The Early Church Fathers

[rakovsky]

W

What is there that you think needs adopting or adapting to scripture or the creed? Or are you asking us to adopt or adapt Evanvelical Theology to your interpretation of scripture and the creed?

Does the Lutheran Church have Evangelical theology in the sense that it is usually used in common speech, eg. Baptists, Fundamentalists, Pat Robertson, Billy Graham etc.

When I think of Lutheran use of the term Evangelical, eg. in The ELCA, it seems very different somehow.

 

[BJ Bear]

Does the Lutheran Church have Evangelical theology in the sense that it is usually used in common speech, eg. Baptists, Fundamentalists, Pat Robertson, Billy Graham etc.

When I think of Lutheran use of the term Evangelical, eg. in The ELCA, it seems very different somehow.

No, we use it in the scriptural and historical sense. Evanvelical was used by Rome in pejorative sense and it stuck. They also called us Lutheran according to their custom of characterizing what they thought of as heretics, as an example think of Arius and Arians. That didn't stick.

We added Lutheran to our name in the States because there were some traveling German speaking pastors that called themselves Evangelical but were Reformed. All this stuff was a consequence of the forced union in Prussia.

The bottom line is you are right that it is very different. Despite the pollemics over the years there was a time when were legally recognized within the Empire as an expression of the one faith.

All other "Protestants" and sects remained outlawed within the Empire. That is why the Reformed tried to sound Evanvelical and when that didn't work the world was gifted the thirty years war.

 

[rakovsky]

Nice answer.

No, we use it in the scriptural and historical sense. ......That is why the Reformed tried to sound Evanvelical and when that didn't work the world was gifted the thirty years war.

 

[rakovsky]

BJ,
Personally I have a warm spot for Luther and Lutheranism due to being baptized Lutheran.
Roman Catholicism had a authoritarian side that Luther was right to criticize. It has a certain overbearing dogmatism like its idea of Papal Infallibility. Even the idea of the Infallibility of the Magisterium is excessive.

But on the other hand, Lutheranism and the Protestantism that followed in his wake (I am including Calvinists and Baptists in this) also has a certain dogmatism. I doubt that Lutheranism considers Luther's Five Solas "infallible", but the Protestantism that followed Luther seems to treat them as rather dogmatic, or maybe it's better to call it "axiomatic." And the Five Solas are even questionable from a non-Catholic standpoint, since the Anglicans, Methodists, and EOs don't openly teach them.

Which of the Five Solas do you consider the most Foundational? It seems to be "Sola Scriptura," because Luther emphasized the Bible as the source of all doctrines, which would include the other Solas. "Sola Scriptura" has been said to mean that the Bible is the only "final", "infallible" source of authority, but it's not really clear that this was Luther's definition of it. I don't know if Luther would agree that the Bible is the only final or infallible source, as opposed to God revealing something, like the details of the Last Judgment, after the Bible was written. And for that matter I'm not sure that the RCs would even disagree that the Bible is the only final, infallible source. One RC (maybe on this CARM forum) told me that if Sola Scriptura just meant that the Bible was ranked at the top of written Church authority, then he could agree with it. For instance, a Catholic could consider the 4 Gospels and a Papal "Ex Cathedra" statement both "infallible", but the 4 Gospels would rank higher in authority.

Luther came from a school of thought in Western Europe called at the time "Humanism" that tried to interpret documents as self-explanatory texts. Another scholar who belonged to this method was Erasmus, a Catholic academician. Luther explained Sola Scriptura by saying that he wanted to follow the meaning of the Bible in order to determine doctrines and to judge whether other Christian leaders were right. When it came to using the Church fathers to understand what the Bible said in the first place, Luther seemed to go in opposite directions. At one point he counseled not using them, but other times he said to use them, and in practice he used them himself to understand the Bible.

The real weakness in the Sola Scriptura idea is that if you just take the Bible Alone, then the Bible's meaning is frequently unclear in reality. I can't even say that the Bible authors meant for their writings to be self-evident, because when they wrote texts like Daniel's Book and John's Apocalypse, the writers encoded or encrypted their meanings in symbolism. Luther did not openly say AFAIK that the Bible's meaning is obvious on all important topics, but the fact that it is not obvious shows a weakness in his fundamental "Sola Scriptura" principle, ie. in order to establish doctrine, in reality the Church can't just pick up the Bible and go by the Bible alone as its only text. This is at least in part because you actually need other texts to understand the Bible in the first place.

