The Early Church Fathers

[rakovsky]

The statement that the Bible is the Master over all other writings can mean different things and so it is not necessarily in itself an incorrect statement. Typically everyone would agree that the Bible is the highest Authority and so if you are using this declaration about it being the master over all of the writings in a general flexible sense or in the same way that the New Testament could be called the Lord and Master over the Old Testament then it is something people would agree on. For instance a papal bull would not declare that "the Bible is theologically wrong", whereas if we and Catholics agreed that the Bible waa saying that a papal bull was wrong, then Catholics and others would say that the Bible was right and that the papal bull was mistaken.

But probably Lutheranism does not mean this declaration in such a general flexible sense for a few reasons.
1. The term Lord and Master sounds pretty exalted Beyond it just being the highest place of authority of writings. We would agree that the New Testament takes precedence over the Old Testament or replaces it in some senses, but I'm not sure that we would use the term Lord and Master for it. The same thing goes for the ecumenical councils. If the councils decided on the books of the Bible, then to say that the Bible is the Lord and Master over those particular councils seems a bit confusing.

2. Since everyone agrees typically that the Bible has the highest place in terms of written Authority in the way that I mentioned above, Luther probably meant something different than that because Sola scriptura is a key foundational defining feature of Lutheranism, and it would very much tend not to be a special feature if it was the same thing that Catholicism taught on the topic.

3. When Luther got into discussions about his idea on the role and place of scripture, he did not seem to mean this idea of Bible alone in such a flexible way. For instance in the quote a few messages earlier in this thread that tertium quoted, Luther compared the Bible to a sword, with the church fathers and their commentaries being like a sheath, and he declared that he wanted to take the sword out of the sheath. The implication is that he is saying practically to rip the Bible from its context and the Christian community's historic understanding of the Bible that the church fathers explained about it. And this is not realistic or reasonable as a way to treat Bible passages. For example, The Book of Revelation talks about the 1000 year reign of Christ and some people today take that literally, whereas church writers in the time of the church fathers commonly took the view that this did not mean a literal 1000 year reign. Some Council even made a decision to that effect. So to recommend taking the Bible writing on the 1000 year reign out of the sheath of the church fathers who explained what that meant and then to use the Bible writing on this cryptic ambiguous writing topic as a sword is not realistic or reasonable.

4. To take his declaration about the Bible being the Lord and Master over all of the writings in a absolute or strict sense such that other writings do not serve as Masters or teachers on the Bible is also not realistic or reasonable due to the necessity of using other writings outside the Bible in order to understand what the Bible is saying as well to reach the conclusion that the Bible and its books are correct on a topic. Even if we agree that the Bible is correct, there's still an apologetic role of books outside the Bible to show that the Bible is correct and in the course of using those other writings you will in fact be evaluating the Bible. So for instance you can check ancient writings outside the Bible to show that Jesus existed. We agree that the Bible is right that Jesus existed, and those writings outside the Bible are used in order to judge the Bible to be correct. That is why I say that if the statement that the Bible is Lord and Master over all other writings is meant in an absolute sense such that other books do not judge the Bible, then this declaration is not realistic or reasonable either. In reality, both the Bible and Church books outside the Bible must interact with each other in a harmonious way.

 

[BJ Bear]

I quoted this as one of the definitions of "Sola Scriptura" in Message #42.

A criticism of this thesis is that you actually need other writings in order to guide your reading of the Bible and find the correct teachings. If the Bible is cryptic or pretty unclear on some issue like some symbols in Revelation or Infant Baptism, then you de facto need to look to other written sources to clarify the Bible's view on that topic. This is because if you don't know about other Christians' interpretations and you have to reach your own, then in reality you get a kaleidescope of interpretations, from Calvinism to Seventh Day Adventism.

If saying that the Bible is the "master over all other writings" means that you use the Bible to A. interpret those writings and to B. see if those writings are correct, then the practical reality is that you also need to use other writings to interpret and evaluate the Bible. The logical inevitable conclusion is that other writings are also "masters" in regards to the Bible, guiding you and teaching you about the Bible's meanings.

