The Fathers Know Best: Scripture and Tradition in the Early Church - Patrick Madrid

I'll begin at Denny's in San Diego California i-it's a it's an appropriate place to begin isn't it you know actually it's crazy because I had just given a seminar in San Diego and there were two Calvinist gentlemen who did not only did not like the presentation I gave on the Catholic faith they were adamant that I was wrong in my I think it might have been a presentation of the Church's teaching on the Blessed Virgin Mary and her role in the communion of saints and so at the end of the question-and-answer period which followed the seminar itself they they desired that I should sit down with them at greater length and talk about these things I think they wanted to set me straight and show me the error of my ways as a Catholic so I agreed to go to Denny's with them and what I was doing at Denny's at 10 11 12 o'clock at night drinking coffee I'll never know I probably stayed awake for the next week after that but we had a marathon session at that Denny's late in the evening I on one side of the booth with my Bible the two of them on the other side with their Bibles and we were going back and forth this is how so often Catholic and Protestant discussions often go many of you I know are converts to the faith you may have been on the other side of the table at one point in your life in talking to Catholics and this was a very lively discussion but it was also very frustrating because these two Calvinists we're not getting anywhere with me nor did I seem to be getting anywhere with them and so after about two and a half hours of this all of us were feeling a little bit worse for wear and we didn't feel as though we had much to show for it because it kept getting down to them saying well that's not biblical and so I would quote a Bible passage to support what I was trying to say and they say well you're just misinterpreting it you don't understand what that really means and I'd say well then why should I accept your interpretation are you infallible do you do you have the authority to interpret this passage in such a way that I am bound to accept your interpretation they said well no but this is what the passage means and I said well I don't think so and so it just became the standoff and not perhaps you've been in a situation like that so I got the this idea I had heard this somewhere and by now I can't tell you where I heard it this is going back over 20 years ago that this conversation took place but I wrote down these six words on a napkin I wrote down I never said you stole money put a period at the end and I turned the napkin around in front of these two fellows and I said now do you understand what I just wrote on this napkin they looked at the napkin I never said you stole money they said yeah sure we understand I said are you sure you understand what I wrote do you know the meaning of what I wrote by these words they said well of course it's obvious I never said you stole money what's a big about that what's so difficult about that and I said well here's my real question what if my meaning was I never said you stole money somebody else said it or maybe my meaning was I never said you stole money I thought it but I never actually said it or maybe my meaning was I never said you stole money it was the guy sitting next to you or maybe I meant I never said you stole money perhaps you accidentally lit it on fire or you you lost it or you did something else I didn't approve up I didn't say you stole it or maybe my meeting was I never said you stole money you stole my bicycle or my iPod or something like that and when I went through that little exercise there takes about 30 seconds I said now which is more likely to be open to a misunderstanding of its meaning this six word sentence and I picked up the the Bible in my other hand I said or the Holy Bible comprised of all these different scriptures written by different people at different times for different purposes in different languages and so forth I asked them I said which do you think realistically speaking is more likely to be open to a misinterpretation these six words or the Bible and they of course sheepishly said well obviously the Bible and so the point I was trying to make and I and they I could see on their faces the light of recognition I could sense that they understood the point that I was trying to make they didn't particularly like what I was saying but they couldn't avoid seeing the truth of it that those six words could yield up five different meanings for somebody to say I never said you stole money does not mean I never said you stole money it's so obvious it's almost you know it's almost childish to go through it but it was very interesting because the conversation concluded shortly after that by my saying all I'm trying to get across to you is that you have your interpretation of the Bible I have mine but I have something you don't have I have access to how the earliest Christians understood these doctrines that I'm speaking to you about on the Holy Eucharist on the papacy on the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints and so forth I said I can trace a continuity of belief and understanding and certitude of doctrine from the present day as a Catholic back to the time of Christ and the Apostles because of something called sacred tradition something that informs us of the meaning of the words on the sacred page now they said well we know we've heard that before we don't buy into that you know a couple of harrumphs and that sort of thing and then our our discussion ended on a on a pleasant note but they weren't buying what I was selling that night and I certainly wasn't buying what they were selling that night and that was the end of it about six months later give or take I was speaking somewhere else and one of those two Calvinist fellows showed up at the seminar and he sat there and he listened and I thought well I guess I'm going to be going to Denny's tonight after this one's over here turns out during the Q&A period he identified himself as as one of the guys that had had asked me these questions before and he said but I want you to know that in the ensuing months since that conversation I have decided that I made a big mistake by leaving the Catholic Church and I'm coming and I he had actually come back home to the Catholic Church he says I've re-entered the church and I was very happy to hear that obviously and I asked him well what did it he says well I I left Denny's that night really angry at this impertinent argument that