himself. (Lev. 18:6) Only the oral Torah identifies the chosen place as Jerusalem, yet David knew where he wanted to build the Temple. The written Torah also gives detailed instructions for how to build G-d's sanctuary. It was to be a tent erected by the priests. . . . there is no provision in the Torah for a permanent structure to replace the Tabernacle. It was forbidden to add or detract from the commands that G-d gave to Moses (Duet. 4:2), and Moses never wrote down any plan for the Tabernacle to be permanently folded up and put away. If G-d did not pass his plan to someday have a Temple on to Moses, than all of Israel's worship from the reign of Solomon on was invalid. Be-cause Jesus frequented the Temple, Messianic Jews, as believers in Jesus as sinless, can be sure this too was clearly not the case.

Reb Yhoshua notes that Jesus was a follower of the Pharisaical tradition [5]:

It is easy to overly simplify Jesus' relationship with Pharisaic Judaism by anachronistically projecting modern Protestant doctrine into the New Testament. . . . The fact that Jesus also had differences with the Sadducees, the virulent anti-Oral Torah sect, is often downplayed; as is the fact that whenever he disagreed with them, it was because he held to a doctrine found only in the oral Torah – resurrection from the dead.

I noted this in an old paper of mine:

Jesus Himself followed the Pharisaical tradition, as argued by Asher Finkel in his book The Pharisees and the Teacher of Nazareth (Cologne: E.J. Brill, 1964). He adopted the Pharisaical stand on controversial issues (Matthew 5:18-19, Luke 16:17), accepted the oral tradition of the academies, observed the proper mealtime procedures (Mark 6:56, Matthew 14:36) and the Sabbath, and priestly regulations (Matthew 8:4, Mark 1:44, Luke 5:4). This author argues that Jesus' condemnations were directed towards the Pharisees of the school of Shammai, whereas Jesus was closer to the school of Hillel.

The Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem: 1971) backs up this contention, in its entry "Jesus" (v. 10, 10):

In general, Jesus' polemical sayings against the Pharisees were far meeker than the Essene attacks and not sharper than similar utterances in the talmudic sources. This source contends that Jesus' beliefs and way of life were closer to the Pharisees than to the Essenes, though He was similar to them in many respects also (poverty, humility, purity of heart, simplicity, etc.).

St. Paul actually called himself a Pharisee twice, after his conversion to Christianity  (Acts 23:6; 26:5). Jesus opposed the doctrine of the Sadducees (but not of the Pharisees: Matt 23:2), as I have also noted in a major paper of mine. The Pharisees adhered to oral tradition and the Sadducees rejected it.

Reb Yhoshua observes that Jesus and the early Christians (even the Jerusalem Council) "held a standard of kashrut, proper eating [6], that was con-sistent with the Oral Torah" (his footnotes incorporated:

three of the four commandments that the Jerusalem Council insisted all believers observe immediately upon becoming Jesus believers dealt with food. (Acts 15:20, 29; 21:25) Two of these came from the oral Torah: not to eat things sacrificed to idols, [Mishnah Avodah Zorah 2:3] and not to eat things strangled. [Mishnah Chullin 1:2] The written Torah does not forbid either of these types of food, yet Jesus, in Revelation, is portrayed as strongly rebuking the communities of Perga-mum and Thyatira for breaking the ban on their consumption. (Rev 2:14 and 20) The authority of the Oral Torah in the lives of early Messianic believers cannot be doubted when half of the commands the Jerusalem council required of Gentiles were from the Oral Torah.

Jesus' famous teaching on lust in the Sermon on the Mount [7] was derived from the oral Torah (footnote incorporated):

Many scholars have struggled with Jesus' teaching, "You have heard that our fathers were told, 'Do not commit adultery.' And I tell you that a man who even looks at a woman with the purpose of lusting after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Mat 6:27) It seems to demand something impossible of men, something the written Torah never asked. . . . Jesus was not arbitrarily adding an unnatural stringency to the Torah; he was teaching from a tradition Moses received at Sinai, "Not only is he who sins with his body considered an adulterer, but he who sins with his eye is also considered one." [Leviticus Rabba 23:12]

So were His teachings on prayer [8]:

Jesus' ideas on prayer mirror those in the oral Torah, as well. He taught his disciples not to babble when they prayed (Mat. 5:7), and advised them to never stop praying for something they really needed. (Luke 18:1-6) What Jesus called babbling, Chazal labeled calculating, purposely making one's prayers long so that they would be an-swered. Calculating, or babbling, was forbidden by the Oral Torah; [Babylonian Talmud, Berekhot 32b] and just as Jesus advised his disciples to continue asking G-d for what they wanted, the oral Torah commanded the Israelites, "If a man realizes that he has prayed and not been an-swered, he should pray again." [Babylonian Talmud, Berekhot 32b]

Conclusion: the oral Torah seems to be fairly conclusively established from the written biblical record. By analogy, Christian oral apostolic tradition is also upheld as valid in the new covenant, which was a direct development of the old covenant (Matthew 5:17-20).



***

Biblical Evidences of the Oral Torah (Hence, by Analogy and Later Development, Oral ApostolicTradition Also)

 Mt. Sinai
I drew the following information from a fabulous article by a Messianic Jew, Reb Yhoshua, entitled, The Oral Torah and the Messianic Jew. I have been curious about this for some time, and found this article in a search. It's a goldmine. The arguments are fascinating: agree or disagree. All Bible passages are RSV (and not directly cited from the article above, since he used different versions).
* * *
Reb Yhoshua gives his introduction to the topic:

The doctrine of the Oral Torah is one of the defining beliefs of traditional Judaism. Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon (Maimonides) included it among his Thirteen Principles of the Jewish Faith, [2] all of which a Jew must believe in order to be religiously identified with the people of Israel. Most Messianic Jews reject it as mere tradition, but for Orthodox Jews, it is the backbone of halakha, Jewish Law. It is the flesh on the liv-ing frame provided by the Pentateuch. In his introduction to Mishnah Torah Maimon-ides wrote, "All the precepts which Moses received on Sinai were given together with their interpretation."[3] Contrary to the perception of many Messianic believers, the Oral Torah is not believed by Orthodox Jews to be the collective teachings of the Rabbinical Sages. Traditional Judaism holds that it was divinely revealed to Moses, and passed down to the sages by word of mouth until it was partially codified by Yhudah HaNasi, who gathered it into the Mishnah.[4] Further codification was resisted at first. The oral Torah was meant to be oral. But when it became clear that the transmission process was decaying even more, Rav Ashi gathered the tradition into the Gomorrah.[5] Together the Gomorrah and the Mishnah comprise the Talmud, the modern embodiment of the Oral Torah. The Talmud, however, is not simply a book filled with laws. It was written in very compact language that was designed to keep the Oral Torah largely oral.

[2] Maimonides, Commentary to Mishnah, (Sanhedrin ch. 10). Maimonide does not use 'Oral Torah' in his Ani Maamin. It is universally accepted that Principles eight and nine refer to both the Written and Oral Torahs.

[3] Isadore Twersky. A Maimonides Reader. (New York: Luhrman House, Inc. 1972), p35

[4] Ibid p36

[5] Ibid p37

First, he provides the example of the prophet Samuel sacrificing in the high places: [1]

According to the written Torah, sacrifices were not permitted anywhere but at the Tabernacle. (Lev 17:1-5) . . . After the Tabernacle was erected the written Torah does not seem to endorse the High Places at all. (Lev 17:8-9) One of the most startling proofs that an oral Torah existed is that the prophet Samuel con-tinued to sacrifice at the High Places after the Tabernacle had been built. When Saul first met Samuel, Samuel was preparing a sacrifice at one of the High Places. (1Sam 9:12-13) Later in Israel's history, Israel would be strongly rebuked for sacrificing at such cult sites, but because the Tabernacle was not at Shiloh or Jerusalem, the text of 1 Samuel seems to defer to the oral Torah, and allows the apparent transgression to pass without comment.. . . The only explanations possible are that either a leni-ency existed that was not mentioned in the written text of the Pentateuch, but was ordained by G-d and known to Samuel; or that Samuel was spiritually severed from Israel on the same day that he met Saul. Because Samuel continued to serve G-d and Israel for many more years, it is doubtful that he had been spiritually cut off from his people.

God had made the following condemnation in the Torah: ". . . I will destroy your high places . . ." (Lev 26:30). And it had been written a few hundred years before Samuel's time:

Joshua 22:29 Far be it from us that we should rebel against the LORD, and turn away this day from following the LORD by building an altar for burnt offering, cereal offering, or sacrifice, other than the altar of the LORD our God that stands before his tabernacle!"

Reb Yhoshua then shows how Sabbath regulations [2] went far beyond the written Torah:

Jeremiah 17:21-22 Thus says the LORD: Take heed for the sake of your lives, and do not bear a burden on the sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. [22] And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the sabbath or do any work, but keep the sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers. 