Let me give an example of each A. and B.
A. Sometimes the Bible is ambiguous. In reality, you don't actually know what lots of things in it mean when you just read the plain words on the page, like all the symbols in Daniel and Revelation, or whether the Bible meant for Baptizing Infants, or what it teaches on the Real Presence. De Facto you need to turn to writers, whether they are Church fathers or even modern preachers like Luther himself, in order to understand what it's talking about.
B. How do you know what books go into the Bible? You can feel those books' interpretations are correct, you can check it against other Biblical Books. But De Facto you have to use what the Church Fathers and Councils listed as the Biblical Books. In reality, if someone just threw the full range of different churches' Biblical books from Enoch to Genesis to 3rd Corinthians to Tobit on a giant table of 100 Protestant scholars who did not already know which books were in the Bible or what other writers thought were right, you would not get a consistent answer. Luther himself went through a process of evaluating which books were "Biblical" when he made the Lutheran Bible, and he was considering even throwing out James' Epistle. De Facto he had to consult other writings outside the Bible like the earliest Church canon lists to decide whether the Biblical books were correct and should be included in the Bible.

So the problem with Luther's thesis "Scripture alone is lord and master over all other writings on earth..." is directional, actual, real, and practical. Judging writings and doctrines is not actually a simple situation of:
Bible (Master/Judge/Interpreter) ========= over ========>>>> All other writings.

It's actually a cycle where both the Bible and other writings interpret and evaluate each other.

It makes sense to say that the Bible is the "master" of St. Ignatius' writings, for example, because you use the Bible to decide what he meant and whether he was right or not. But that being the case, you also are de facto forced to use writings of the Church Fathers to see what the Bible meant and to evaluate that the books of the Bible were right.

Well, I may have to reply in sections to do justice to your post.

The context of the statement is among trained and life long churchmen rather than newbies or the laity. Those churchmen had various customs of interpretation but as a rule they all recognized Scripture as the gold standard. Since your post seems to be focused on newbies and the laity rather than among those for whom the statement was intended I will respond within that context.

Re the first section, no a person doesn't *need* other writings to guide his reading of the Bible. He may want to use other writings and they may be helpful but he doesn't need them. If he is a single language person then he needs sufficient proficiency in the language in which his translation, hopefully reputable, is written. If he is multilingual so much the better, especially if those languages include one or more of the biblical languages.

Re the second section, no that is not the practical reality because at best those other writings will echo the scriptural witness just like a *real* catechumen, even if it is different words. If you mean to include grammars, lexicons, cultural/historical works, etc., then they too can be helpful but it is an over statement to say sometimes are lord and master over Scripture.

Re the examples, Scripture says what it means and means what it says according to its God-given perfect immediate context. The Holy Spirit is the best teacher. Since twent first century readers are separated by time and are likely to be separated by language, culture, and history this is where grammars, lexicons, cultural/historical works can be helpful.

It is one Lord God, one faith, one church from Adam and Eve to the last member that will be. Adam is not of a different faith than Abraham, nor Abraham of a different faith than Moses, nor Moses from Isaiah, nor Isaiah from Paul, nor Paul from John, etc. Or to be more succinct, Moses was a faithful servant in God's house as are the Apostles.

 

[rakovsky]

Re the first section, no a person doesn't *need* other writings to guide his reading of the Bible. He may want to use other writings and they may be helpful but he doesn't need them. If he is a single language person then he needs sufficient proficiency in the language in which his translation, hopefully reputable, is written. If he is multilingual so much the better, especially if those languages include one or more of the biblical languages.

Here is one of the big real life problems. There are actually significant theological topics where de facto people do need other writings of the Bible to guide them, unless you find only 1 out of 100000 people succeeding in getting everything right to mean that people don't need commentaries. In reality, if you gave Bibles to 10000 people with a high school education who agreed to the Bible but who had no Christian education beyond the plain words of the Bible, and then asked them to say what the Bible means in all its passages or on the full range of topics that Churches debate like Infant Baptism, they would not actually be able to produce something consistent.

