Carl Trueman is as Protestant as Protestant gets. I read his articles, and I never get the sense that he is changing his mind. But he inspires me. I know Bryan is a fan, precisely because Trueman is willing to tease out the implications of what he believes (and what he doesn't) and to live with them. He's not on a team, as it were. If some piece of the historical data or some ecclesial consideration gives grist to the papists in the court of public opinion, it's no concern of his, long as it's true.
What I can recall is thinking that the ground of my dissent or disagreement with the Catholic Church had to be strong. In that, I agreed with Trueman, who wrote that Catholicism was the default position in the West. I could appreciate also the opinion that we as evangelicals needed affirmative reasons to be what we were. If we found ourselves in agreement with Rome, we should return. All this is true, and it had to be so, for the sake of the dogmatic principle, as Newman would say. The Eucharist cannot be the body and blood of Christ in the Catholic sense and in the Reformed sense at the same time. We certainly knew how to cherry-pick from the ancient authorities when it suited us, but sooner or later, the cocktail party politeness of the ecumenism of ignorance will die in the harsh reality of the contrast between the Council of Trent and St. Thomas on the one hand, and the Heidelberg Catechism question 78 on the other. We can't paper over these differences, no matter how hard Michael Green might try. We liked to use the words, "Eucharist," "Body & Blood," "real presence," and the like, but we were toying with dynamite, to allude softly, if I may. I know for my part, I had forgotten all the blood spilled over the precise meaning of those words. We had no right to forget it or soft-pedal it, either by ignorance, or for the sake of a revisionism occasioned by a collapsing ecclesiology. If the so-called "conversionist" evidence could be harmonized with other patristic evidence suggesting at first a more symbolic Protestant view but didn't (because you can't harmonize contradiction), and it led back to a visible, authoritative community, I would have my answer. And it did. Orthodoxy on this and other matters was determined primarily, if not exclusively, by visible communion with the bishop of Rome in the earliest days. If I were to tell an alternate story centered around the Reformers in the 16th century, I'd need a pretty definitive hermeneutic from Scripture, because I'd rejected the accepted authoritative arbiter of Tradition in use at the time. I'd also need it to be strong in order to justify a rival ecclesial authority, and by extension, a new arbiter of Tradition (even if we dared to claim we didn't have it). When you've reined in all the myriad claiming to believe and teach "what the Bible says," you let me know. Not that this in itself means anything, as long as I thought I was right in my hermeneutic. But I began to ask, "What if I'm not?" And, "What is the nature of the authority wielded by my forefathers and community?" If that authority is neither dispositive against other claims nor intended to be final, how could I, as a representative of it, claim to preach the word of God?
You may have noticed that much ink virtual and real has been spilled over the idea of apostolic succession. The beauty of this argument is this: As it turns out, this claim means precisely squadoosh without papal primacy. To have a visible hierarchy without an ultimate visible principle of unity is pointless. You can definitely tell the Orthodox to can it if you are Protestant, because the picky-choosy among them vis a vis the Councils is no less ad hoc than anything Zwingli et al cooked up. If anybody finds either a unified body of teaching that all Orthodox believe, or a final arbiter, please let me know. In my ruder moments, it may be addressed as, "Protestantism With Funny Hats." Or, "Chaos With Funny Hats." But I repeat myself. [This is a chaotic rant.--ed.] That it is.
What I can recall is thinking that the ground of my dissent or disagreement with the Catholic Church had to be strong. In that, I agreed with Trueman, who wrote that Catholicism was the default position in the West. I could appreciate also the opinion that we as evangelicals needed affirmative reasons to be what we were. If we found ourselves in agreement with Rome, we should return. All this is true, and it had to be so, for the sake of the dogmatic principle, as Newman would say. The Eucharist cannot be the body and blood of Christ in the Catholic sense and in the Reformed sense at the same time. We certainly knew how to cherry-pick from the ancient authorities when it suited us, but sooner or later, the cocktail party politeness of the ecumenism of ignorance will die in the harsh reality of the contrast between the Council of Trent and St. Thomas on the one hand, and the Heidelberg Catechism question 78 on the other. We can't paper over these differences, no matter how hard Michael Green might try. We liked to use the words, "Eucharist," "Body & Blood," "real presence," and the like, but we were toying with dynamite, to allude softly, if I may. I know for my part, I had forgotten all the blood spilled over the precise meaning of those words. We had no right to forget it or soft-pedal it, either by ignorance, or for the sake of a revisionism occasioned by a collapsing ecclesiology. If the so-called "conversionist" evidence could be harmonized with other patristic evidence suggesting at first a more symbolic Protestant view but didn't (because you can't harmonize contradiction), and it led back to a visible, authoritative community, I would have my answer. And it did. Orthodoxy on this and other matters was determined primarily, if not exclusively, by visible communion with the bishop of Rome in the earliest days. If I were to tell an alternate story centered around the Reformers in the 16th century, I'd need a pretty definitive hermeneutic from Scripture, because I'd rejected the accepted authoritative arbiter of Tradition in use at the time. I'd also need it to be strong in order to justify a rival ecclesial authority, and by extension, a new arbiter of Tradition (even if we dared to claim we didn't have it). When you've reined in all the myriad claiming to believe and teach "what the Bible says," you let me know. Not that this in itself means anything, as long as I thought I was right in my hermeneutic. But I began to ask, "What if I'm not?" And, "What is the nature of the authority wielded by my forefathers and community?" If that authority is neither dispositive against other claims nor intended to be final, how could I, as a representative of it, claim to preach the word of God?
You may have noticed that much ink virtual and real has been spilled over the idea of apostolic succession. The beauty of this argument is this: As it turns out, this claim means precisely squadoosh without papal primacy. To have a visible hierarchy without an ultimate visible principle of unity is pointless. You can definitely tell the Orthodox to can it if you are Protestant, because the picky-choosy among them vis a vis the Councils is no less ad hoc than anything Zwingli et al cooked up. If anybody finds either a unified body of teaching that all Orthodox believe, or a final arbiter, please let me know. In my ruder moments, it may be addressed as, "Protestantism With Funny Hats." Or, "Chaos With Funny Hats." But I repeat myself. [This is a chaotic rant.--ed.] That it is.
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