He comments:

In all the passages in the Pentateuch regarding the Sabbath, none of them ever forbids carrying objects out of one's dwelling. . . . According to the book of Jeremiah, however, Jerusalem was destroyed for violating this oral tradition. 

Jeremiah 17:27 But if you do not listen to me, to keep the sabbath day holy, and not to bear a burden and enter by the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem and shall not be quenched.

Surprisingly enough, the written Torah never specifies that Jerusalem [3] would be the central place of worship, or that a Temple [4] was to be built there (neither the words "temple" -- in this sense -- nor "Jerusalem" ever appears in the Pentateuch or Torah: first five books of the Bible).

The written Torah never acknowl-edges Jerusalem as the proper place for worship, and only briefly mentions that the L-rd will someday chose a special place for Himself. (Lev. 18:6) Only the oral Torah identifies the chosen place as Jerusalem, yet David knew where he wanted to build the Temple. The written Torah also gives detailed instructions for how to build G-d's sanctuary. It was to be a tent erected by the priests. . . . there is no provision in the Torah for a permanent structure to replace the Tabernacle. It was forbidden to add or detract from the commands that G-d gave to Moses (Duet. 4:2), and Moses never wrote down any plan for the Tabernacle to be permanently folded up and put away. If G-d did not pass his plan to someday have a Temple on to Moses, than all of Israel's worship from the reign of Solomon on was invalid. Be-cause Jesus frequented the Temple, Messianic Jews, as believers in Jesus as sinless, can be sure this too was clearly not the case.

Reb Yhoshua notes that Jesus was a follower of the Pharisaical tradition [5]:

It is easy to overly simplify Jesus' relationship with Pharisaic Judaism by anachronistically projecting modern Protestant doctrine into the New Testament. . . . The fact that Jesus also had differences with the Sadducees, the virulent anti-Oral Torah sect, is often downplayed; as is the fact that whenever he disagreed with them, it was because he held to a doctrine found only in the oral Torah – resurrection from the dead.

I noted this in an old paper of mine:

Jesus Himself followed the Pharisaical tradition, as argued by Asher Finkel in his book The Pharisees and the Teacher of Nazareth (Cologne: E.J. Brill, 1964). He adopted the Pharisaical stand on controversial issues (Matthew 5:18-19, Luke 16:17), accepted the oral tradition of the academies, observed the proper mealtime procedures (Mark 6:56, Matthew 14:36) and the Sabbath, and priestly regulations (Matthew 8:4, Mark 1:44, Luke 5:4). This author argues that Jesus' condemnations were directed towards the Pharisees of the school of Shammai, whereas Jesus was closer to the school of Hillel.

The Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem: 1971) backs up this contention, in its entry "Jesus" (v. 10, 10):

In general, Jesus' polemical sayings against the Pharisees were far meeker than the Essene attacks and not sharper than similar utterances in the talmudic sources. This source contends that Jesus' beliefs and way of life were closer to the Pharisees than to the Essenes, though He was similar to them in many respects also (poverty, humility, purity of heart, simplicity, etc.).

St. Paul actually called himself a Pharisee twice, after his conversion to Christianity  (Acts 23:6; 26:5). Jesus opposed the doctrine of the Sadducees (but not of the Pharisees: Matt 23:2), as I have also noted in a major paper of mine. The Pharisees adhered to oral tradition and the Sadducees rejected it.

Reb Yhoshua observes that Jesus and the early Christians (even the Jerusalem Council) "held a standard of kashrut, proper eating [6], that was con-sistent with the Oral Torah" (his footnotes incorporated:

three of the four commandments that the Jerusalem Council insisted all believers observe immediately upon becoming Jesus believers dealt with food. (Acts 15:20, 29; 21:25) Two of these came from the oral Torah: not to eat things sacrificed to idols, [Mishnah Avodah Zorah 2:3] and not to eat things strangled. [Mishnah Chullin 1:2] The written Torah does not forbid either of these types of food, yet Jesus, in Revelation, is portrayed as strongly rebuking the communities of Perga-mum and Thyatira for breaking the ban on their consumption. (Rev 2:14 and 20) The authority of the Oral Torah in the lives of early Messianic believers cannot be doubted when half of the commands the Jerusalem council required of Gentiles were from the Oral Torah.

Jesus' famous teaching on lust in the Sermon on the Mount [7] was derived from the oral Torah (footnote incorporated):

Many scholars have struggled with Jesus' teaching, "You have heard that our fathers were told, 'Do not commit adultery.' And I tell you that a man who even looks at a woman with the purpose of lusting after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Mat 6:27) It seems to demand something impossible of men, something the written Torah never asked. . . . Jesus was not arbitrarily adding an unnatural stringency to the Torah; he was teaching from a tradition Moses received at Sinai, "Not only is he who sins with his body considered an adulterer, but he who sins with his eye is also considered one." [Leviticus Rabba 23:12]

So were His teachings on prayer [8]:

Jesus' ideas on prayer mirror those in the oral Torah, as well. He taught his disciples not to babble when they prayed (Mat. 5:7), and advised them to never stop praying for something they really needed. (Luke 18:1-6) What Jesus called babbling, Chazal labeled calculating, purposely making one's prayers long so that they would be an-swered. Calculating, or babbling, was forbidden by the Oral Torah; [Babylonian Talmud, Berekhot 32b] and just as Jesus advised his disciples to continue asking G-d for what they wanted, the oral Torah commanded the Israelites, "If a man realizes that he has prayed and not been an-swered, he should pray again." [Babylonian Talmud, Berekhot 32b]

Conclusion: the oral Torah seems to be fairly conclusively established from the written biblical record. By analogy, Christian oral apostolic tradition is also upheld as valid in the new covenant, which was a direct development of the old covenant (Matthew 5:17-20).



***

Dialogue on Lutheranism and Catholicism, Part Four: Rule of Faith, the Fathers, and Ecclesiology (vs. Nathan Rinne)

 Philip Melanchthon: Luther's right-hand man and successor

See Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. Nathan's words will be in blue.
I concede that just because an early church father argues from Scripture this does not necessarily mean "that only Scripture has authority to rebuke error and bind people…".  Not necessarily.  But – do we find the church fathers consistently rebuking error and binding people for not believing non-Lutheran things in the Church without using evidence from Scripture (whether this is implicit or explicit evidence)? 

No. They usually argue from Scripture; then if that fails, they appeal to the Church, apostolic succession, unbroken historical tradition of doctrine, and the authority of the Church (St. Irenaeus probably being the prime exemplar of this method). The whole process of appeal to the pope to settle doctrinal controversies is an obvious example of "pure" Church authority.

(Or: do the early church fathers explicitly [and consistently] say that [non-Lutheran] doctrines are inseparable from the Rule of Faith?) 
Church fathers (like the Bible and the Catholic Church) generally think all doctrines and practices are important, and don't as readily draw fine-point distinctions along these lines that Protestants are prone to make.

In other words, we are not just talking about this or that father, for instance, simply sharing how churches in their region, for example, use this or that custom [perhaps from this or that Apostle]  – after all, while essential doctrines are not adiaphora, or "indifferent things", how they are taught and encouraged though rites and ceremonies can be.  Further, if you can come up with examples of them rebuking error and correcting and binding people in this way (i.e. without Scriptural demonstration), what are the reasons that they give for saying that people should believe/do  these things – and what are or should be the consequences if they don't? 
Because the Church says so, in turn because it had always been believed in some fashion. If we want to move forward, we'll have to get specific and discuss one doctrine or one father at a time.

Just because these Fathers also clearly uphold the authority of the Church as the ground of truth in addition to Scripture – admittedly, talking in ways that most Lutherans generally don't talk today – does not mean that they, in actual practice, do not utilize the Rule of Faith the way Chemnitz says the Church does/should (i.e. they do not do the wrong tradition of #8)  
They believe in an infallible Church. Ecumenical councils presuppose this. Lutherans do not. It's as simple as that. You guys have departed from the precedent set by 1500 years of Church history. Pelikan, Schaff, Oberman, and Kelly all confirm that the Church fathers en masse viewed the rule of faith in this way. They did not hold to sola Scriptura.

After all, in their own words do they not  talk about how it is true that the Apostolic Faith and its Rule that was received were "in agreement with the Scriptures"?
Yes. All doctrines agree with the Scripture. Ho-hum. Truth is truth. It's all of one piece.