If you want to know what the Bible teaches in Revelation or on the 1000 year reign, or on Infant Baptism or on the exact nature of the real presence, or apostolic succession, or on plenty of other topics, then de facto you are actually going to need church commentaries for it to make sense. It is obvious that you actually need commentaries to get the Bible's intention or position on these topics. I couldn't pick up Revelation when I was a teenager and tell you with much real opinion what so many things in Revelation meant, and I am hardly the only person with that setback. It is hardly that we are not educated enough in book reading. It's a problem of the cryptic nature of the text. There are tons of cryptic apocryphal literature that people can't readily independently interpret either. Obscurity is inherent in this very genre of literature because it is deliberately cryptic.

Theoretically, someone with just a highschool education and no Christian education could accept and pick up a Bible that falls out of the sky and get the Bible's positions correct on 100% of its hundreds of pages and tons of theological issues. But in reality, the average person does actually need commentaries to guide him to reach the right positions on those issues, because the real result is that people with no outside commentaries get confused on important issues even if they accept the Bible.

You can theorize that 90% of sincere Bible-believing Protestants miss the Bible's Lutheran position on Obscure Passage X or on Debated Topic Y. But in reality, if Bible believing "Bible Only" Protestants needed no commentaries to reach the Lutheran position, then in reality, that is what would happen when they picked up their Bibles. In reality, the Bible's position on Infant Baptism is obscure enough (there is nothing specific and overt), that Bible Only Protesrants are sharply divided. If the average person could in real life pick up a Bible and would just "get it" on their own, then I could hand a Bible to my Mennonite relatives and point to a chapter and say "Here's where it says to do Infant Baptism." In reality, they probably read the Bible every day and they don't "get it" on Infant Baptism. In fact, one of them is a former Lutheran who grew up Lutheran through Highschool.

So theoretically, a person can reach the Bible's positions by reading the Bible alone, but in reality, a typical sincere, Bible believing person won't do that.

How do I prove something so simple and obvious? If you sent your kids to school for 12 years so they got highschool educated, gave them Bibles, and you limited their religious education and the sermons they heard to purely reciting Bible verses to them, they would not actually be able to tell you consistently from their Bibles what the Bible's obscure passages mean or what the Bible's position was on a host of debated topics.

 

[BJ Bear]

I quoted this as one of the definitions of "Sola Scriptura" in Message #42.

A criticism of this thesis is that you actually need other writings in order to guide your reading of the Bible and find the correct teachings. If the Bible is cryptic or pretty unclear on some issue like some symbols in Revelation or Infant Baptism, then you de facto need to look to other written sources to clarify the Bible's view on that topic. This is because if you don't know about other Christians' interpretations and you have to reach your own, then in reality you get a kaleidescope of interpretations, from Calvinism to Seventh Day Adventism.

If saying that the Bible is the "master over all other writings" means that you use the Bible to A. interpret those writings and to B. see if those writings are correct, then the practical reality is that you also need to use other writings to interpret and evaluate the Bible. The logical inevitable conclusion is that other writings are also "masters" in regards to the Bible, guiding you and teaching you about the Bible's meanings.

Let me give an example of each A. and B.
A. Sometimes the Bible is ambiguous. In reality, you don't actually know what lots of things in it mean when you just read the plain words on the page, like all the symbols in Daniel and Revelation, or whether the Bible meant for Baptizing Infants, or what it teaches on the Real Presence. De Facto you need to turn to writers, whether they are Church fathers or even modern preachers like Luther himself, in order to understand what it's talking about.
B. How do you know what books go into the Bible? You can feel those books' interpretations are correct, you can check it against other Biblical Books. But De Facto you have to use what the Church Fathers and Councils listed as the Biblical Books. In reality, if someone just threw the full range of different churches' Biblical books from Enoch to Genesis to 3rd Corinthians to Tobit on a giant table of 100 Protestant scholars who did not already know which books were in the Bible or what other writers thought were right, you would not get a consistent answer. Luther himself went through a process of evaluating which books were "Biblical" when he made the Lutheran Bible, and he was considering even throwing out James' Epistle. De Facto he had to consult other writings outside the Bible like the earliest Church canon lists to decide whether the Biblical books were correct and should be included in the Bible.

So the problem with Luther's thesis "Scripture alone is lord and master over all other writings on earth..." is directional, actual, real, and practical. Judging writings and doctrines is not actually a simple situation of:
Bible (Master/Judge/Interpreter) ========= over ========>>>> All other writings.