you made that I thought was so shallow and silly but he said I couldn't I couldn't refute it in others like I couldn't deny the simple truth that I never said you stole money can can mean different things and he said so I decided to take you up on your challenge so I started studying the church fathers and he said and that was my undoing because as soon as I began to study the church fathers all of my preconceptions about what Catholics believe and how Catholics are unbiblical and so forth began to fade away like the mist he says I'm back in the Catholic Church now I don't take credit for that God and the church fathers can take credit for that but I do think that there comes a time in all of our lives when we need to be able to say however simply we may do it the truth of the fact that the bare words on the page are not sufficient in themselves to tell us everything that we need to know so with those things in mind let me launch into some of my more meaty subject matter here to demonstrate the point I'm trying to make let me quote to you what the Catholic Church's teaching on the relationship between Scripture tradition and the Magisterium are I will quote from Dei verbum which is the document it's the dogmatic Constitution on divine revelation from Vatican 2 beginning in paragraph 8 and so the apostolic preaching which is expressed in a special way by the inspired books was preserved by an unending succession of preachers until the end of time therefore the Apostles handing on what they themselves had received warned the faithful to hold fast to the traditions which they have learned either by word of mouth or by letter referring there to second Thessalonians 2:15 and to fight in defense of the faith handed on once and for all referring to Jude 3 now what was handed on by the Apostles includes everything which contributes toward the holiness of life an increase in faith of the peoples of God so the church in her teaching life and worship perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is all that she believes this tradition which comes from the Apostles develops in the church with the help of the Holy Spirit I want to put an asterisk next to that word develop because there's a dangerous heresy known as modernism which was condemned by the Catholic Church which has a false way of explaining what Vatican 2 is saying so keep that in mind we're going to return to that if time permits so with the help of the holy spirit for there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down this happens through the contemplation and study made by believers whose true treasured these things in their hearts through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience and through the preaching of those who have received through Episcopal succession the sure gift of truth for as the centuries succeed one another the church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reached their complete fulfillment in her the words of the Holy Fathers referring to the the church fathers witness to the presence of this living tradition whose wealth is poured into the practice and life and the believing and praying of the church through the same tradition the churches full cannon of the sacred books is known and the sacred writings themselves are more profoundly understood and unceasingly made active in her and thus God who spoke of old uninterruptedly converses with the bride of his beloved son and the holy spirit through whom the living voice of the gospel resounds in the church and through her in the world leads unto all and to all those who believe and makes the word of Christ dwell abundantly in them nearly finished here hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and sacred scripture for both of them flowing from the same divine wellspring in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end for sacred scripture is the word of God in as much as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the Divine Spirit while sacred tradition takes the Word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and hands it on to their successors in all its full purity so that led by the light of spirit by the light of the spirit of truth they may in proclaiming it preserve the Word of God faithfully explain it and make it more widely known consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the church draws our certainty about everything which has been revealed therefore both sacred tradition and sacred scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence then it goes on to explain why this is so Sacred Scripture and sacred tradition form one sacred deposit of the Word of God committed to the church holding fast to this deposit the entire holy people united with their Shepherds remain always steadfast in the teaching of the Apostles in the common life in the breaking of the bread and in prayers so that holding to and practicing and professing the heritage of the faith it becomes on the part of the bishops in the faithful a single common effort but the task of authentically interpreting the Word of God whether written or handed down has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the church whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ this teaching office is not above the word but serves it teaching only what has been handed on listening to it devoutly guarding it scrupulous scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with the divine Commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which which it presents for belief as divinely revealed last point it is clear therefore that sacred tradition sacred scripture and the teaching authority of the church in accord with God's most wise design are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others and that all together each in its own way under the action of the Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls that's the longest by far quote that I will give you today so thank you for for enduring that but it's important that we at least take the time to set the stage so that as Catholics we understand what it is that the Catholic Church is saying to us with regard to Scripture and tradition there are many misunderstandings that people have including I might say many Catholics I'm it's not uncommon for me to run into Catholics certainly non Catholics certainly many Protestants hold this view but even some Catholics for lack of good catechesis erroneously understand tradition to be a game of telephone remember when you were a kid in school and usually when your regular teacher was out the