One of the things that is question-begging and circular about the Protestant definition of the church is that one cannot offer one's rejection of an ecumenical Council on the grounds that it was not ecumenical by redefining the term. It had never been the case that all the bishops in the world were present for an ecumenical Council. It is also not out of the ordinary for the Church not to seat and not to listen to those bishops who, although true bishops have been judged to be in schism from the Church. That's why it's not unfair to judge Luther according to the Catholic hermeneutical paradigm, because that's the paradigm Luther himself was living under. It is a paradigm where the ecumenical councils are true as such and must accepted without reservation according to the terms set by the Church.
When we are criticizing the practical outworking of Sola Scriptura, and wondering about the ecclesiological and dogmatic implications of the principle, it is not from a place that assumes the Catholic paradigm to be true; in fact, in my own mind and my experience, these problems presented themselves first, before any reasonable serious thought of becoming Catholic was on the table. I know that Mr. Noltie can say the same. Whether you believe him is up to you. In fact, it was the common touchstones of Christian orthodoxy that forced me to reevaluate my understanding of doctrinal development. I became aware that the earliest Christians did not provisionally submit to the determinations of an ecumenical Council, pending some hermeneutical process that established it as true. It also became clear that I could not account for classical Christian orthodoxy without the ecumenical councils and by extension, the Bishop of Rome. The reason why Dr. Cross's article on ecclesial deism was so compelling is that, to hold ecclesial deism presupposes a kind of death for the Church that Christ had promised to protect, with a dogmatic and ecclesial legitimacy presumed for whomever stepped into the void. I found that I could not argue against the Catholic position without assuming precisely what is in question: "What is the Church, and am I a part of it?" Without invalidating any of the real Christian experience I had, I was able to at least consider the possibility that I had the wrong definition of "the Church." It seemed clear that any schismatic or heretic could redefine "the Church" however he wished, simply by presuming that the visible manifestation of the Church in the world is not intrinsic to its essence.
But in so doing, once again, I could not account for orthodoxy, the large portion of which I desired to affirm unaltered. This is why I asked, "Why would I pay as much attention to the text, context, place in the canon, authorial intent, and myriad other things in order to rightly handle the word of truth, and completely ignore the same with respect to the creeds?" It became a challenge to friendship and honesty, even with friends and brothers beyond the grave, to hold any part of orthodoxy in an ad hoc manner, or on terms different than they did. We are sorely tempted as Protestants to simply pretend that we haven't done this, just as we are sorely tempted not to look at how doctrine developed and how the Church understood herself in the earliest times, but we must. The result may be that men we regarded as giants and heroes actually were in schism and heresy, but we are Christians. We follow Christ, and not men.
When we are criticizing the practical outworking of Sola Scriptura, and wondering about the ecclesiological and dogmatic implications of the principle, it is not from a place that assumes the Catholic paradigm to be true; in fact, in my own mind and my experience, these problems presented themselves first, before any reasonable serious thought of becoming Catholic was on the table. I know that Mr. Noltie can say the same. Whether you believe him is up to you. In fact, it was the common touchstones of Christian orthodoxy that forced me to reevaluate my understanding of doctrinal development. I became aware that the earliest Christians did not provisionally submit to the determinations of an ecumenical Council, pending some hermeneutical process that established it as true. It also became clear that I could not account for classical Christian orthodoxy without the ecumenical councils and by extension, the Bishop of Rome. The reason why Dr. Cross's article on ecclesial deism was so compelling is that, to hold ecclesial deism presupposes a kind of death for the Church that Christ had promised to protect, with a dogmatic and ecclesial legitimacy presumed for whomever stepped into the void. I found that I could not argue against the Catholic position without assuming precisely what is in question: "What is the Church, and am I a part of it?" Without invalidating any of the real Christian experience I had, I was able to at least consider the possibility that I had the wrong definition of "the Church." It seemed clear that any schismatic or heretic could redefine "the Church" however he wished, simply by presuming that the visible manifestation of the Church in the world is not intrinsic to its essence.
But in so doing, once again, I could not account for orthodoxy, the large portion of which I desired to affirm unaltered. This is why I asked, "Why would I pay as much attention to the text, context, place in the canon, authorial intent, and myriad other things in order to rightly handle the word of truth, and completely ignore the same with respect to the creeds?" It became a challenge to friendship and honesty, even with friends and brothers beyond the grave, to hold any part of orthodoxy in an ad hoc manner, or on terms different than they did. We are sorely tempted as Protestants to simply pretend that we haven't done this, just as we are sorely tempted not to look at how doctrine developed and how the Church understood herself in the earliest times, but we must. The result may be that men we regarded as giants and heroes actually were in schism and heresy, but we are Christians. We follow Christ, and not men.
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