It's actually a cycle where both the Bible and other writings interpret and evaluate each other.

It makes sense to say that the Bible is the "master" of St. Ignatius' writings, for example, because you use the Bible to decide what he meant and whether he was right or not. But that being the case, you also are de facto forced to use writings of the Church Fathers to see what the Bible meant and to evaluate that the books of the Bible were right.

Part two-

Everybody, both Jew and Gentile, receives the Law and the Prophets, the 39 books, which Jesus also affirmed. Most Christians receive the 27 books commonly called the NT as they were received to a greater or lesser degree by the contempoaries of their human authors as apostolic.

What people don't seem to know is that Luther translated all the books included in the longest canon used among Christians. That was not a novel undertaking as there are various length canons used among the Orthodox.

Books which don't preach Christ or do so in a foreign manner or have manifest errors are not considered canonical.

 

[BJ Bear]

Here is one of the big real life problems. There are actually significant theological topics where de facto people do need other writings of the Bible to guide them, unless you find only 1 out of 100000 people succeeding in getting everything right to mean that people don't need commentaries. In reality, if you gave Bibles to 10000 people with a high school education who agreed to the Bible but who had no Christian education beyond the plain words of the Bible, and then asked them to say what the Bible means in all its passages or on the full range of topics that Churches debate like Infant Baptism, they would not actually be able to produce something consistent.

If you want to know what the Bible teaches in Revelation or on the 1000 year reign, or on Infant Baptism or on the exact nature of the real presence, or apostolic succession, or on plenty of other topics, then de facto you are actually going to need church commentaries for it to make sense. It is obvious that you actually need commentaries to get the Bible's intention or position on these topics. I couldn't pick up Revelation when I was a teenager and tell you with much real opinion what so many things in Revelation meant, and I am hardly the only person with that setback. It is hardly that we are not educated enough in book reading. It's a problem of the cryptic nature of the text. There are tons of cryptic apocryphal literature that people can't readily independently interpret either. Obscurity is inherent in this very genre of literature because it is deliberately cryptic.

Theoretically, someone with just a highschool education and no Christian education could accept and pick up a Bible that falls out of the sky and get the Bible's positions correct on 100% of its hundreds of pages and tons of theological issues. But in reality, the average person does actually need commentaries to guide him to reach the right positions on those issues, because the real result is that people with no outside commentaries get confused on important issues even if they accept the Bible.

You can theorize that 90% of sincere Bible-believing Protestants miss the Bible's Lutheran position on Obscure Passage X or on Debated Topic Y. But in reality, if Bible believing "Bible Only" Protestants needed no commentaries to reach the Lutheran position, then in reality, that is what would happen when they picked up their Bibles. In reality, the Bible's position on Infant Baptism is obscure enough (there is nothing specific and overt), that Bible Only Protesrants are sharply divided. If the average person could in real life pick up a Bible and would just "get it" on their own, then I could hand a Bible to my Mennonite relatives and point to a chapter and say "Here's where it says to do Infant Baptism." In reality, they probably read the Bible every day and they don't "get it" on Infant Baptism. In fact, one of them is a former Lutheran who grew up Lutheran through Highschool.

So theoretically, a person can reach the Bible's positions by reading the Bible alone, but in reality, a typical sincere, Bible believing person won't do that.

How do I prove something so simple and obvious? If you sent your kids to school for 12 years so they got highschool educated, gave them Bibles, and you limited their religious education and the sermons they heard to purely reciting Bible verses to them, they would not actually be able to tell you consistently from their Bibles what the Bible's obscure passages mean or what the Bible's position was on a host of debated topics.

here is the real life experience that falsifies your claims in this latest post.

I am an adult convert who never saw the inside of a Bible or a church until my mid twenties. I was so ignorant I thought Ben Hur was a Biblical story because it had Heston, the actor who played Moses, wearing funny old clothes.

To say I was excited about Jesus would be an understatement. I read John over and over because it hit home and I couldn't tolerate let alone read through other books considered canonical. When I finally decided to go to a church it turned out to be one that wouldn't baptize me unless I first went through their information class. That was the end of that church so I started visiting churches because of their ads, location, someone recommended one, etc.