As best I can tell, in the earliest church writings (like Ignatius, Polycarp, Clement, the Didache, Justin Martyr, and Athenagoras, for example), heresy is fought via appeals to the Scriptures (yes, Ignatius does talk about being in fellowship with bishops quite a bit : )).  With Irenaeus and Tertullian, it seems they assert that all the essential, Rule-of-Faith, teachings that are given orally are rooted in the Scriptures and can be proven from them.  Irenaeus' "ace-card" vs. the Scripture-mangling (claiming it both supported them and that parts of these were in error, that they had the true tradition of its interpretation, etc.) gnostics may have been the argument from Apostolic succession (i.e. this was the most effective argument to make against them), but as Chemnitz reminds us, he afterward spent the lion's share of his treatise proving from the Scripture "the same thing that he had first shown from tradition" (237).  Another way of saying this is that Scripture simply must be interpreted by its guardians according to its own rule and hypothesis (and though Church may disagree on what constitutes the canon en toto, the books that all agree are Scripture – some are more clearly inspired than others – certainly contain the Rule of Faith [what essential doctrines do Esther, Nehemiah, Ezra, the deutoerocanonical books, James, Hebrews, II Peter, and Revelation have anyway that cannot be found elsewhere?]).  Tertullian says "I adore the fullness of the Scripture… If it is not written, let [Hermogenes] fear that woe which is destined for those who add or take away" (156).  Chemnitz also quotes Jerome saying "Whatever does not have authority in Holy Scripture can be rejected as easily as it can be approved." (i.e. it is not binding, and therefore, not a part of the authentic Apostolic tradition and Rule of Faith) and then says himself "it was not a contrary, nor a different, nor another, but one and the same doctrine which Paul delivered either by word of mouth or by epistle". (p. 109).  To this, you [and evidently the Roman Catholic Magisterium] say: ""of course!" and "Amen!" — "twin fonts of the same divine wellspring" . . ." (quoting the late 16th century Saint Francis de Sales, I believe)


Yep, amen. Nothing new here that I haven't dealt with 20, 25 times in various papers and books.


It seems to me, that if this is true, it is important that all the essential doctrines of the faith ought to be able to be clearly established, demonstrated, and proved from the Scriptures – not just for the Lutheran but for the Roman Catholic.  I guess this is your calling card Dave… after all, you are the guy who literally writes the books about how, after being correctly informed about Roman Catholic teachings, one can then go back to the Scriptures and find Scriptural support for those teachings (e.g. the "Catholic verses", etc.: "all Christian, Catholic doctrines can be found in Scripture, explicitly, implicitly, or deduced from same. And all Catholic doctrines are certainly harmonious with Scripture" you have said). 
Indeed. We can provide such corroboration. Protestants cannot when it comes to key distinctives that they invented in the 16th century. 

In any case, I think even you will admit that one can demonstrate infant baptism from the early Church Fathers and the Scriptures in ways that other non-Lutheran doctrines cannot. 
There is a decent biblical case to be made, by deduction of whole families being baptized, and the analogy to circumcision.

Without any reasonable doubt, the evidence is definitely stronger any way you slice it (what would you say are your "strongest cases" from the "Catholic verses" you find in the Scriptures?).  It seems to me that even non-believers would be able to agree with this (external clarity), even if they do not see the Fathers and Scriptures with the eyes of faith (internal clarity).
The Catholic rule of faith (falsity of sola Scriptura), the Catholic view of justification, purgatory, and the papacy.


In any case, let's not get too far away from the point I am making here. 
You said it; not me! :-)


I just conceded that simply because an early church father argues from Scripture this does not necessarily mean "that only Scripture has authority to rebuke error and bind people…".  But again – if it really is the case that the church father's ability to rebuke goes beyond Scripture, my question is whether we find the church fathers consistently rebuking error and binding people for not believing distinctly non-Lutheran things in the Church without using evidence from Scripture (whether this is implicit or explicit evidence)? 
Sometimes we do find that. I've already provided several examples, when we got into individual fathers.


And again, if this is the case, what are the reasons for why they are doing so – and the consequences if people do not obey? (does a refusal to acknowledge them as binding doctrines result in separating one's self from the Church, and therefore Christ?)
It could eventually, if someone is obstinate in a heresy.  Church authority is sufficient. When the Jerusalem Council made its ruling, as far as we know from the account in Acts 15, Bible passages about circumcision weren't even discussed. Yet it was a binding decree that Paul even proclaimed in his missionary journeys (Acts 16:4).


Lutherans accept that there are non-essential teachings or practices (i.e. those that cannot be clearly demonstrated from the Scriptures) that can, in principle, be present, and practiced, and even upheld in the Church (how is it upheld though?). 
Well, then it is the game of "essential" vs. "non-essential" that is another arbitrary Protestant tradition of men, and very difficult (if not impossible) to prove from the Bible itself. 


Remember the argument of Paul Strawn: the fact that these traditions existed was not necessarily the problem.  The problem was that these traditions regarding faith and morals which were not provable from Scripture were to be regarded as equal to those clearly demonstrable from Scripture.
Then the argument comes down to what is "provable" and complicated aspects of development and material sufficiency. 


Now, could we have had fellowship with Augustine?: Lutherans themselves do not decry penance, venial sins, prayers for the dead, and free will it they are understood correctly – I know that the Lutheran confessions actually say we believe in the last 3 for sure.  Nor do we believe in double predestination.  Regarding things like merit, infused justification, purgatory, the sacrifice of the mass, and faith alone, I'm sure we could have had a very fruitful discussion with Augustine (or his faction at Trent) – more so than the folks at Trent, at least!  In any case, I can actually conceive of Lutherans content to be a part of a church with people who believe in purgatory, do the Corpus Christi festival, think bishops are a good practice by human rite, do the sacrifice of the mass (yes, really), do prayers for the dead (we do this by the way, in our own way), pray to the saints and Mary, do pilgrimages, think there is holy water, think of the Apocrypha as Scripture, don't eat meat on Friday, etc. 
Luther felt himself to be closer in spirit to Catholics than to the Sacramentarians, who denied the real presence in the Eucharist. He thought they were damned. 


So long as they do not contradict the doctrine of justification in the way they do these things – and do not tell us we are cutting ourselves off from the Church if we think that such opinions either ought not be held at all or not be held with the same reverence as those essential things clearly revealed in the accepted Scripture.  In other words, these could perhaps be held as "pious opinion" or "pious practices" – concepts I know are not foreign to Roman Catholics.  As early 17th c. theologian John Gerhard said, "If the confession of true doctrine and the legitimate use of the Sacraments had been left free for us, perhaps we would not have departed from the external fellowship of the Roman church". (On the Church, p. 139)
The problem is that all this is merely abstract and a mind game. It's like Anglo-Catholicism. In principle, there could be all sorts of Lutheran approaches to Catholicism and affinities and warm touchy-feeling unity on many fronts. But in practice, it can scarcely be found in actual existing Church bodies. It exists only on paper and in a few individual heads (like yours) who care about Church unity. Cardinal Newman observed this about his friend Edward Pusey's religious views. The Catholic Church is the only Christian body that can demonstrate historical continuity and institutional unity all the way back to Christ. We still have a pope and councils, and bishops and all the rest, as they had existed in the Church from the beginning. 


Again, serious Lutherans like Chemnitz believe the same thing.  Note that insofar as any tradition not specifically sanctioned in Scripture does not mitigate the Gospel, it can be accepted (i.e. we are "conservative" when it comes to traditions: with Chrysostom we think that even unwritten traditions of the Church are "also worthy of credit") – but again: only insofar as it is not insisted that these traditions be held with the same reverence as those which are clearly put forth there (i.e. stuff that was so important it found its way into the Scriptures in a way that cannot be denied: even baptism is like this: "the Promise if for you and your children") in the Scriptures.  And of course, in the background here is the idea that our very salvation depends on our keeping these traditions that Rome insisted on.  Saying all this is not to say that Lutherans will never have a good, knock-down debate about what we believe among ourselves, but this is indeed our faith – which we would contend is synonymous with the Rule of Faith. 
Again, I would contend that the Bible itself doesn't seem to make these distinctions of primary or essential and secondary (or optional) doctrines. About all that can be found along these lines is Romans 14; but note what Paul is discussing there: what to eat and drink and what holy days to observe. That is not even doctrine; it is practice. I devoted 20 pages in my book, 501 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura , to this question of so-called essential and secondary doctrines.There I provided dozens of Bible passages that don't seem to differentiate; they merely assume a "truth" that is known and binding upon all believers:

John 8:31-32 (RSV) Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

John 16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

1 Corinthians 2:13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit.

Galatians 5:7 You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?

1 Timothy 2:4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

1 Timothy 3:15 if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

1 Timothy 4:3 . . . those who believe and know the truth.

2 Timothy 1:14 guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

2 Timothy 3:7-8 who will listen to anybody and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth. As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith;

2 Timothy 4:4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.

Titus 1:1 Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to further the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness,

Titus 1:14 instead of giving heed to Jewish myths or to commands of men who reject the truth.

Hebrews 10:26 . . . the knowledge of the truth, . . .

James 5:19 My brethren, if any one among you wanders from the truth and some one brings him back,

1 Peter 1:22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth. . .

1 John 2:21 I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and know that no lie is of the truth.

2 John 1:1-2 The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth, and not only I but also all who know the truth, because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us for ever:

3 John 1:3-4 For I greatly rejoiced when some of the brethren arrived and testified to the truth of your life, as indeed you do follow the truth. No greater joy can I have than this, to hear that my children follow the truth.