substitute teacher was taken over for the day that's when you'd be able to play games one of the most common games we played was telephone and the way it works is as I'm sure all of you remember is somebody starts at one end and says a phrase into the ear of the person next to him and then it gets transmitted ear to ear although mouth to ear not here to here but you know what I'm talking about all the way to the end of the line so maybe at the very beginning the first kid in the class he says tell Frank to come inside and wash his hands for dinner something like that and by the time he comes out the other line or the other end of line it might be something like tell Frankenstein he's eating frozen bats for dinner or something like that you know something ludicrous and the more funny it is the more awed it is the more funny it is so the game of telephone is not what sacred tradition is let me read to you some words and I will quote him several times in the course of this talk there is a one of the finest scholars on the subject of tradition he studied other things but I'm convinced that he was one of the most erudite students of the subject of tradition itself in the 20th century that is Cardinal Eve Conger a Dominican priest now I'm not going to deal with cone gars thoughts and his teachings on humanism or any of these other things because there are so many different things that he got involved in but I want to restrict myself to his scholarship on the subject of tradition here's what he said referring to scripture and tradition not as independent but parallel sources he says they include fulfill and condition one another the one living in the other tradition contains and preserves everything it is the gospel living in the church now a certain Joseph Ratzinger who was a theologian at the time of Vatican - and of course our Holy Father now he says tradition is not only the word that Christ preached but in the whole of but in the whole of the living experience of his person thus embracing what is said and what is unsaid what the Apostles in their turn are not able to express fully in words but which is found in the whole reality of the Christian existence of which they speak far transcending the framework of what has been explicitly formulated in words in 1966 Joseph Ratzinger father Ratzinger at the time framed the question of Scripture and tradition within the larger anterior reality of divine revelation he said quote revelation means God's whole speech in action with man it signifies a reality which scripture makes known but which is not itself simply identical with Scripture revelation therefore is more than Scripture to the extent that reality exceeds information about it so we know what Scripture is let's talk about tradition what is tradition I mentioned colgar a few minutes ago Cardinal Cong gar says Protestants show themselves such severe critics of the unwritten means of tradition only because they identify it with the transmission by word of mouth alone of teachings that seemed destined rapidly to lose their guarantee since words are easily distorted transformed and added to whereas in the writings of the Apostles we come into contact with their teaching exactly as it left them down to the very words they used a very good example of this would be when you go to the Holy Sacrifice of the mass the gestures the words that come from the lips of the priest at the altar of sacrifice are reflective directly of not only what Christ Himself did at the Last Supper and at Calvary of course but also how the Apostles understood what he meant they who were in the room understood the meaning of his words when he uttered phrases such as do this in memory of me or when he told them to to to go forth and as often as they do this they will be doing it in remembrance of him they understood what he meant when he took bread in his hands and said this is my body and then the chalice of wine saying this is my blood the reason this is important is because divine divine revelation and his transmission to God's people is not merely the function of human handing down of folklore but it's super intended by the Holy Spirit in the life of the church tradition is the church's living memory of Christ and the Apostles what they said and what they did what they taught and commanded to be passed down faithfully and intact to all subsequent generations of Christians as st. Paul writes in Colossians chapter 1 verses 5 through 6 referring to the teachings of Christ he says of this you have heard before in the word of truth the gospel which has come to you this receiving of the truth by the Apostles in their act of handing it on to those who came after them is known as tradition you might think for example of a relay race at a track meet for example high school college the Olympics and you know how the the event goes where one runner takes off holding a baton and then before you know it the next runner receives the baton and continues running and it goes around this the track four times in the might in the case of the mile relay that might be a helpful way of thinking about what the church is teaching us about the nature of tradition it is not simply handing on these customs and well we always did it this way so that's how we're going to do it or we don't even know why we do it but we just do it this way because that's tradition that's not what's happening here the church is proposing to us the fact that the entire deposit of faith has been transmitted to us some in writing as st. Paul says in 1st Thessalonians some in writing and some in oral form but we are charged to hold fast to both so at its essence tradition is the process of receiving possessing and handing on this is the deposit the deposit of faith which comprises the body of teaching given by Christ and his apostles to his disciples as well as the teaching in both oral and written form given by the Apostles under the direction of the Holy Spirit perhaps you heard of the phrase living tradition it became somewhat in vogue at the time of the Second Vatican Council and has continued people use the term quite often I'll just say a word about living tradition before we dive into the Church Fathers here we can speak correctly of tradition as living precisely because this is the essence of the life of the church the church herself delivers to us in each generation what she received from Christ and the Apostles handing on faithfully and authoritative ly what she received now it's interesting because the Word of God both written in unwritten as scripture tells us