What I found were claims of we are the church, no we are the true church, we are the NT church, the Bible --the whole Bible -- and nothing but the Bible, those guys are wrong, stay away from those guys, etc.This confusion among churches/denominations led me not to to trust or believe any of them.

So I kept reading John and occasionally visiting churches and sometimes listening to radio preachers or reading a Chritian book. To make a long story short, I came across the Lutherans and as was my custom I asked questions that began with, "You know, I heard...," or "You know I read,..." After a few visits the pastor took me aside, looked up at me and said, "It isn't what they say it is. It isn't what I say it is." And then he took his thumb and poked me in the belly and said, "It isn't what you say it is. I want you to go home, read your Bible, and come back and tell me what it says." So that is what I did.

It wasn't too bad withe other books attributed to John. Even Revelation resonated with the gospel of John, my measure for every other book purported to be canonical, although the symbols weren't always understood. But I wasn't going to read it only a few times so I expected my understanding of the symbols would improve.

It was a different story with Moses who was next up. Since Jesus spoke well of him/it that was enough for me to tough it out. It wasn't so much the words but the whole time, culture, history, and the why are they doing this of it all made it tough going. That numbers seemed so tedious.

This went on for ten years, give or take a month or two. i knocked the snot out of each book to be sure it measured up to John. Along the way I met another Lutheran pastor who gave me another good piece of advice. He told me, "You can't know what Scripture means until you know what it says. Read a passage several times, I think it was five, and then ask yourself what does it mean? If you think it means something other than what it says go back and read it again another five or ten times. Read it as many times as it takes until what you think it means is what it says."

To be really blunt, once a person learns that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, is God incarnate it is all downhill from there. There isn't anything in Scripture that is "hard" to believe after that.

Do I read patristics? Sure. I've read the entire ANF at CCEL, but after that I am very selective. Like you wrote in another post it is sometimes like hanging out at a Bible study with these guys or a history/culture lesson.

 

[BJ Bear]

The statement that the Bible is the Master over all other writings can mean different things and so it is not necessarily in itself an incorrect statement. Typically everyone would agree that the Bible is the highest Authority and so if you are using this declaration about it being the master over all of the writings in a general flexible sense or in the same way that the New Testament could be called the Lord and Master over the Old Testament then it is something people would agree on. For instance a papal bull would not declare that "the Bible is theologically wrong", whereas if we and Catholics agreed that the Bible waa saying that a papal bull was wrong, then Catholics and others would say that the Bible was right and that the papal bull was mistaken.

But probably Lutheranism does not mean this declaration in such a general flexible sense for a few reasons.
1. The term Lord and Master sounds pretty exalted Beyond it just being the highest place of authority of writings. We would agree that the New Testament takes precedence over the Old Testament or replaces it in some senses, but I'm not sure that we would use the term Lord and Master for it. The same thing goes for the ecumenical councils. If the councils decided on the books of the Bible, then to say that the Bible is the Lord and Master over those particular councils seems a bit confusing.

2. Since everyone agrees typically that the Bible has the highest place in terms of written Authority in the way that I mentioned above, Luther probably meant something different than that because Sola scriptura is a key foundational defining feature of Lutheranism, and it would very much tend not to be a special feature if it was the same thing that Catholicism taught on the topic.

3. When Luther got into discussions about his idea on the role and place of scripture, he did not seem to mean this idea of Bible alone in such a flexible way. For instance in the quote a few messages earlier in this thread that tertium quoted, Luther compared the Bible to a sword, with the church fathers and their commentaries being like a sheath, and he declared that he wanted to take the sword out of the sheath. The implication is that he is saying practically to rip the Bible from its context and the Christian community's historic understanding of the Bible that the church fathers explained about it. And this is not realistic or reasonable as a way to treat Bible passages. For example, The Book of Revelation talks about the 1000 year reign of Christ and some people today take that literally, whereas church writers in the time of the church fathers commonly took the view that this did not mean a literal 1000 year reign. Some Council even made a decision to that effect. So to recommend taking the Bible writing on the 1000 year reign out of the sheath of the church fathers who explained what that meant and then to use the Bible writing on this cryptic ambiguous writing topic as a sword is not realistic or reasonable.