Jude 3 . . . contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

An example of a non-biblical matter being made binding and obligatory was the Quartodeciman controversy, regarding setting the date of Easter. The Council of Nicaea in 325 settled it once and for all: Easter was to always be observed on a certain Sunday of the year. There is nothing about that in Scripture. Lutherans agree with Catholics on the date of Easter.

I think one can make differentiations of importance, at least in a sense (of course): things like the Trinity, belief in Jesus as Lord and Savior, His work on the cross on our behalf, His resurrection, etc. that all Christians hold in common. My exact point in this isn't to deny that, but to say that Catholics don't believe that anything deemed to be part of the apostolic deposit is up for grabs or merely optional (as you guys think) because it is regarded as of less importance.

We do have some things that are optional, such as the Molinism vs. Thomist debate on predestination, where both sides can be held (I am a Molinist). But that is an extremely fine, abstract point of theology, and one of the deepest mysteries for anyone to figure out.

When I was a Baptist-like evangelical, I would have thought Lutherans were too strict in their dogmas of the Eucharist and baptism. So it is relative to the viewpoint of the observer to some extent. I had less dogmas than you then; now I have more, and you think ours are too many and too legalistic. So there has to be some method to determine how many dogmas ought to be binding. We go by the judgment of the historic Church, which has decided things, just as the Jerusalem Council did, with Peter, Paul, and James present.

Scripture is not over the oral, unwritten tradition, the Rule of Faith – insofar as the Rule of Faith really is the rule of faith.  As Irenaeus and other Fathers pointed out, these must always go hand and hand and say the same thing (more on how this plays out on the ground with Lutherans and Irenaeus directly below).  Further, the continuance of the Apostolic ministry is critical: necessary, but not sufficient.  We simply see this as unfolding and playing out in a different way.
Lutherans deny an infallible Church. It always comes down to that. It is the essential difference: the nature and role of the Church.

Irenaeus may not be consistently applying his method to everything that he assumes is true about the church (and indeed, there really was no need to, as there was no challenge).  For us the question would be whether Irenaeus, if he had been explicitly asked about it, would have believed that all of these things were clearly given in the Scriptures.  If he answers this question in the positive, we'd have a lot of questions for him, based on the Scriptures, that would no doubt get him thinking (For example: Why are there multiple bishops in one city? [Phil. 1:1] ; Why not only this, but why are they also called presbyters? [Acts 20:17-28, Titus: 1:5-7] ; Why do presbyters ordain? [I Tim. 4:14], Etc., etc.  What do the Scriptures seem to imply is the genuine Apostolic tradition here?)  If he answered this question in the negative, the question would then be how he would treat persons who respected these traditions (i.e. the place of bishops over and against pastors) but did not revere them the same way which they revered other doctrines that were essential (i.e. the creeds, the Rule of Faith).  In any case, I would guess that it would be unlikely that Irenaeus would have felt any compulsion to search the Scriptures for verification on this issue unless circumstances had arisen in which he would have felt he needed to.  Since having bishops was a useful arrangement at this time, there was no reason for anyone to question it. In other words, we can agree that these things, in particular situations and times may have been useful and important –

Bishops are casually assumed in the Bible to be a permanent Church office. Why is it, then, that Luther got rid of them and placed power in the secular princes? Why do most Lutherans no longer have bishops today? Some things (like this) are absolutely obvious in Scripture, yet various Protestants dissent against them. It is an unbiblical, non-apostolic tradition of men to ditch things that Holy Scripture presents as necessary and permanent.

but here is the ultimate question: is Irenaeus' case here ultimately a practical argument (whether he would have put it in these terms or not) or is it one that actually hinges on the infallibility of the church which is delivered in Apostolic Succession (after all, note that for Ireneaus, it is not only the bishops and the bishop of Rome who have received "the infallible charism of the truth", but presbyters ["order of the priesthood"] as well [of whom Luther was one of those validly ordained] – note how Jerome, for example,  also speaks about how these distinctions were by human rite)?  Lutherans argue the first, RCs the latter.  In short, if he had been pressed, would he have said that the office of bishop was something that was by divine rite or human rite? Again, if the latter is a possibility (and I think it clearly is, given other things that Irenaeus says about the importance of proving things from the Scriptures, where in the Scriptures it is clear that presbyters and bishops are sometimes used synonymously, and there is no explicit command that an office of bishop be put in place which is over that of presbyter) how would Ireneaus respond to someone who insisted that these things were by divine rite – and that this must be held to with the same level of conviction as the essential Christian doctrines (found in things like the Rule of Faith for example)?  That is the question.
Now we're off into fine points of ecclesiology. My most basic treatment of this question is in my paper, The Visible, Hierarchical, Apostolic Church. I have many other papers on my Church (Ecclesiology) web page.

After this you do a lengthy commentary on what Irenaeus supposedly might believe (if asked certain things). I think the methodology is fruitless, where people have generally different interpretations. Instead of speculations upon speculations and summary statements (which mean little, as neither you nor I are patristic scholars), your burden is to try to establish and document by the actual words of Irenaeus that he believed such-and-such and denied so-and-so. I've done that in several of my papers and books, and in links that I have provided.  I have provided concrete facts; by and large you have not. So it makes it awful difficult to interact with. If you give me some quotes to examine, I can look them over and make some kind of cogent reply.

The wider in scope and more abstract and "summary" our discussion becomes, to that extent it is fruitless and inconclusive for readers, of whatever persuasion. It's simply an exercise of one party saying, "I think X believed a" and the other saying, "no; X actually believed b" -- with no documentation, or saying, "X woulda done y if c were the case". That helps no one. We have to either document words of the person being discussed, or at least cite a scholar who is familiar with all the relevant data.

Now, Irenaeus says: "Inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously…"  And he can speak from experience.  He knows that this has worked – that the faithful men really have held to the Apostolic teaching, and this is clearly what the Scriptures put forth, even if the heretics deny it.  There is no good reason for him to be speaking and thinking any differently at this point.  But now: what if historical circumstances, when compared vis a vis Scripture, seem to clearly imply that "the apostolic tradition has not been preserved continuously" – at least, among the majority of the top leaders of the church?

This is where Lutherans and Protestants at large lack faith in God's preservation of His Church, which is discussed in Scripture, with promises of indefectibility. We have the faith that God can preserve truth in an institution comprised of a bunch of sinners, just as He preserved inspired words in a Scripture written by a bunch of sinners. Infallibility is not as extraordinary of a thing as inspiration is. Therefore, if one can believe in an inspired Scripture (the more difficult proposition), one can certainly believe in faith the lesser proposition of an infallible, indefectible Church. But Protestants reject the latter. In short, it is most unbiblical to believe that the Church could fall away, institutionally, and depart from the apostolic deposit of faith. To believe that is not simply not being (distinctively) Catholic. It is also a most "unbiblical" notion.

The question also becomes: who is competent and has the authority to judge, by scriptural criteria, if and when the Church has not faithfully preserved the apostolic tradition? Certainly one monk had no such authority. It is ridiculous to think that he did.

Irenaeus himself indicates that even those who have received the "infallible charism" can fall, for he says, "if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity " (Book 3, chapter 3). 
Yes, any individual could fall away, but it doesn't follow that they were not infallible, when they exercised their office. St. Irenaeus (in context of Book 3, chapter 3), never says that apostolic succession is or ever would be in any peril. One bishop falling away no more endangers that than one disciple out of twelve falling away, upset the initial apostolic succession. It didn't at all. They simply chose another (Matthias) to take the place of the traitor.

Yes, what if under the temptations of the world, the Church has gone astray, with the pastors, though rightly holding their blessed offices, have ceased to shepherd appropriately?  What happens when persons who were at one point given the infallible charism faces off against others?  Then what? The highest authority is always right?  The "consensus" is always right?  Does the consensus mean "majority" (one thinks of the sizable faction of more "radical" Augustinians voted down at Trent)?  How does the concept of remnant fit it to all of this? 
The Church can, and often has become very corrupt, yet true doctrine was preserved, because God saw to that. Consensus means what has always been believed; what has been passed down.

What happens when presumably faithful believers in the Church can no longer convince themselves that the Scriptures and the supposed "Apostolic tradition" – which one knows really must not (can't ever?) contradict each other – are saying the same thing?  
Then obviously they reject the Catholic Church, having lost faith in God's guidance of her, and in the infallibility and indefectibility of the Church. They do so by adopting new arbitrary traditions that are not Bible-based (things like sola Scriptura, an invisible church, denominations, etc.).

Then, it seems to me that one must use their Spirit-inspired wisdom to choose…
Yep, it is radical individualism and private judgment vs. an unbroken theological doctrine and tradition, preserved by the Holy Spirit in the Church.

(note we are talking about consciences captive to the Word of God, not UCC consciences….) even if Ireneaus would have never been able to conceive of such a tragic and painful situation… 
No, he wouldn't, because it is so far from the biblical picture of one faith, one Church, total unity of doctrine.