in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12 is living an active sharper than a two-edged sword so often that verses is confined by our non Catholic friends by our Protestant friends to think to say that Scripture is synonymous with the Word of God so when you go through the Bible and you see the phrase the Word of God in their minds so often that's synonymous with the Bible but that's in fact not true it is synonymous of Revelation is synonymous with God's giving of himself to us in time and some of that comes to us outside of Scripture so the living nests of tradition is equally the case as the living nests of Scripture that sharp two-edged sword living and active car Tolkien gar he wrote about the the importance of scriptures need for the church which had been duly commissioned by Christ in Matthew chapter 28 verses 18 through 20 this is the Great Commission and the church received from Christ the authority to interpret Scripture Cardinal colgar says the preaching of the church is no mere repetition of what has been formulated in Scripture it not only it is not only to translate the biblical message in terms adapted to men but also to deal with contemporary problems for which scripture will only provide the basic principles a Magisterium is therefore necessary without it the church could not exercise its office of enabling man living in an historical situation to enter into a relationship with the Word of God now I'd like to I'd like to press forward now and begin analyzing what we see in the Church Fathers the first thing to keep in mind is that the Church Fathers fulfilled I believe two very important roles in the life of the early church number one they were the principal theologians of the church so we can quote men such as st. Augustine and some of the other major church fathers they they work out the theology of the church especially during the times of great discord and the rise of heresies the Arian heresy the montanus heresy the doníts estera see all the different heresies that threatened orthodoxy were dealt with in a theological way by the church fathers now the second function that the church fathers fulfilled I believe is they were the principal apologists of the early church they took that theology that they were working out so well and they applied it to the need of the day so st. Agustin for example can you imagine San Agustin Bishop of Hippo he used to publicly debate members of for example the Donatists party and various other groups who were trying to quote scripture and fool the faithful - leaving the Catholic Church and going along with them san agustin had no compunction about going into the public square and publicly debating them that's a very gutsy move as far as I'm concerned and what was beautiful about st. Agustin is that these poor Donatists and others had no earthly idea what they were facing when they got up against Saint Agustin in in his biography it is recorded more than once how he actually converted his opponent I've never had anything near that success in my poultry work in apologetics by comparison but Saint Agustin certainly did their effort was to show the correct meaning of Scripture and this is where we see so many problems today I've got a contemporary problem to give as an example the hazards involved in biblical exegesis are many and so it's important that if we're going to retain orthodoxy that we remain close to the church in other words that we remain within the Catholic understanding of what Scripture means otherwise if somebody says well I don't agree with the church on such-and-such a point I think that it means this well that's the doorway into such things as Arianism or one of the other heresies that pestered the church ruthlessly in those early centuries a modern-day example would be what da Carson talks about he's in heaven Jellicle theologian in his book called exegetical fallacies he points out where Matthews were use of the word the Greek word dko sunay in passages such as Matthew chapter 5 verse 20 does not carry the same meaning that Protestants generally see des cailloux soon having in Saint Paul's writings this is referring to being justified in the case of Matthew 5:20 Carson says des cailloux sunay connotes an individual's conduct of righteous life not forensic righteousness imputed to him and yet it's worth noting that many Protestant ministers of today not infrequently will expose at that passage in the opposite way asserting that those who value their own quote conduct of righteous life have fallen prey to the error of works righteousness I'm sure you've heard that phrase before and as a Catholic you probably have been on the receiving end of that phrase before when people accuse you trying to earn your salvation a squabble arose in in in recent memory for example Zane Hodges who died in 2008 a prominent American Baptist he was a seminary professor and author of the widely influential book I'm sorry the widely influential theory free grace theology and he wrote a book called absolutely free a biblical replied to lordship salvation hodges championed a strict salvation by faith alone theology in which there was no room for an individual's conduct of righteous life Carson said that there was no role whatsoever for our participation our good works our righteous life in salvation and many other prominent 20th century Protestant theologians sided with him in what was known as the lordship salvation dispute perhaps some of you during the time when you were a Protestant you lived through this and maybe you even were partisan in this discussion and so on the other side of the lordship salvation dispute you have people like John MacArthur the founder of Calvary Chapel out in California he argued also unbiblical grounds that the righteous conduct did have a role to play in the believers salvation and so there was this there was this war that went on between two different factions over what scripture means the difficulty was that the two factions could not come to some agreement as to what it means and so this is the results of something I would say rather terrible and tragic that arose in in the sixteenth century and that is the notion of Sola scriptura now when John Calvin and Martin Luther proposed scripture alone they had a particularly nning that they emphasized they did not mean simply that scripture could be understood as being materially sufficient meaning that all the the data of Revelation that's necessary for us to believe in hold as Christians is in Scripture at least implicitly they went further and said that scripture is