4. To take his declaration about the Bible being the Lord and Master over all of the writings in a absolute or strict sense such that other writings do not serve as Masters or teachers on the Bible is also not realistic or reasonable due to the necessity of using other writings outside the Bible in order to understand what the Bible is saying as well to reach the conclusion that the Bible and its books are correct on a topic. Even if we agree that the Bible is correct, there's still an apologetic role of books outside the Bible to show that the Bible is correct and in the course of using those other writings you will in fact be evaluating the Bible. So for instance you can check ancient writings outside the Bible to show that Jesus existed. We agree that the Bible is right that Jesus existed, and those writings outside the Bible are used in order to judge the Bible to be correct. That is why I say that if the statement that the Bible is Lord and Master over all other writings is meant in an absolute sense such that other books do not judge the Bible, then this declaration is not realistic or reasonable either. In reality, both the Bible and Church books outside the Bible must interact with each other in a harmonious way.

This reply is also absent the context of the manifestly false interpretation of Scripture asserted in the Papal Bull.

Imitating the German custom of capitalizing nouns as a rule might confuse some English speakers who are used to seeing the words lord and master capitalized when used in referrence to Christ.

Re point 3, when Luther speaks of removing the sword from its sheath he is speaking of freeing Scripture from the errors which cloak and obscure the word of God in the Papal enviornment. It wasn't too much later that the Papacy at Trent did some internal house keeping regarding Scripture and its interpretation. It declared the Vulgate to be the Scriptures of record and that the interpretation of Rome to be t-h-e interpretation.

Re point 4, in common terms he was saying Scripture trumps the false interpretation of Scripture in the Papal Bull.

 

[Tertiumquid]

My apologies for my reappearance lacking long-windedness as per the recent discussion here. I so wish life were so simple that it consisted of discussions on Internet forums like this, but alas, in my world, I'm not afforded that luxury.

Simply put from my side of the world: the Holy Scriptures are the very extant voice of God functioning today, therefore they have the highest authority, an infallible authority. There are other "authorities" for sure, but these are not the extant voice of God nor are they infallible... yet they still have authority relative to the infallible authority.

Rome, Orthodoxy, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. want to have multiple sources of infallible authority because they typically feel without some sort of infallible interpreter, the very voice of God found solely in the Sacred Scriptures will lead to confusion or misunderstanding. Frankly: so be it. From my perspective, none of the secondary infallible interpreters have proven themselves to be the very voice of God. If Mr. Rakovsky finds solace in Orthodoxy infallibly mediating the Bible, then so be it also. I'm not joining any of the infallible interpreter clubs any time soon, even if there's a discount, a special offer, or a once in a lifetime sale.

 

[rakovsky]

My apologies for my reappearance lacking long-windedness as per the recent discussion here. I so wish life were so simple that it consisted of discussions on Internet forums like this, but alas, in my world, I'm not afforded that luxury.

Simply put from my side of the world: the Holy Scriptures are the very extant voice of God functioning today, therefore they have the highest authority, an infallible authority. There are other "authorities" for sure, but these are not the extant voice of God nor are they infallible... yet they still have authority relative to the infallible authority.

Rome, Orthodoxy, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. want to have multiple sources of infallible authority because they typically feel without some sort of infallible interpreter, the very voice of God found solely in the Sacred Scriptures will lead to confusion or misunderstanding. Frankly: so be it. From my perspective, none of the secondary infallible interpreters have proven themselves to be the very voice of God. If Mr. Rakovsky finds solace in Orthodoxy infallibly mediating the Bible, then so be it also. I'm not joining any of the infallible interpreter clubs any time soon, even if there's a discount, a special offer, or a once in a lifetime sale.

It's a common idea in Orthodoxy that the Bible and 7 Councils are infallible, and there is no teaching about the Magisterium or other traditions being infallible like the RCs teach.

Orthodoxy AFAIK is not dogmatic that either the Bible or the 7 Councils are infallible.

Lutheranism by contrast seems dogmatic or axiomatic in its 5 Solas idea.