Let us remember that something similar happened in Jesus' day.  The Assembly, or Ekklesia (Church), or that day – those who sat in Moses' very seat – rejected the One who told the people to listen to them (obviously, insofar as they, the legitimate rulers of the Assembly [at this time], spoke the truth – elsewhere he counters them as false teachers nonetheless). 
And he told his followers to do what they teach, even though they were hypocrites, and Paul acknowledged the authority of the high priest  and kept calling himself a Pharisee, and Jesus and Paul and early Christians still observed temple rituals, even though they were not "Christian" rituals, and observed feast days, etc. Therefore, none of that can be applied to any analogy of Lutherans and other Protestants deciding to split from the Catholic Church.

Likewise, similar things happened in the days of the prophets, when those who were supposed to be the leaders (priests and prophets) failed to speak the oracles of God, running where God had not told them to run.  The Assembly has always been unfaithful in their teachings and their practices, but God has always been faithful in spite of this, bringing the Church through via faithful remnants in this or that quarter. 
The Old Testament proto-Church did not have the Holy Spirit and express promises from God that it would be protected and never defect. So that analogy won't fly, either. We've advanced and developed far beyond the Old Covenant. God is indwelling each individual believer.

Roman Catholics may think that this indicates that we do not believe that God preserves the visible Church, but in the case of Lutherans at least, nothing could be further from the truth.  Using our both our eyes and our ears, we can know with certainty where Church is being created and growing – and also where the opposite, due to Christ-denying doctrine, is happening (this place we can reserve for all non-Christian religions as well as the folks like the modern day Arians among us, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, for example). 
"Christianity" and "the Church" are different things. This gets into visible vs. invisible church categories. Whatever the Church is, (biblically speaking) it has one unified doctrine. This notion can't be sustained within an invisible church (Protestant) paradigm.

Of course, there may be a lot that we may not know as well (in other words, a lot in between those two poles), but we are happy to be a part of the remnant that holds to the Rule of Faith in its truth and purity.
You can't establish that you hold it "in its truth and purity": neither historically nor from the Bible.

. . . whether he [St. Irenaeus] would have thought this way in different circumstances. – circumstances that might drive him back to the Scriptures for answers. 
By this method of speculation about "woulda coulda shoulda", debate about it becomes impossible: it is subjective mush. All we can go by is what  father did write and believe. If we start rationalizing and saying, "well, if Church father X were alive in the 16th century, he would have changed his mind and become a good Lutheran . . ." based on sheer speculation, that proves nothing. It's just special pleading, trying to transform a person who believed a certain thing at a certain point of time, into what we want then to be.

On the contrary, we would see Apostolic Succession as a sign which is a good indicator that something is genuine… but stops short of offering a "guarantee".
Then you depart from the fathers in so believing. People can believe whatever they like. It's when they wrongly appeal to the facts of what the fathers believed, that it is objectionable.

Irenaeus: "the faith of all is one and the same, since all receive one and the same God the Father… and preserve the same form of ecclesiastical constitution"… Those, therefore, who desert the preaching of the Church, call in question the knowledge of the holy presbyters, not taking into consideration of how much greater consequence is a religious man".

Note here again the focus on presbyters, as opposed to bishops and Popes.

Against Heresies, Book III, Ch. 3:

It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. (1)

. . .the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. (2)

St. Irenaeus was a bishop himself.

But the faithful will also recognize them by the words they speak, for even faithful laypeople recognize the voice of their Shepherd, and even if their understanding of the Rule of Faith is not terribly firm and strong, they still know enough to be driven back to the Scriptures, which were firmly established by the fulfillment of prophecy, the workings of signs ("miracles") and of course their continuity with the faith received by Adam and Eve from the beginning (Gen. 3:15) up until their present time…  Again, the sheep hear the voice of the Shepherd …and they are always going back the sacred writings of those prophets and Apostles whom their Shepherd chose.  . . . Of course, the sheep do not go looking for gross falsehood among the pastors who have been validly ordained, but when they encounter it, they know something is wrong…. 

Show me in the Bible where there is ever such a thing as a mere layperson disagreeing doctrinally with a leader in the Church based on Bible reading and thereby being justified in his dissent and schism by that method? I say it isn't there. And if that is true (if you can't produce it), the question becomes: why do you believe this in the first place, since it isn't biblically grounded at all? St. Paul warns against division, contentiousness and schism again and again and again. It's believed because this was Luther's initial methodology, and to deny it would be to go against the entire spirit of his revolt from the Church. One can't start denying foundational things that typified the founder of the belief-system one is part of.

And when a shepherd arises among them (Luther) who gives voice to what they have been knowing deep down was wrong – they still are hearing the True Shepherd's voice. God preserves His remnant, in the visible Church at large (as the south [Judah] falls out of fellowship with the north [Israel], within the visible Church [the wheat, not the tares], and even outside of the visible church ["I have preserved 7,000 in Israel"]).  
Now the burden of proof (besides the unbiblical ecclesiology) is to prove one's beliefs from Scripture (having claimed to be based on Scripture alone). And you have to disprove the import of the biblical evidence for the indefectibility of the Church, in order to bolster the scenario of Luther and Protestants who followed him "dissing" the historical Catholic Church.

. . . as time rolls on, and Satan steps up his efforts more and more as the Last Day nears…  To the tragic chaos created by the Reformation, I simply say this: "Is Christ divided?" In Gods' eyes, of course not (intrinsic, see Eph 4:4-5). In our eyes, yes. We are hid in Christ; the Church is hidden under the cross (extrinsic).  In spite of the fact that in this fallen world "there must be divisions among us", let us always work towards agreeing with one another (I Cor 1:10).
We don't do that by creating or winking at hundreds of denominations, whose doctrines contradict, so that falsehood is necessarily massive present.

Of course the "Church's peculiar and traditionally handed down grasp of the purport of revelation" can also be found in the Scripture as well, although this does not thereby mean that an authoritative and interpreting church is not necessary!   
How is a Church"authoritative" if any individual can judge it and decide it's wrong and split? Of what use is it? Even civil laws are more binding than that! This is what Luther did. He thumbed his nose at the authority of the Catholic Church of history, and now he expects his followers to respect the merely arbitrary authority in Lutheran circles? Hence Protestant tradition and history has at least been consistent: men can decide to start new denominations at whim. Luther detested that, but he never showed how it wasn't consistent with his own actions and beliefs.

Dave: "The always partisan yet thoroughly fair-minded Schaff takes the position himself that Athanasius ' position is neither the present-day Catholic or Protestant one."

Right.  It's the Lutheran one, as expounded by Chemnitz.
Not at all. St. Athanasius was a Catholic, not any kind of proto-Protestant. See my papers:

St. Athanasius Was a CATHOLIC, Not a Proto-Protestant (+ Counter-Reply to James White on Tradition, etc.)

Did St. Athanasius Believe in Sola Scriptura? (vs. Ken Temple)

The Sufficiency of Scripture and the Church Fathers (Particularly, St. Athanasius and the Trinity) (vs. E. L. Hamilton and "Cranmer")
Orthodox View of OT Canon / Athanasius' Slightly-Qualified Acceptance of the Deuterocanon / Jerome's Anomalies in His Rejection of the Deuterocanon
Reply to James White on the Council of Nicaea and Its Relationship to Pope Sylvester, Athanasius' Views, and the Unique Preeminence of Catholic Authority

But Lutheranism does not reject this [an infallible Church].  We believe that this is indeed the case, but that we need to take more seriously than ever before the concept of remnant, and the actual histories of God's people in the Old and New Testament.  As regards infallibility, here it is like what C.S. Lewis said about not getting the "second things" unless the "first things" are focused on.

It does indeed reject it in effect, by changing the definition of the Church. If I have to change the rules of arithmetic so that 2+2 no longer equals 4, then it is a rejection of arithmetic as it has always been known. That being the case it would be foolish to call "arithmetic" by the same name, because it had always meant something -- always had certain characteristics -- and now no longer does.






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Dialogue with Lutheran Nathan Rinne, Regarding My Critiques of Lutheran Theologian Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586), Part Four: Rule of Faith, the Fathers, Ecclesiology, and Lutheran vs. Catholic Distinctives

 Philip Melanchthon: Luther's right-hand man and successor

See Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. Nathan's words will be in blue.
I concede that just because an early church father argues from Scripture this does not necessarily mean "that only Scripture has authority to rebuke error and bind people…".  Not necessarily.  But – do we find the church fathers consistently rebuking error and binding people for not believing non-Lutheran things in the Church without using evidence from Scripture (whether this is implicit or explicit evidence)? 

No. They usually argue from Scripture; then if that fails, they appeal to the Church, apostolic succession, unbroken historical tradition of doctrine, and the authority of the Church (St. Irenaeus probably being the prime exemplar of this method). The whole process of appeal to the pope to settle doctrinal controversies is an obvious example of "pure" Church authority.

(Or: do the early church fathers explicitly [and consistently] say that [non-Lutheran] doctrines are inseparable from the Rule of Faith?) 
Church fathers (like the Bible and the Catholic Church) generally think all doctrines and practices are important, and don't as readily draw fine-point distinctions along these lines that Protestants are prone to make.