sufficient in itself formally to to manifest its meaning to anybody who might pick it up and read it let me read to you two quick examples this is from the Westminster Confession of faith all things in scripture are not alike and plain in themselves nor alike clear to unto all yet those things which are necessary to be known believed and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other that not only they learn it but the unlearned in a do use of ordinary means may attain unto knowledge of it as the Calvinist way of expressing it in 1580 the Lutheran's the Lutheran's they issued the book of Concord and this was how they formulated Sola scriptura the Holy Scriptures alone remained the only judge rule and standard according to which as the only test the only test all dogmas shall be discerned and judged as to whether they are good or evil right or wrong but the other symbols and writings cited are not judges as are the holy scriptures but only a testimony and declaration of the faith as to how at any time the holy scriptures have been understood and explained in the articles in controversy in the Church of God by those then living and how the opposite dogmas dogma was rejected and condemned now the Church Fathers would not have recognized much less would they have affirmed those to formulate they would not have agreed that scripture is formally sufficient they would not have gone along with this notion that scripture functions apart from the church now Calvin certainly did say that the church is necessary in a certain sense Calvin definitely did pay homage to the the counsels of the church he recognized the authority of the fathers up to a certain point but went further than the church fathers did by saying that the only infallible source of knowledge of what we should believe as Christians is sacred scripture not tradition and not the Magisterium and so this leads us to say well then what did the Church Fathers have to say let's quote a few of them st. basil of Caesarea he affirmed the primacy of Scripture saying quote therefore let God breathe scripture decide between us and on whichever side be found doctrines in harmony with the word of God in favor of that side will be cast the vote of truth now I've had umpteen different Protestants quote that very passage to me as if it's somehow proved the formal sufficiency point of view of Sola scriptura the way John Calvin and Martin Luther meant it and I quoted this passage back to them also from st. basil he says of the beliefs and practices whether generally accepted or publicly enjoined which are preserved in the church some we possess derived from written teaching others we have received delivered to us in a mystery by the tradition of the Apostles and both of these in relation to true religion have the same force you see what he's doing there he is not isolating Scripture he is not doing something that John Calvin would have been proud of he is saying the two together are necessary and both have the same force he goes on to say and these no one will gain say no one at all events who is even moderately versed in the institutions of the church for were we to attempt to reject such customs as have no written authority on the ground that the importance they possess is small we should unintentionally injure the gospel in its very vitals time will fail me if I attempt to recount the unwritten mysteries of the church listen to st. Athanasius in his letter to serabian he declares the very tradition teaching and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning was preached by the apostles and preserved by the father's on this the church was founded if anyone departs from this he neither is nor any longer ought to be called a Christian now avinash's demonstrated his dog colonel arguments by the tradition of the fathers in other words in that same document he sort of taunts the the heretics that he's writing to saying and you what fathers can you a deuce in your favor you know which of the fathers can you cite to support the Arian heresy for example keeping in mind that the Aryans were quite diligent in quoting scripture to try to advance their view that Jesus Christ is not true God by the way you probably have met some modern-day Aryans on your front doorstep holding copies of The Watchtower magazine and awake magazine they are the modern-day recipients of much of the heresy of areas and the church's posture certainly a loving posture in a posture of trying to invite those people to understand scripture correctly nonetheless at the same time says you are misinterpreting the Bible just like my discussion with those two Calvinists at Denny's st. Vincent of Larenz he says likewise because owing to the depth of Holy Scripture all do not accept it in one in the same sense but one understands its words in one way another in another so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are men therefore it is very necessary on account of so great in intricacies of such various error that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and the Apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation that that's the heart of the argument there you know it's not enough to simply quote the Bible and just say well the Bible says so and so the Bible says for example there is no God this is an old saw you've probably heard it before that's just part of the proverb the fool says in his heart there is no God and there are people who will pick and choose aspects of Scripture to try to support a position I think st. Vincent of Larenz is quite right when he says that there are so many different interpretations that we have to be on guard against them that same doorstep that you talked to the Jehovah's Witnesses on maybe on Wednesday it might be holding a pair of Mormon missionaries on Saturday and the Mormon missionaries will open the Bible and they will use the very same scripture to try to prove that not only is Jesus Christ God which the Jehovah's Witnesses denied using Scripture but that there are many gods and that God the Father the God of this planet was actually a God was actually a man I should say on a planet near the star Kolob and when his God judged him worthy to become a God of his own planet then he sort of took over operations here and we are his children so we worship Him as God but God the Father Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit are three separate and distinct beings they're not one God in three persons and the reason I go to this example is to say that using Scripture you may have one group say well here's what