One of the big problems with sola scripture that I was getting into was not so much the idea that the Bible is infallible, but what seems to be Luther's idea that your average Protestant can just pick up and passage in the Bible or check the Bible on any religious topic and know the right meaning with no outside help, like his quote about taking the Bible as a "sword" from the "sheath" of the church fathers. This idea is pretty attractive, and it might work most of the time, but there so many times that it doesn't work that the Sola Scriptura idea is not realistic or reasonable.

Lutheranism is probably one of the most sympathetic Protestant denominations for me, so I don't want to antagonize you. I liked BJ sharing his story and it's impressive how much he knows about the Church fathers. Last spring there weren't many nearby churches available when the COVID restrictions hit, and I liked visiting a nearby Lutheran church, talking to the pastor, and praying in the church. It was actually this experience that got me more interested in evaluating the basic Lutheran ideas.

 

[BJ Bear]

My apologies for my reappearance lacking long-windedness as per the recent discussion here. I so wish life were so simple that it consisted of discussions on Internet forums like this, but alas, in my world, I'm not afforded that luxury.

Simply put from my side of the world: the Holy Scriptures are the very extant voice of God functioning today, therefore they have the highest authority, an infallible authority. There are other "authorities" for sure, but these are not the extant voice of God nor are they infallible... yet they still have authority relative to the infallible authority.

Rome, Orthodoxy, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. want to have multiple sources of infallible authority because they typically feel without some sort of infallible interpreter, the very voice of God found solely in the Sacred Scriptures will lead to confusion or misunderstanding. Frankly: so be it. From my perspective, none of the secondary infallible interpreters have proven themselves to be the very voice of God. If Mr. Rakovsky finds solace in Orthodoxy infallibly mediating the Bible, then so be it also. I'm not joining any of the infallible interpreter clubs any time soon, even if there's a discount, a special offer, or a once in a lifetime sale.

Is it a coincidence that they all deny in one form or another thatt concupiscence is a sin?

 

[BJ Bear]

@rakovsky

If your understanding of Scripture alone was ours then we wouldnt cite the Fathers and others.

The five solas aren't Lutheran and even if you find one to say he agrees it still isn't church doctrine.

 

[rakovsky]

@rakovsky

If your understanding of Scripture alone was ours then we wouldnt cite the Fathers and others.

The five solas aren't Lutheran and even if you find one to say he agrees it still isn't church doctrine.

I like pressing Like on peoples' posts because I like the discussions. Lutherans have long felt more reasonable and open-minded, or less harsh and less negative to me than a lot of other Protestant groups.

When I was growing up Protestant, I would not really question these things. All mainstream Protestant (eg. Methodists and Lutherans) felt basically the same to me. I could go to a Methodist service and the sermon on this topic would make sense, and then a Lutheran service would make sense too, even though the Methodist position (Wesleyan Quadrilateral=Reason+Tradition+Bible+Experience) is in conflict with the "Sola Scriptura" theory.

To address what you said, "If your understanding of Scripture alone was ours then we wouldnt cite the Fathers and others."
There are lots of reasons why my idea of the Lutheran Scriptura Alone theory could be right yet you could cite Fathers and others anyway. One is the potential conflict between theory and practice, or a conflict between a "Bible Alone" theory and the reality of needing commentaries to explain the Bible.

EO critics of the Sola Scriptura idea have noted the importance of various Confessions (eg. Augsburg) and faith declarations in Sola Scriptura churches. The Lutheran idea is that these Confessions are not "authorities" but merely witnesses of what the Bible teaches. But in practice, if you need Confessions and commentaries to tell the Lutheran flocks what the Bible says and what to believe and what Lutheran teaches, then in practice those Confessions serve as authorities.

The Confessions and Lutheran commentaries are in real life treated as authorities for interpreting the Bible, for giving church rules, for teaching theology. For instance, imagine if a Lutheran pastor violates something in the Lutheran Confessions or a basic church principle, like if he starts saying like the Anabaptists that he won't baptize infants or give any children under 12 communion. The Lutheran Church would historically have taken measures against a pastor like that. He and his Lutheran superiors or laity could have battles over Bible passages on the topic like Protestants have for decades. But in practice, neither side can point to a Bible passage that is specific, clear, concise, and on-point on the topic. So in real life, the Lutheran Church, even since Luther's time, is going to use authority like his superiors (eg. Bishops) or his village church's council or the Lutheran confessions to tell this Pastor what they (Lutheranism) teaches. And those people or their Confessions are de facto actually going to act as authorities.