 

[rakovsky]

Sometimes people considered why Luther didn't try to dialogue with the Greek Church, despite repeatedly using them as an authority toback his positions on topics. My guess is that he realized that it would not be constructive for him due to their differences in positions, although of course he could have privately contacted them and then dumped the correspondence.

We have dozens of early Church writings, and it's an interesting thought experiment to consider how Luther would have reacted if he time traveled back to the period of the mid-1st-2nd century, like the time of the apostles or the following several generations, like soon after the Bible had been finalized. It could throw into relief that his ideas were very much a product of his own era and its challenges. For instance, the RC dogmatic idea of the authority of the "Magisterium" had not been locked in yet in the 2nd century AD. Luther was formulating his Sola Scriptura idea in the context of his dissent against RC dogmatism. And while the 1st-2nd century Church did not espouse the RC's dogmatism on the Magisterium, nor do we find the teaching of "Bible alone" clearly expounded or and elucidated like Luther taught it.

If Luther time traveled to the 1st or 2nd century, he would not be confronted with the Church leaders or their people teaching that the "Bible alone" is the only source of authority for formulating doctrine. For instance, the early Church writers quoted words of Jesus that are not found in the Bible. Other times there were apocryphal stories like the Shepherd of Hermas, as well as writings from church leaders like Pope Clement that were important for church teachings in that time. Although the Shepherd of Hermas was not respected to the extent that the Bible was, it's worth my pointing out that I think that some things in the Shepherd of Hermas conflict sharply with Scripture. Certainly Luther could have disputed those church leaders if their writings strayed from the Bible, but my point is that those early writers did not rely on the "Bible alone" for their teachings.

 

[Tertiumquid]

Luther came from a school of thought in Western Europe called at the time "Humanism" that tried to interpret documents as self-explanatory texts. Another scholar who belonged to this method was Erasmus, a Catholic academician. Luther explained Sola Scriptura by saying that he wanted to follow the meaning of the Bible in order to determine doctrines and to judge whether other Christian leaders were right. When it came to using the Church fathers to understand what the Bible said in the first place, Luther seemed to go in opposite directions. At one point he counseled not using them, but other times he said to use them, and in practice he used them himself to understand the Bible.

Luther utilized elements of humanism, but I would not classify him as a "humanist." I realize there is debate over this. My proof? Simply read the dialog between Luther and Erasmus on the will of man to see their differences in their respective theological approach. Read Melanchthon in comparison to Luther.

In regard to Luther and his use or disavowal of the church fathers, context is key. When in debate with Roman Catholic detractors appealing to them as some sort of final determinative authority, they were not to be taken as a final authority. Throughout his career, Luther utilized previous generations of Christian thought, both with approval or disapproval depending on the subject matter. This appears to be what you describe as going "in opposite directions." Notice though the way I describe it, it doesn't have the negativity you attach to it.

Addendum: Luther on Opponents Using the Early Church Fathers

 

[rakovsky]

Luther utilized elements of humanism, but I would not classify him as a "humanist." I realize there is debate over this. My proof? Simply read the dialog between Luther and Erasmus on the will of man to see their differences in their respective theological approach. Read Melanchthon in comparison to Luther.

In regard to Luther and his use or disavowal of the church fathers, context is key. When in debate with Roman Catholic detractors appealing to them as some sort of final determinative authority, they were not to be taken as a final authority. Throughout his career, Luther utilized previous generations of Christian thought, both with approval or disapproval depending on the subject matter. This appears to be what you describe as going "in opposite directions." Notice though the way I describe it, it doesn't have the negative spin you attach to it.

Tertium,
When I referred to Luther going in opposite directions on using Church Fathers, I was referring to figuring out his position on whether according to his idea of "Sola Scriptura" we should use the Church Fathers to understand what the Bible means.
At one point when defining Sola Scriptura, he said that we should not use the Church fathers but should just go on the Bible alone to figure out what the Bible was saying. This reflects the method of "Humanism". But elsewhere Luther said that we should use commentaries.

I found this conflicting pull in the article that repeatedly quotes Luther.