the Bible means and provide a view that might seem plausible and then another group a few days later will come along and use the very same Bible to promote something wildly different than the first group did and so on and so forth I'm sure you all have examples in your own experience of this st. Vincent of Larenz he in chapter 25 of kumano Toria which is this work that I've been quoting from he says someone may ask do heretics also appeal to Scripture they do indeed and with a vengeance for you may see them scamper through every single book of Holy Scripture whether among their own people or among strangers and private in public and speaking or in writing at convivial meetings or in the streets hardly ever do they bring forward anything of their own which they do not endeavor to shelter under the words of Scripture read the works of these pests he calls them pests I would never say such a thing I think that's mean-spirited but he says read the works of these pests and you will see an infinite heap of instances hardly a single page which does not bristle with plausible quotations from the New Testament or the old but the more secretly they conceal themselves under shelter of the divine law so much the more they are to be feared and guarded against for they know that the evil stench of their doctrine will hardly find acceptance with anyone if it be exhaled pure and simple so they sprinkle it over therefore with the perfume of heavenly language in order that the one who would be ready to despise human error may hesitate to condemn divine words they do in fact what nurses do when they would prepare some bitter draught for children they smear the edge of the cup all around with honey that the unsuspecting child having first tasted the sweet may have no fear of the bitter so to do these act who disguise poisonous herbs and noxious juices under the names of medicines so that no one almost when he reads the label suspects the poison see that the church fathers were so concerned about the misuse of Scripture that they kept in their writings not only extolling the primacy of Scripture scripture first scripture in its proper place as the norm that norms all other norm but never scripture alone a patristic scholar father jose meadows he writes that without tradition in other words the meaning which the church describes to the scriptural data there remains no other rule of interpretation of Scripture other than one's own personal will and the partisanship of schools I'm sure all of you remember the Rubik's Cube I hated the Rubik's Cube I hated it I couldn't I could never ever solve it probably might like most of you but I actually I did hit on a way that I could do it wasn't quite legal but I would take all the stickers off and then put them you know put all the green on one side but it was very frustrating and the problem of course is that Sacred Scripture can become a Rubik's Cube this is what the Church Fathers were trying to point out they were they were emphasizing the fact that taken in the church when Sacred Scripture is allowed to function as Christ and Holy Spirit intended it then it functions perfectly it's like a Maserati that runs perfectly but when it's taken out of the church and meanings that are contrary to those which the Apostles and their disciples understood from Christ to have to apply when those meanings are ripped away and new ones are put in place of them then Sacred Scripture becomes in essence a private playtoy like a Rubik's Cube it becomes whatever the individual person wants it to and this of course is nothing new but the thing it's important for us to keep in mind is that this is something that the Church Fathers dealt with on a daily basis you hear wonderful talks by Scott Hahn you know maybe Tim staples and others who do great work in the area of apologetics and it all seems very interesting and exciting to us but the truth is these are things these are discussions and controversies that were being held many many many centuries ago the fathers who are proven masters at maintaining and reinforcing the unity of the church in the face of heresy and persecution sometimes at the cost of their own lives by the way they defended at least what I think we could safely refer to as the view of the material sufficiency of Scripture but they always defended right alongside it the importance the necessity and the authority both of the church's self and of sacred tradition because after all how could we follow st. Paul's exhortation in 2nd Corinthians 13:5 when he says examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith that of course applies to you and me as much as it did to any person in the gustin's time so when st. Paul says examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith how do you do that you can pick up the Bible and say well I like what it says here and I you know I bind that you know that's very often what it amounts to but the church fathers keep reminding us over and over again that we have to listen to sound doctrine we have to listen to the church in fact it's quite quite important to remember that the church is given to us by Christ also in a god-breathed way I've had many people say to me the only place in scripture that refers to something as God breathed is in what in 2nd Timothy 3 when st. Paul says to Timothy that all Scripture is inspired by God that word inspired more literally could be rendered God breathed inspired by God and it's it's been interesting to point out how in John chapter 20 when the Lord is giving a measure of authority to the Apostles were told he breathed on them it's the only other place other than in the book of Genesis where God breathes on the clay to turn Adam from inanimate matter into a human being and I think it's important as the Church Fathers consistently remind us that we keep in mind that the church has that function as well Origen he asserted the material sufficiency of Scripture and he comes close to this implication in his work day principios and he declares that his arguments will be supported I'm quoting here supported by the authority of Holy Scripture but he also says let the declarations of Holy Scripture as far as possible first be adduced he rejects the interpretations of Scripture imposed by heretics and says that merely quoting passages from Scripture is insufficient to prove a point rather what is necessary is the correct understanding of scriptures meaning he says these assertions they generally quote some pretended statements of Scripture is referring to opponents of the church all of which assertions we