And this gets back to my main point- in real life practice, you are going to need some other writings to give teachings and to interpret the Bible in addition to the Bible, because the Bible is not actually clear, concise, specific, and on-point on everything.

 

[BJ Bear]

I like pressing Like on peoples' posts because I like the discussions. Lutherans have long felt more reasonable and open-minded, or less harsh and less negative to me than a lot of other Protestant groups.

When I was growing up Protestant, I would not really question these things. All mainstream Protestant (eg. Methodists and Lutherans) felt basically the same to me. I could go to a Methodist service and the sermon on this topic would make sense, and then a Lutheran service would make sense too, even though the Methodist position (Wesleyan Quadrilateral=Reason+Tradition+Bible+Experience) is in conflict with the "Sola Scriptura" theory.

To address what you said, "If your understanding of Scripture alone was ours then we wouldnt cite the Fathers and others."
There are lots of reasons why my idea of the Lutheran Scriptura Alone theory could be right yet you could cite Fathers and others anyway. One is the potential conflict between theory and practice, or a conflict between a "Bible Alone" theory and the reality of needing commentaries to explain the Bible.

EO critics of the Sola Scriptura idea have noted the importance of various Confessions (eg. Augsburg) and faith declarations in Sola Scriptura churches. The Lutheran idea is that these Confessions are not "authorities" but merely witnesses of what the Bible teaches. But in practice, if you need Confessions and commentaries to tell the Lutheran flocks what the Bible says and what to believe and what Lutheran teaches, then in practice those Confessions serve as authorities.

The Confessions and Lutheran commentaries are in real life treated as authorities for interpreting the Bible, for giving church rules, for teaching theology. For instance, imagine if a Lutheran pastor violates something in the Lutheran Confessions or a basic church principle, like if he starts saying like the Anabaptists that he won't baptize infants or give any children under 12 communion. The Lutheran Church would historically have taken measures against a pastor like that. He and his Lutheran superiors or laity could have battles over Bible passages on the topic like Protestants have for decades. But in practice, neither side can point to a Bible passage that is specific, clear, concise, and on-point on the topic. So in real life, the Lutheran Church, even since Luther's time, is going to use authority like his superiors (eg. Bishops) or his village church's council or the Lutheran confessions to tell this Pastor what they (Lutheranism) teaches. And those people or their Confessions are de facto actually going to act as authorities.

And this gets back to my main point- in real life practice, you are going to need some other writings to give teachings and to interpret the Bible in addition to the Bible, because the Bible is not actually clear, concise, specific, and on-point on everything.

For the record, the Evangelical Church is built around an evangelical, catholic, and ecumenical confession. If you believe it then you are one of us and if not then you are not. There is no set number of the other Symbols one must accept, no set hierarchy, no grand constitution, no set form of church polity.

In the scenario you present, for example, with regard to infant baptism, Scripture is clear as well as the Symbols. If a pastor refuses to baptize infants after corrective measures his call as pastor of the congregation will come to an end.

With regard to a suitable age for Communion, Scripture doesn't state a specific age and it wasn't a point of contoversy so there is no statement regarding this topic im the Symbols.

That brings up the larger history and context of the Symbols. The Symbols of the Evangelical Church were not written to tell the members what the Bible says. The only exceptions are the two Catechisms. The rest all have a historical context outside of the purpose of this is what the Bible says. They were written within the context of the demands by the Empire and in dispute with the papacy.

For example, the Augsburg Confession was written for the Diet at Augsburg, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession was written in response to the Confutatio Pontificia, the Smalcald Articles were written in the event a free and open council were to be held, etc.

The Catechisms were written when there were few in German. The Catechism was written as a pattern for the father or parents to teach their children the faith. The Large Catechism was more expansive and written for adults, including pastors and teachers.

To your main point, the Bible is actually clear when it comes to Christ and Him for all men. Because this is so, when we come across some other point which may seem to be or is unclear we can say in full assurance of the faith with regard to that point that Scripture doesn't say or it is unclear. In other words, there is no need to go into story telling mode.