What Sola Scriptura Really Means

For Martin Luther, Scripture alone was of ultimate authority for Christians, yet this did not mean that there were no other means of discovering truth.

www.crossway.org

That this is what Luther meant by the slogan sola Scriptura was made even clearer a few years later when, in the wake of Leo X’s (r. 1513–1521) threat of excommunication, he wrote An Assertion of All the Articles (1520):
"I do not want to throw out all those more learned [than I],
but Scripture alone to reign, and not to interpret it by my own spirit or the spirit of any man, but I want to understand it by itself and its spirit.2"

In the statement above, what he is saying is going in opposite directions. When he says to "understand it by itself" and the other statements in purple, he appears to be telling readers that "Sola Scriptura" means to read the Bible "by itself" and not to read it in light of commentaries.

But when he says that he doesn't want to throw out the commentaries, it sounds like he is saying that he wants to use the commentaries to read the Bible. And in fact in practice elsewhere he did use commentaries in order to understand the Bible. So in a strict sense, he was not reading using the Bible "alone" as his "only" text to establish doctrine. So Luther was speaking in opposite directions on the topic of whether Sola Scriptura involved or could involve using the Fathers and other commentaries.

 

[Tertiumquid]

Tertium,
we should not use the Church fathers but should just go on the Bible alone to figure out what the Bible was saying. This reflects the method of "Humanism".

So by reasonable deduction via the methodology of my favorite theologian Columbo: when the "church fathers" interpreted the Bible and formulated their opinions, wasn't that also "the method of humanism"? Hmm. Something doesn't add up here.

 

[rakovsky]

So by reasonable deduction via the methodology of my favorite theologian Columbo: when the "church fathers" interpreted the Bible and formulated their opinions, wasn't that also "the method of humanism"? Hmm. Something doesn't add up here.

The difference is that Luther at times and Humanism were saying to go by the Bible "alone", whereas the Church fathers did not teach to use the Bible "alone" as the only text. So for instance in the 1st-2nd century AD Church fathers' writings you can find a few "agrapha" or sayings by Jesus that are not in the Bible.

 

[Tertiumquid]

The difference is that Luther at times and Humanism were saying to go by the Bible "alone", whereas the Church fathers did not teach to use the Bible "alone" as the only text. So for instance in the 1st-2nd century AD Church fathers' writings you can find a few "agrapha" or sayings by Jesus that are not in the Bible.

You appear to be advocating the infallibility of church fathers. Do you have any sort of standard that determines if they were ever in error, or is it simply that they are generationally earlier so what they wrote is infallible? How do you determine if the agrapha they quote is a truthful citation?

 

[rakovsky]

You appear to be advocating the infallibility of church fathers. Do you have any sort of standard that determines if they were ever in error, or is it simply that they are generationally earlier so what they wrote is infallible? How do you determine if the agrapha they quote is a truthful citation?

I'm not arguing that the Church fathers were infallible, I'm not an RC. EOs, Anglicans, and Methodists are other Churches that also are open about non-Biblical Tradition as being a source of Tradition aside from the Bible, even though the Bible is considered the highest authority.

I'm saying that in terms of what his principle of "Sola Scriptura" actually meant, ie. whether to read the Bible purely "alone", Luther spoke in opposite directions on the topic, at times saying that you must just read the Bible by itself, and at other times suggesting using commentaries to understand the meaning. And this is because in reality the Bible purely alone is often not clear in its meaning, even on important topics.

If you gave a Bible to a group of Christian converts who never had read the Bible before and told them to make doctrines purely based on the Bible alone, who knows what they would imagine the Bible to say. I doubt that they would come up with 7 Sacraments/Ordinances like the Lutherans have. In reality, commentaries and Traditions are a practical necessity to say the least.

 

[Tertiumquid]

I'm not arguing that the Church fathers were infallible, I'm not an RC. EOs, Anglicans, and Methodists are other Churches that also are open about non-Biblical Tradition as being a source of Tradition aside from the Bible, even though the Bible is considered the highest authority.

I'm saying that in terms of what his principle of "Sola Scriptura" actually meant, ie. whether to read the Bible purely "alone", Luther spoke in opposite directions on the topic, at times saying that you must just read the Bible by itself, and at other times suggesting using commentaries to understand the meaning. And this is because in reality the Bible purely alone is often not clear in its meaning, even on important topics.

If you gave a Bible to a group of Christian converts who never had read the Bible before and told them to make doctrines purely based on the Bible alone, who knows what they would imagine the Bible to say. I doubt that they would come up with 7 Sacraments/Ordinances like the Lutherans have. In reality, commentaries and Traditions are a practical necessity to say the least.