In other words, we are not just talking about this or that father, for instance, simply sharing how churches in their region, for example, use this or that custom [perhaps from this or that Apostle]  – after all, while essential doctrines are not adiaphora, or "indifferent things", how they are taught and encouraged though rites and ceremonies can be.  Further, if you can come up with examples of them rebuking error and correcting and binding people in this way (i.e. without Scriptural demonstration), what are the reasons that they give for saying that people should believe/do  these things – and what are or should be the consequences if they don't? 
Because the Church says so, in turn because it had always been believed in some fashion. If we want to move forward, we'll have to get specific and discuss one doctrine or one father at a time.

Just because these Fathers also clearly uphold the authority of the Church as the ground of truth in addition to Scripture – admittedly, talking in ways that most Lutherans generally don't talk today – does not mean that they, in actual practice, do not utilize the Rule of Faith the way Chemnitz says the Church does/should (i.e. they do not do the wrong tradition of #8)  
They believe in an infallible Church. Ecumenical councils presuppose this. Lutherans do not. It's as simple as that. You guys have departed from the precedent set by 1500 years of Church history. Pelikan, Schaff, Oberman, and Kelly all confirm that the Church fathers en masse viewed the rule of faith in this way. They did not hold to sola Scriptura.

After all, in their own words do they not  talk about how it is true that the Apostolic Faith and its Rule that was received were "in agreement with the Scriptures"?
Yes. All doctrines agree with the Scripture. Ho-hum. Truth is truth. It's all of one piece.

As best I can tell, in the earliest church writings (like Ignatius, Polycarp, Clement, the Didache, Justin Martyr, and Athenagoras, for example), heresy is fought via appeals to the Scriptures (yes, Ignatius does talk about being in fellowship with bishops quite a bit : )).  With Irenaeus and Tertullian, it seems they assert that all the essential, Rule-of-Faith, teachings that are given orally are rooted in the Scriptures and can be proven from them.  Irenaeus' "ace-card" vs. the Scripture-mangling (claiming it both supported them and that parts of these were in error, that they had the true tradition of its interpretation, etc.) gnostics may have been the argument from Apostolic succession (i.e. this was the most effective argument to make against them), but as Chemnitz reminds us, he afterward spent the lion's share of his treatise proving from the Scripture "the same thing that he had first shown from tradition" (237).  Another way of saying this is that Scripture simply must be interpreted by its guardians according to its own rule and hypothesis (and though Church may disagree on what constitutes the canon en toto, the books that all agree are Scripture – some are more clearly inspired than others – certainly contain the Rule of Faith [what essential doctrines do Esther, Nehemiah, Ezra, the deutoerocanonical books, James, Hebrews, II Peter, and Revelation have anyway that cannot be found elsewhere?]).  Tertullian says "I adore the fullness of the Scripture… If it is not written, let [Hermogenes] fear that woe which is destined for those who add or take away" (156).  Chemnitz also quotes Jerome saying "Whatever does not have authority in Holy Scripture can be rejected as easily as it can be approved." (i.e. it is not binding, and therefore, not a part of the authentic Apostolic tradition and Rule of Faith) and then says himself "it was not a contrary, nor a different, nor another, but one and the same doctrine which Paul delivered either by word of mouth or by epistle". (p. 109).  To this, you [and evidently the Roman Catholic Magisterium] say: ""of course!" and "Amen!" — "twin fonts of the same divine wellspring" . . ." (quoting the late 16th century Saint Francis de Sales, I believe)


Yep, amen. Nothing new here that I haven't dealt with 20, 25 times in various papers and books.


It seems to me, that if this is true, it is important that all the essential doctrines of the faith ought to be able to be clearly established, demonstrated, and proved from the Scriptures – not just for the Lutheran but for the Roman Catholic.  I guess this is your calling card Dave… after all, you are the guy who literally writes the books about how, after being correctly informed about Roman Catholic teachings, one can then go back to the Scriptures and find Scriptural support for those teachings (e.g. the "Catholic verses", etc.: "all Christian, Catholic doctrines can be found in Scripture, explicitly, implicitly, or deduced from same. And all Catholic doctrines are certainly harmonious with Scripture" you have said). 
Indeed. We can provide such corroboration. Protestants cannot when it comes to key distinctives that they invented in the 16th century. 

In any case, I think even you will admit that one can demonstrate infant baptism from the early Church Fathers and the Scriptures in ways that other non-Lutheran doctrines cannot. 
There is a decent biblical case to be made, by deduction of whole families being baptized, and the analogy to circumcision.

Without any reasonable doubt, the evidence is definitely stronger any way you slice it (what would you say are your "strongest cases" from the "Catholic verses" you find in the Scriptures?).  It seems to me that even non-believers would be able to agree with this (external clarity), even if they do not see the Fathers and Scriptures with the eyes of faith (internal clarity).

The Catholic rule of faith (falsity of sola Scriptura), the Catholic view of justification, purgatory, and the papacy.


In any case, let's not get too far away from the point I am making here. 
You said it; not me! :-)


I just conceded that simply because an early church father argues from Scripture this does not necessarily mean "that only Scripture has authority to rebuke error and bind people…".  But again – if it really is the case that the church father's ability to rebuke goes beyond Scripture, my question is whether we find the church fathers consistently rebuking error and binding people for not believing distinctly non-Lutheran things in the Church without using evidence from Scripture (whether this is implicit or explicit evidence)? 
Sometimes we do find that. I've already provided several examples, when we got into individual fathers.


And again, if this is the case, what are the reasons for why they are doing so – and the consequences if people do not obey? (does a refusal to acknowledge them as binding doctrines result in separating one's self from the Church, and therefore Christ?)
It could eventually, if someone is obstinate in a heresy.  Church authority is sufficient. When the Jerusalem Council made its ruling, as far as we know from the account in Acts 15, Bible passages about circumcision weren't even discussed. Yet it was a binding decree that Paul even proclaimed in his missionary journeys (Acts 16:4).


Lutherans accept that there are non-essential teachings or practices (i.e. those that cannot be clearly demonstrated from the Scriptures) that can, in principle, be present, and practiced, and even upheld in the Church (how is it upheld though?). 
Well, then it is the game of "essential" vs. "non-essential" that is another arbitrary Protestant tradition of men, and very difficult (if not impossible) to prove from the Bible itself. 


Remember the argument of Paul Strawn: the fact that these traditions existed was not necessarily the problem.  The problem was that these traditions regarding faith and morals which were not provable from Scripture were to be regarded as equal to those clearly demonstrable from Scripture.
Then the argument comes down to what is "provable" and complicated aspects of development and material sufficiency. 


Now, could we have had fellowship with Augustine?: Lutherans themselves do not decry penance, venial sins, prayers for the dead, and free will it they are understood correctly – I know that the Lutheran confessions actually say we believe in the last 3 for sure.  Nor do we believe in double predestination.  Regarding things like merit, infused justification, purgatory, the sacrifice of the mass, and faith alone, I'm sure we could have had a very fruitful discussion with Augustine (or his faction at Trent) – more so than the folks at Trent, at least!  In any case, I can actually conceive of Lutherans content to be a part of a church with people who believe in purgatory, do the Corpus Christi festival, think bishops are a good practice by human rite, do the sacrifice of the mass (yes, really), do prayers for the dead (we do this by the way, in our own way), pray to the saints and Mary, do pilgrimages, think there is holy water, think of the Apocrypha as Scripture, don't eat meat on Friday, etc. 
Luther felt himself to be closer in spirit to Catholics than to the Sacramentarians, who denied the real presence in the Eucharist. He thought they were damned. 


So long as they do not contradict the doctrine of justification in the way they do these things – and do not tell us we are cutting ourselves off from the Church if we think that such opinions either ought not be held at all or not be held with the same reverence as those essential things clearly revealed in the accepted Scripture.  In other words, these could perhaps be held as "pious opinion" or "pious practices" – concepts I know are not foreign to Roman Catholics.  As early 17th c. theologian John Gerhard said, "If the confession of true doctrine and the legitimate use of the Sacraments had been left free for us, perhaps we would not have departed from the external fellowship of the Roman church". (On the Church, p. 139)
The problem is that all this is merely abstract and a mind game. It's like Anglo-Catholicism. In principle, there could be all sorts of Lutheran approaches to Catholicism and affinities and warm touchy-feeling unity on many fronts. But in practice, it can scarcely be found in actual existing Church bodies. It exists only on paper and in a few individual heads (like yours) who care about Church unity. Cardinal Newman observed this about his friend Edward Pusey's religious views. The Catholic Church is the only Christian body that can demonstrate historical continuity and institutional unity all the way back to Christ. We still have a pope and councils, and bishops and all the rest, as they had existed in the Church from the beginning. 