not only do not receive but as being contrary to our belief we refute and reject after the refutation and rejection of such perverse opinions we shall show how these passages which they quote from the sacred scriptures how they ought to be understood I'd like to give you just a brief survey in my final few minutes so you can get a sense of of how the Church Fathers argued this point one of the one of the very common passages from the father's that is invoked in defense of Sola scriptura is from Saint Cyril of Jerusalem in his catechol lectures where st. Cyril says in regard to the divine and holy mysteries of the faith not the least part may be handed on without the Holy Scriptures do not be led astray by winning words and clever arguments even to me who tell you these things do not give ready belief unless you have received from the Holy Scriptures the proof of the things which I announce the salvation which we believe is not proof from clever reasoning but from the Holy Scriptures that's catechetical lectures chapter 4 this is completely in line with Catholic teaching in fact if you consider what Dave mom said that I quoted at the at the outset of this talk you'll see that the church is emphasizing this centrality this primacy of Scripture but never scripture alone and the way that we can demonstrate over and over and over again how the Church Fathers really viewed the authority of Scripture would be to take st. Cyril as a case study quoting that passage then it leaves a dilemma for let's say for a Protestant who wants to turn st. basil into our Saint Cyril excuse me into a Calvinist or into a Lutheran or somebody who would believe in Sola scriptura in that sense the dilemma is this throughout the rest of the catechol lectures st. Cyril he emphasizes other particular doctrines such as the infallible teaching office of the Catholic Church the mass as a Holy Sacrifice the concept of purgatory and the efficacy of expiatory prayers for the dead he preaches and teaches on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist in many places the theology of the sacraments the intercession of the saints Holy Orders the importance of frequent communion baptismal regeneration and on and on a whole host of authentically you might even say peculiarly Catholic doctrines so the question arises then if he was teaching Sola scriptura then that means that he he found all those doctrines in Scripture didn't he and of course so often those are the doctrines that non Catholic Bible believing Christians today reject as being unbiblical now the only other option in this dilemma would be for them to say well he was wrong about all those other things so if he was wrong about those things then how could we trust him to say what he said about Scripture there's no way to trust him a few other quotes I think will suffice to make this point in his dialogue with the Luciferian st. Cyril advises his catechumens in learning the faith and in professing it acquire and keep that only which is now delivered to you by the church which has been built up strongly out of all the Scriptures so for so for the present listen why simply say the Creed and commit it to memory but at the proper season expect the confirmation out of Holy Scripture of each part of the contents take heed then brother's brethren and hold fast the traditions which you now receive and write them on the table of your heart I love this very compact quote from st. Maximus the Confessor he put it about as well as any church father did he said I have no private opinion but only agree with the Catholic Church I think you can't get much more succinct and then I think we will be finished here let me just read to you a few representative ones here senior Aeneas against heresies book 5 it behooves us to avoid their doctrines and to take careful heed lest we suffer any injury from them but to flee to the church and be brought up in her bosom and be nourished with the Lord scriptures Tertullian in his prescription against the heretics he says since this is the case in order that the truth may be a judge to belong to us as many as walk according to the rule which the church has handed down from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ and Christ from God the reason of our position is clear when it determines that heretics ought not to be allowed to change or to challenge and appeal to the scriptures since we without the Scriptures prove that they have nothing to do with the scriptures for as they are heretics they cannot be true Christians because it is not from Christ that they get that which they pursue of their own mere choice but from the pursuit in current admit the name of heretics thus not being Christians they have no right to acquire they have no right to the Christian scriptures and it may be very fairly said to them who are you and where did you come from now I'd like to press pause here for a minute I don't mean to suggest and please don't misunderstand my point here I am NOT suggesting that Protestants are not Christians I would I would part company with some of the the way in which some of these things are expressed somewhat rather harshly at times so I just want to make that point clear that they were using a certain polemical device that I don't think is necessarily always as effective now st. John Chrysostom in his baptismal instruction he says they teach what they themselves have learned from their predecessors they have received those rights which they explained from the church's tradition they preach only the da as of the church san agustin on christian doctrine said but when proper words make scripture ambiguous we must see in the first place that there is nothing wrong in our punctuation or pronunciation accordingly if when attention is given to the passage it shall be appear to be uncertain and in what way it ought to be punctuated or pronounced let the reader consult the rule of faith which he has gathered from the plainer passages of scripture and from the authority of the church and of which I treat at sufficient length when I was speaking in the first book about these things we could go on quite literally for the next hour providing examples one after the other of the church fathers and their effort to to point us in the direction of something that I think has been lost largely in in recent decades and perhaps even in the last few centuries in the Catholic Church on the one hand our Protestant friends make a mistake when they assert Sola scriptura the formal sufficiency of Scripture but there are misunderstandings even among Catholics