I don't have a problem with "non-Biblical tradition" and neither did Luther (which is why, for instance, he translated the apocrypha and said those books were not held equal to the Scriptures but are useful and good to read). Luther and I both though do not adhere to an infallible extra-Biblical tradition. When you reference some sort of ECF quoting agrapha, you hold the burden of explaining why that particular citation is an aspect of extra-biblical infallible tradition that somehow Lutherans are missing. This is all part of the "who's your infallible authority" shell game.

In regard to Luther speaking in "opposite directions": you're putting forth a false either / or. Luther wasn't arguing to read the Bible "purely alone." Simply study his interactions with the radicals. He argued that Scriptures were the sole infallible authority.

 

[Bonnie]

Does the Lutheran Church have Evangelical theology in the sense that it is usually used in common speech, eg. Baptists, Fundamentalists, Pat Robertson, Billy Graham etc.

When I think of Lutheran use of the term Evangelical, eg. in The ELCA, it seems very different somehow.

it is different. We consider the ELCA to be heterodoxical. But not sure what you are asking here. Certainly the LCMS that I belong to is very evangelical, in that it believes in spreading the Gospel message to all the world.

 

[Tertiumquid]

I found this conflicting pull in the article that repeatedly quotes Luther.

What Sola Scriptura Really Means

For Martin Luther, Scripture alone was of ultimate authority for Christians, yet this did not mean that there were no other means of discovering truth.

www.crossway.org

That this is what Luther meant by the slogan sola Scriptura was made even clearer a few years later when, in the wake of Leo X’s (r. 1513–1521) threat of excommunication, he wrote An Assertion of All the Articles (1520):
"I do not want to throw out all those more learned [than I],
but Scripture alone to reign, and not to interpret it by my own spirit or the spirit of any man, but I want to understand it by itself and its spirit.2"

In the statement above, what he is saying is going in opposite directions. When he says to "understand it by itself" and the other statements in purple, he appears to be telling readers that "Sola Scriptura" means to read the Bible "by itself" and not to read it in light of commentaries.

Not wishing to create massive amounts of replies, I suggest looking up the context of the Luther quote you're citing: See WA 7:98-99. Read the whole thing.

 

[rakovsky]

I don't have a problem with "non-Biblical tradition" and neither did Luther (which is why, for instance, he translated the apocrypha and said those books were not held equal to the Scriptures but are useful and good to read). Luther and I both though do not adhere to an infallible extra-Biblical tradition. When you reference some sort of ECF quoting agrapha, you hold the burden of explaining why that particular citation is an aspect of extra-biblical infallible tradition that somehow Lutherans are missing. This is all part of the "who's your infallible authority" shell game.

In regard to Luther speaking in "opposite directions": you're putting forth a false either / or. Luther wasn't arguing to read the Bible "purely alone." Simply study his interactions with the radicals. He argued that Scriptures were the sole infallible authority.

I am talking about the definition of "Sola Scriptura". From the quotations that I found, Luther wanted the "Bible Alone" to be his guide in establishing doctrine, as he said that he wanted "Scripture Alone to Reign".

Luther did not define Sola Scriptura to mean that the Bible is the only "infallible" authority, as far as I can tell. And even if he called the Bible infallible, calling it the only "infallible" authority still raises the issue of how you interpret the Bible- Do you use non-Biblical writings in order to understand the Bible? If so, then the infallible Bible is not the "only" source that you are using to establish doctrine. The Bible is not ruling "alone" in that case in establishing doctrine, but rather the Bible and Tradition are both deciding on the doctrines.

You write, "Luther wasn't arguing to read the Bible purely alone." But at times he wrote along the lines of an idea that the Bible should be read without commentaries, ie. actually "alone":

You say, “scripture alone must be read without commentaries.” You say this correctly about the commentaries of Origen, Jerome, and Thomas (Aquinas). They wrote commentaries in which they handed down their own ideas rather than Pauline or Christian ones. Let no one call your annotations a commentary [in that sense] but only an index for reading Scripture and knowing Christ, on account that up to this point no one has offered a commentary which surpasses it.

Aquinas and Jerome were two of the main Biblical commentators whose works were read in Luther's era.

Later, you correctly suggest, "Simply study his interactions with the radicals." I agree- Despite agreeing with the radicals that Scripture alone should be the source of doctrine, in his interactions with the radicals, he used Tradition and Church fathers as authorities to show that the radicals were mistaken.