Again, serious Lutherans like Chemnitz believe the same thing.  Note that insofar as any tradition not specifically sanctioned in Scripture does not mitigate the Gospel, it can be accepted (i.e. we are "conservative" when it comes to traditions: with Chrysostom we think that even unwritten traditions of the Church are "also worthy of credit") – but again: only insofar as it is not insisted that these traditions be held with the same reverence as those which are clearly put forth there (i.e. stuff that was so important it found its way into the Scriptures in a way that cannot be denied: even baptism is like this: "the Promise if for you and your children") in the Scriptures.  And of course, in the background here is the idea that our very salvation depends on our keeping these traditions that Rome insisted on.  Saying all this is not to say that Lutherans will never have a good, knock-down debate about what we believe among ourselves, but this is indeed our faith – which we would contend is synonymous with the Rule of Faith. 
Again, I would contend that the Bible itself doesn't seem to make these distinctions of primary or essential and secondary (or optional) doctrines. About all that can be found along these lines is Romans 14; but note what Paul is discussing there: what to eat and drink and what holy days to observe. That is not even doctrine; it is practice. I devoted 20 pages in my book, 501 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura , to this question of so-called essential and secondary doctrines.There I provided dozens of Bible passages that don't seem to differentiate; they merely assume a "truth" that is known and binding upon all believers:

John 8:31-32 (RSV) Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

John 16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

1 Corinthians 2:13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit.

Galatians 5:7 You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?

1 Timothy 2:4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

1 Timothy 3:15 if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

1 Timothy 4:3 . . . those who believe and know the truth.

2 Timothy 1:14 guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

2 Timothy 3:7-8 who will listen to anybody and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth. As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith;

2 Timothy 4:4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.

Titus 1:1 Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to further the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness,

Titus 1:14 instead of giving heed to Jewish myths or to commands of men who reject the truth.

Hebrews 10:26 . . . the knowledge of the truth, . . .

James 5:19 My brethren, if any one among you wanders from the truth and some one brings him back,

1 Peter 1:22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth. . .

1 John 2:21 I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and know that no lie is of the truth.

2 John 1:1-2 The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth, and not only I but also all who know the truth, because of the truth which abides in us and will be with us for ever:

3 John 1:3-4 For I greatly rejoiced when some of the brethren arrived and testified to the truth of your life, as indeed you do follow the truth. No greater joy can I have than this, to hear that my children follow the truth.

Jude 3 . . . contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

An example of a non-biblical matter being made binding and obligatory was the Quartodeciman controversy, regarding setting the date of Easter. The Council of Nicaea in 325 settled it once and for all: Easter was to always be observed on a certain Sunday of the year. There is nothing about that in Scripture. Lutherans agree with Catholics on the date of Easter.

Scripture is not over the oral, unwritten tradition, the Rule of Faith – insofar as the Rule of Faith really is the rule of faith.  As Irenaeus and other Fathers pointed out, these must always go hand and hand and say the same thing (more on how this plays out on the ground with Lutherans and Irenaeus directly below).  Further, the continuance of the Apostolic ministry is critical: necessary, but not sufficient.  We simply see this as unfolding and playing out in a different way.
Lutherans deny an infallible Church. It always comes down to that. It is the essential difference: the nature and role of the Church.

Irenaeus may not be consistently applying his method to everything that he assumes is true about the church (and indeed, there really was no need to, as there was no challenge).  For us the question would be whether Irenaeus, if he had been explicitly asked about it, would have believed that all of these things were clearly given in the Scriptures.  If he answers this question in the positive, we'd have a lot of questions for him, based on the Scriptures, that would no doubt get him thinking (For example: Why are there multiple bishops in one city? [Phil. 1:1] ; Why not only this, but why are they also called presbyters? [Acts 20:17-28, Titus: 1:5-7] ; Why do presbyters ordain? [I Tim. 4:14], Etc., etc.  What do the Scriptures seem to imply is the genuine Apostolic tradition here?)  If he answered this question in the negative, the question would then be how he would treat persons who respected these traditions (i.e. the place of bishops over and against pastors) but did not revere them the same way which they revered other doctrines that were essential (i.e. the creeds, the Rule of Faith).  In any case, I would guess that it would be unlikely that Irenaeus would have felt any compulsion to search the Scriptures for verification on this issue unless circumstances had arisen in which he would have felt he needed to.  Since having bishops was a useful arrangement at this time, there was no reason for anyone to question it. In other words, we can agree that these things, in particular situations and times may have been useful and important –

Bishops are casually assumed in the Bible to be a permanent Church office. Why is it, then, that Luther got rid of them and placed power in the secular princes? Why do most Lutherans no longer have bishops today? Some things (like this) are absolutely obvious in Scripture, yet various Protestants dissent against them. It is an unbiblical, non-apostolic tradition of men to ditch things that Holy Scripture presents as necessary and permanent.

but here is the ultimate question: is Irenaeus' case here ultimately a practical argument (whether he would have put it in these terms or not) or is it one that actually hinges on the infallibility of the church which is delivered in Apostolic Succession (after all, note that for Ireneaus, it is not only the bishops and the bishop of Rome who have received "the infallible charism of the truth", but presbyters ["order of the priesthood"] as well [of whom Luther was one of those validly ordained] – note how Jerome, for example,  also speaks about how these distinctions were by human rite)?  Lutherans argue the first, RCs the latter.  In short, if he had been pressed, would he have said that the office of bishop was something that was by divine rite or human rite? Again, if the latter is a possibility (and I think it clearly is, given other things that Irenaeus says about the importance of proving things from the Scriptures, where in the Scriptures it is clear that presbyters and bishops are sometimes used synonymously, and there is no explicit command that an office of bishop be put in place which is over that of presbyter) how would Ireneaus respond to someone who insisted that these things were by divine rite – and that this must be held to with the same level of conviction as the essential Christian doctrines (found in things like the Rule of Faith for example)?  That is the question.
Now we're off into fine points of ecclesiology. My most basic treatment of this question is in my paper, The Visible, Hierarchical, Apostolic Church. I have many other papers on my Church (Ecclesiology) web page.

After this you do a lengthy commentary on what Irenaeus supposedly might believe (if asked certain things). I think the methodology is fruitless, where people have generally different interpretations. Instead of speculations upon speculations and summary statements (which mean little, as neither you nor I are patristic scholars), your burden is to try to establish and document by the actual words of Irenaeus that he believed such-and-such and denied so-and-so. I've done that in several of my papers and books, and in links that I have provided.  I have provided concrete facts; by and large you have not. So it makes it awful difficult to interact with. If you give me some quotes to examine, I can look them over and make some kind of cogent reply.

The wider in scope and more abstract and "summary" our discussion becomes, to that extent it is fruitless and inconclusive for readers, of whatever persuasion. It's simply an exercise of one party saying, "I think X believed a" and the other saying, "no; X actually believed b" -- with no documentation, or saying, "X woulda done y if c were the case". That helps no one. We have to either document words of the person being discussed, or at least cite a scholar who is familiar with all the relevant data.

Now, Irenaeus says: "Inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously…"  And he can speak from experience.  He knows that this has worked – that the faithful men really have held to the Apostolic teaching, and this is clearly what the Scriptures put forth, even if the heretics deny it.  There is no good reason for him to be speaking and thinking any differently at this point.  But now: what if historical circumstances, when compared vis a vis Scripture, seem to clearly imply that "the apostolic tradition has not been preserved continuously" – at least, among the majority of the top leaders of the church?

This is where Lutherans and Protestants at large lack faith in God's preservation of His Church, which is discussed in Scripture, with promises of indefectibility. We have the faith that God can preserve truth in an institution comprised of a bunch of sinners, just as He preserved inspired words in a Scripture written by a bunch of sinners. Infallibility is not as extraordinary of a thing as inspiration is. Therefore, if one can believe in an inspired Scripture (the more difficult proposition), one can certainly believe in faith the lesser proposition of an infallible, indefectible Church. But Protestants reject the latter. In short, it is most unbiblical to believe that the Church could fall away, institutionally, and depart from the apostolic deposit of faith. To believe that is not simply not being (distinctively) Catholic. It is also a most "unbiblical" notion.

The question also becomes: who is competent and has the authority to judge, by scriptural criteria, if and when the Church has not faithfully preserved the apostolic tradition? Certainly one monk had no such authority. It is ridiculous to think that he did.

Irenaeus himself indicates that even those who have received the "infallible charism" can fall, for he says, "if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity " (Book 3, chapter 3). 
Yes, any individual could fall away, but it doesn't follow that they were not infallible, when they exercised their office. St. Irenaeus (in context of Book 3, chapter 3), never says that apostolic succession is or ever would be in any peril. One bishop falling away no more endangers that than one disciple out of twelve falling away, upset the initial apostolic succession. It didn't at all. They simply chose another (Matthias) to take the place of the traitor.

Yes, what if under the temptations of the world, the Church has gone astray, with the pastors, though rightly holding their blessed offices, have ceased to shepherd appropriately?  What happens when persons who were at one point given the infallible charism faces off against others?  Then what? The highest authority is always right?  The "consensus" is always right?  Does the consensus mean "majority" (one thinks of the sizable faction of more "radical" Augustinians voted down at Trent)?  How does the concept of remnant fit it to all of this? 
The Church can, and often has become very corrupt, yet true doctrine was preserved, because God saw to that. Consensus means what has always been believed; what has been passed down.