that go maybe in an exaggerated way in the other direction to say things like well the Bible is really a Protestant book I've met many people you you may even know people you might even yourself have heard this but I've met many people older than I who tell me I was taught by the nuns that I can't read the Bible have you ever run into that I personally I was born in 1960 just to give you an where I'm at on the spectrum I never ever heard anything like that but many people older than me said that they were taught that and that's a mindset that is a part and partly due to an overreaction I think in some ways to the errors that arose at the time of the Protestant Reformation so I think what the fathers can teach us is not only how to correctly explain and identify the way in which Scripture and tradition and the Magisterium work together so we can share that with our friends whether you be at Denny's or some other place but also so that we can purify ourselves as Catholics and remove in in push away from ourselves those misunderstandings or lopsided emphases that we might have where we are either not living deeply in Scripture or we in some way or another think that Scripture is going to conflict with tradition conflict with the church I've discovered nothing can be further from the truth I'll finish with one quote from Agustin and then a little anecdote that happened to me last night and then I'm done San Agustin said in the City of God for we see many matters of importance to the Catholic faith that are canvassed by the feverish restlessness of heretics and the result is that they are more carefully examined more clearly understood and more earnestly propounded with a view to defending them against heretical attack and thus an argument aroused by an adversary turns out to be an opportunity for instruction not only an instruction for somebody who is not a Catholic but instruction for for ourselves for all of us and that leads me to this final anecdote I've alluded to the fact that over the years I've had the opportunity about a dozen times I guess to be to represent the Catholic position in a public debate with Protestant ministers Mormon leaders and others and one of the things that I've discovered is that when when our Protestant friends are finally exposed to the the actual teaching of the early church when it comes to the authority of Scripture and tradition it is not only revolutionary for them but it's also I've found at least for some of them it's very very appealing they recognize in it's something that they hold very dear but which is somewhat distorted in the Protestant Reformation this idea of the primacy of Scripture when we Catholics can do a good job of explaining that to them and using the church fathers as Blessed John Henry Newman did so well I think is one of the best ways that we could do that a lot of ground can be made I told you I had an anecdote here it is one of those debates that I participated in in fact Marcus will hold it up here we have a CD set of it out on the table out there is a debate called what still divides us and it was a debate with myself and two other Catholics debating three Protestant ministers the first day we debated Sola scriptura in tradition second day justification salvation at the end of the debate a young woman walked up to me and she identified herself as a as a Calvinist evangelical protestant she said I've grown up my whole life hearing the arguments against the Catholic Church and tradition and Scripture I never heard any of the Church Fathers really but I've heard all these other arguments that I heard at this debate and she said I have never heard the Catholic response I never really heard what the Church Fathers themselves had to say on this point and she said I am so I was so convinced that the Catholic Church was going to get crushed in this debate that I made sure to bring a carload of Catholic friends of mine so they could be here in the audience to see this debate go down about 1,200 people in the auto I think was close to 1500 people in the audience and it may be about 200 of them were Catholic I found out from the Protestant organizers so I was really happy to hear that she said I'm so shaken by what I've heard by actually encountering the Church Fathers and what they actually said on this point she said that I realize that I'm going to have to in good conscience I'm going to have to investigate the Catholic faith she did she became a Catholic the following year her name is at the time was anemic hargh her name is now Annie wits she lives out in California and what's funny is that well funny not in the Haasan's but every so often Annie will send me an email or call me on the phone and say oh by the way Patrick I loaned the CDs of that debate out to some Calvinist friends of mine or some other friends of mine while they're entering the church you know next Easter that kind of thing now that you're any applause that you might give of course go to God in the church fathers not to Patrick with dread but but thank you on the on behalf of the church fathers I thank you last night I was speaking in San Antonio and I was delivering a talk to about 500 people at a pro-life gala event and after it was all over and I was collecting my notes two people came up to a man and a woman husband and wife and they told me they said we were former Calvinists we we were hardcore anti-catholic and we just thought Sola scriptura was it and somebody gave us a set of that debate CDs what still divides us in the man said we were just so he said the first time we were furious the second time we listened and we were convinced and I said what convinced you he said the church fathers when we encountered the testimony of church fathers we realized that it we couldn't remain where we were we had to become Catholic much like Blessed John Henry Newman so I leave that thought with you that the more we know and the more we can explain the actual teaching of the church fathers on this point the more powerful it is to our Protestant friends the more of a gravitational force it will exert on them drawing them home to the Catholic Church thank you very much for your kind attention god bless you

Channel: The Coming Home Network International

Views: 100,029

Rating: 4.7984667 out of 5

Keywords: Scripture, Authority, Early Church, Biblical Interpretation, Apostolic Succession, Fathers of the Church, Sacred Tradition, Magisterium, Catholicism, Catholic Church, Apologetics

Id: elINGUpOcTo

Length: 54min 43sec (3283 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 16 2016