Furthermore, when Luther writes to just call Thomas Aquinas and Jerome "indexes", it feels potentially sophistic. Aquinas and Jerome are not actually just "indexes" of Bible verses. If Luther was actually advising just to pull the Biblical cross references out of Aquinas and Jerome for shorthand use, then it's better to call them "indexes taken from Jerome and Aquinas." But I don't think that Luther really just meant to only use Jerome and Aquinas as indexes, but rather I think that Luther also at least sometimes looked to them for substantive ideas and substantive understandings of the Bible, and not just as a Biblical "index" of passages like you find at the back of some KJV Bibles.

 

[rakovsky]

Not wishing to create massive amounts of replies, I suggest looking up the context of the Luther quote you're citing: See WA 7:98-99. Read the whole thing.

The Blue highlighting goes to Latin texts.
Where did Luther succinctly define his term of "Sola Scriptura", a principle that has been so foundational for Lutheranism?

 

[Tertiumquid]

The Blue highlighting goes to Latin texts.
Where did Luther succinctly define his term of "Sola Scriptura", a principle that has been so foundational for Lutheranism?

If I recall correctly, Luther veered toward sola scriptura during his debate with Eck at Leipzig in 1519 via Eck's questioning. Luther's most famous articulation of it is usually his statement at the Diet of Worms, 1521. As to his most "succinct," I don't know, I'm headed out the door and can't do the research for you at the moment. Keep in mind, the concept, "Word of God" is a bit different than garden-variety evangelicalism in Luther's thought. However, fundamentally, it was the Scriptures alone that established theological certainty. A good place for you to start is the Lutheran Confessions.

 

[rakovsky]

However, fundamentally, it was the Scriptures alone that established theological certainty.

Right, that is the kind of thing he would say at times, but then other times he would talk about using commentaries and Church fathers also.
Bible + Commentaries =\= "Bible alone."

The "Bible alone" does not actually create theological certainty because it's occasionally not clear and certain what the Bible actually means when the Bible is taken and read alone. Luther actually used commentaries outside of the Bible in order to make his case persuasive.

 

[Tertiumquid]

Right, that is the kind of thing he would say at times, but then other times he would talk about using commentaries and Church fathers also.
Bible + Commentaries =\= "Bible alone."

The "Bible alone" does not actually create theological certainty because it's occasionally not clear and certain what the Bible actually means when the Bible is taken and read alone. Luther actually used commentaries outside of the Bible in order to make his case persuasive.

The notion of "theological certainty" was meant in the sense that since the Reformers held that the Bible is the only infallible source, it is the only source that can provide theological certainty. Here's a counterfactual that may help explain the point: If the writings of Irenaeus were an infallible source, likewise, I would say Irenaeus is a vehicle of theological certainty. By extension: if "Tradition" is an infallible source of God's revelation it would also be a vehicle of theological certainty.

My hope in bringing up is that you can grasp the nuance of my comments.

By the way, "Bible alone" does not mean: me with a Bible in the woods under a tree waiting to hear directly from God. "Bible alone" refers to that artifact of revelation that is an infallible source.

 

[Tertiumquid]

Furthermore, when Luther writes to just call Thomas Aquinas and Jerome "indexes", it feels potentially sophistic. Aquinas and Jerome are not actually just "indexes" of Bible verses. If Luther was actually advising just to pull the Biblical cross references out of Aquinas and Jerome for shorthand use, then it's better to call them "indexes taken from Jerome and Aquinas." But I don't think that Luther really just meant to only use Jerome and Aquinas as indexes, but rather I think that Luther also at least sometimes looked to them for substantive ideas and substantive understandings of the Bible, and not just as a Biblical "index" of passages like you find at the back of some KJV Bibles.

I suspect you're quoting Luther via the link you cited above. If so, Luther did not refer to Aquinas and Jerome as "indexes." This is plain from even a reading of the second-hand source link you cited above. The word "indexes" (indicem) is a reference to Melanchthon's Annotations on Romans and Corinthians. Luther says,

Tuas annotationes nemo conmientarium is appellet sed indicem dumtaxat legendae scripturae et coguosceudi Christi, id quod nullus hactenus praestitit commentariorum , ipii saltem extet.

For a complete English translation, see LW 59:20-22, with the quote in question occurring on page 21. BY "indexes" Luther means "indices" and is alluding to Melanchthon's own contrast between commentaries and indices (as per LW 59:21, fn. 16), and is intended by Luther to be a compliment and not a criticism of Melanchthon.