What happens when presumably faithful believers in the Church can no longer convince themselves that the Scriptures and the supposed "Apostolic tradition" – which one knows really must not (can't ever?) contradict each other – are saying the same thing?  
Then obviously they reject the Catholic Church, having lost faith in God's guidance of her, and in the infallibility and indefectibility of the Church. They do so by adopting new arbitrary traditions that are not Bible-based (things like sola Scriptura, an invisible church, denominations, etc.).

Then, it seems to me that one must use their Spirit-inspired wisdom to choose…
Yep, it is radical individualism and private judgment vs. an unbroken theological doctrine and tradition, preserved by the Holy Spirit in the Church.

(note we are talking about consciences captive to the Word of God, not UCC consciences….) even if Ireneaus would have never been able to conceive of such a tragic and painful situation… 
No, he wouldn't, because it is so far from the biblical picture of one faith, one Church, total unity of doctrine.

Let us remember that something similar happened in Jesus' day.  The Assembly, or Ekklesia (Church), or that day – those who sat in Moses' very seat – rejected the One who told the people to listen to them (obviously, insofar as they, the legitimate rulers of the Assembly [at this time], spoke the truth – elsewhere he counters them as false teachers nonetheless). 
And he told his followers to do what they teach, even though they were hypocrites, and Paul acknowledged the authority of the high priest  and kept calling himself a Pharisee, and Jesus and Paul and early Christians still observed temple rituals, even though they were not "Christian" rituals, and observed feast days, etc. Therefore, none of that can be applied to any analogy of Lutherans and other Protestants deciding to split from the Catholic Church.

Likewise, similar things happened in the days of the prophets, when those who were supposed to be the leaders (priests and prophets) failed to speak the oracles of God, running where God had not told them to run.  The Assembly has always been unfaithful in their teachings and their practices, but God has always been faithful in spite of this, bringing the Church through via faithful remnants in this or that quarter. 
The Old Testament proto-Church did not have the Holy Spirit and express promises from God that it would be protected and never defect. So that analogy won't fly, either. We've advanced and developed far beyond the Old Covenant. God is indwelling each individual believer.

Roman Catholics may think that this indicates that we do not believe that God preserves the visible Church, but in the case of Lutherans at least, nothing could be further from the truth.  Using our both our eyes and our ears, we can know with certainty where Church is being created and growing – and also where the opposite, due to Christ-denying doctrine, is happening (this place we can reserve for all non-Christian religions as well as the folks like the modern day Arians among us, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, for example). 
"Christianity" and "the Church" are different things. This gets into visible vs. invisible church categories. Whatever the Church is, (biblically speaking) it has one unified doctrine. This notion can't be sustained within an invisible church (Protestant) paradigm.

Of course, there may be a lot that we may not know as well (in other words, a lot in between those two poles), but we are happy to be a part of the remnant that holds to the Rule of Faith in its truth and purity.
You can't establish that you hold it "in its truth and purity": neither historically nor from the Bible.

. . . whether he [St. Irenaeus] would have thought this way in different circumstances. – circumstances that might drive him back to the Scriptures for answers. 
By this method of speculation about "woulda coulda shoulda", debate about it becomes impossible: it is subjective mush. All we can go by is what  father did write and believe. If we start rationalizing and saying, "well, if Church father X were alive in the 16th century, he would have changed his mind and become a good Lutheran . . ." based on sheer speculation, that proves nothing. It's just special pleading, trying to transform a person who believed a certain thing at a certain point of time, into what we want then to be.

On the contrary, we would see Apostolic Succession as a sign which is a good indicator that something is genuine… but stops short of offering a "guarantee".
Then you depart from the fathers in so believing. People can believe whatever they like. It's when they wrongly appeal to the facts of what the fathers believed, that it is objectionable.

Irenaeus: "the faith of all is one and the same, since all receive one and the same God the Father… and preserve the same form of ecclesiastical constitution"… Those, therefore, who desert the preaching of the Church, call in question the knowledge of the holy presbyters, not taking into consideration of how much greater consequence is a religious man".
Note here again the focus on presbyters, as opposed to bishops and Popes.

Against Heresies, Book III, Ch. 3:

It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. (1)

. . .the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. (2)

St. Irenaeus was a bishop himself.

But the faithful will also recognize them by the words they speak, for even faithful laypeople recognize the voice of their Shepherd, and even if their understanding of the Rule of Faith is not terribly firm and strong, they still know enough to be driven back to the Scriptures, which were firmly established by the fulfillment of prophecy, the workings of signs ("miracles") and of course their continuity with the faith received by Adam and Eve from the beginning (Gen. 3:15) up until their present time…  Again, the sheep hear the voice of the Shepherd …and they are always going back the sacred writings of those prophets and Apostles whom their Shepherd chose.  . . . Of course, the sheep do not go looking for gross falsehood among the pastors who have been validly ordained, but when they encounter it, they know something is wrong…. 

Show me in the Bible where there is ever such a thing as a mere layperson disagreeing doctrinally with a leader in the Church based on Bible reading and thereby being justified in his dissent and schism by that method? I say it isn't there. And if that is true (if you can't produce it), the question becomes: why do you believe this in the first place, since it isn't biblically grounded at all? St. Paul warns against division, contentiousness and schism again and again and again. It's believed because this was Luther's initial methodology, and to deny it would be to go against the entire spirit of his revolt from the Church. One can't start denying foundational things that typified the founder of the belief-system one is part of.

And when a shepherd arises among them (Luther) who gives voice to what they have been knowing deep down was wrong – they still are hearing the True Shepherd's voice. God preserves His remnant, in the visible Church at large (as the south [Judah] falls out of fellowship with the north [Israel], within the visible Church [the wheat, not the tares], and even outside of the visible church ["I have preserved 7,000 in Israel"]).  
Now the burden of proof (besides the unbiblical ecclesiology) is to prove one's beliefs from Scripture (having claimed to be based on Scripture alone). And you have to disprove the import of the biblical evidence for the indefectibility of the Church, in order to bolster the scenario of Luther and Protestants who followed him "dissing" the historical Catholic Church.

. . . as time rolls on, and Satan steps up his efforts more and more as the Last Day nears…  To the tragic chaos created by the Reformation, I simply say this: "Is Christ divided?" In Gods' eyes, of course not (intrinsic, see Eph 4:4-5). In our eyes, yes. We are hid in Christ; the Church is hidden under the cross (extrinsic).  In spite of the fact that in this fallen world "there must be divisions among us", let us always work towards agreeing with one another (I Cor 1:10).
We don't do that by creating or winking at hundreds of denominations, whose doctrines contradict, so that falsehood is necessarily massive present.

Of course the "Church's peculiar and traditionally handed down grasp of the purport of revelation" can also be found in the Scripture as well, although this does not thereby mean that an authoritative and interpreting church is not necessary!   
How is a Church"authoritative" if any individual can judge it and decide it's wrong and split? Of what use is it? Even civil laws are more binding than that! This is what Luther did. He thumbed his nose at the authority of the Catholic Church of history, and now he expects his followers to respect the merely arbitrary authority in Lutheran circles? Hence Protestant tradition and history has at least been consistent: men can decide to start new denominations at whim. Luther detested that, but he never showed how it wasn't consistent with his own actions and beliefs.

Dave: "The always partisan yet thoroughly fair-minded Schaff takes the position himself that Athanasius ' position is neither the present-day Catholic or Protestant one."
Right.  It's the Lutheran one, as expounded by Chemnitz.
Not at all. St. Athanasius was a Catholic, not any kind of proto-Protestant. See my papers:

St. Athanasius Was a CATHOLIC, Not a Proto-Protestant (+ Counter-Reply to James White on Tradition, etc.)

Did St. Athanasius Believe in Sola Scriptura? (vs. Ken Temple)

The Sufficiency of Scripture and the Church Fathers (Particularly, St. Athanasius and the Trinity) (vs. E. L. Hamilton and "Cranmer")
Orthodox View of OT Canon / Athanasius' Slightly-Qualified Acceptance of the Deuterocanon / Jerome's Anomalies in His Rejection of the Deuterocanon
Reply to James White on the Council of Nicaea and Its Relationship to Pope Sylvester, Athanasius' Views, and the Unique Preeminence of Catholic Authority

But Lutheranism does not reject this [an infallible Church].  We believe that this is indeed the case, but that we need to take more seriously than ever before the concept of remnant, and the actual histories of God's people in the Old and New Testament.  As regards infallibility, here it is like what C.S. Lewis said about not getting the "second things" unless the "first things" are focused on.

It does indeed reject it in effect, by changing the definition of the Church. If I have to change the rules of arithmetic so that 2+2 no longer equals 4, then it is a rejection of arithmetic as it has always been known. That being the case it would be foolish to call "arithmetic" by the same name, because it had always meant something -- always had certain characteristics -- and now no longer does.






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