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Bible Questions and Spiritual Discussion
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Catholica
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05/22/2012 10:46 |
Many people bent on downplaying the Church Fathers make the seeming assumption that the Catholic Church believes either that the Church Fathers were infallible or that we regard their writings as equal to Sacred Scripture. Such is not so. The Church confesses that, in fact, their writings are not inspired or else we would have included them in the canon of scripture, and that the Church Fathers were not infallible.
That being said, reading the Church Fathers can gain one a glimpse into how the apostles actually taught the gospel that can help keep us from applying a blatantly false interpretation to scripture.
As for the claim that Irenaeus did not believe in the Trinity, that claim is as bunk as bunk could be. It sounds like you have been reading Jehovah's Witness tracts:
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So then the Father is Lord and the Son is Lord. and the Father is God and the Son is God; for that which is begotten of God is God. And so in the substance and power of His being there is shown forth one God; but there is also according to the economy of our redemption both Son and Father. Because to created things the Father of all is invisible and unapproachable, therefore those who are to draw near to God must have their access to the Father through the Son. And yet more plainly and evidently does David speak concerning the Father and the Son as follows: Thy throne, O God is for ever and ever: thou hast loved righteousness and hated unrighteousness: therefore God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. (Ps. xlv. 6 f.) For the Son, as being God, receives from the Father, that is, from God, the throne of the everlasting kingdom, and the oil of anointing above His fellows. The oil of anointing is the Spirit, wherewith He has been anointed; and His fellows are prophets and righteous men and apostles, and all who receive the fellowship of His kingdom, that is to say, His disciples. ~ Irenaeus, On Apostolic Preaching 2:1:47
I have also largely demonstrated, that the Word, namely the Son, was always with the Father; and that Wisdom also, which is the Spirit, was present with Him, anterior to all creation ~ Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4:20:3
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Anyone can take Irenaeus out of context if they have the will to. The early Catholic Church believed in the Trinity and Irenaeus was a faithful and important member. Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, who in turn was a disciple of John the Beloved apostle. You can see how in the first passage he clearly equates the Son and the Father as God, and in the second passage makes a direct comparison between Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Irenaeus wasn't trying to directly expound the Trinity, but yet his writings still reflect His belief in the Trinity.
***None of the quotes that you have included by the Church Fathers are in conflict with Catholic Church teachings***. If you see a conflict, then this conflict is not with the teaching of the Catholic Church but rather in conflict with the /misconceptions/ that you believe are the teachings or practices of the Catholic Church.
Finally you do realize that that last quote concerning "a system of teaching proceeds also the ungodly practice of certain foolish folk who worship the sun as it rises" was a sermon given by Pope Leo the Great, a Catholic pope, do you not? An insistence that Catholics worship anything but God alone is betrayed by your quote of Catholic resources which demonstrate exactly the opposite.
Here is another quote by Leo the Great:
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"Thou gainest nothing, thou prevailest nothing, O savage cruelty. His mortal frame is released from thy devices, and, when Laurentius departs to heaven, thou art vanquished. The flame of Christ's love could not be overcome by thy flames, and the fire which burnt outside was less keen than that which blazed within. Thou didst but serve the martyr in thy rage, O persecutor: thou didst but swell the reward in adding to the pain. For what did thy cunning devise, which did not redound to the conqueror's glory, when even the instruments of torture were counted as part of the triumph? Let us rejoice, then, dearly-beloved, with spiritual joy, and make our boast over the happy end of this illustrious man in the Lord, Who is 'wonderful in His saints,' in whom He has given us a support and an example, and has so spread abroad his glory throughout the world, that, from the rising of the sun to its going down, the brightness of his deacon's light doth shine, and Rome is become as famous in Laurentius as Jerusalem was ennobled by Stephen. ***By his prayer and intercession we trust at all times to be assisted;*** that, because all, as the Apostle says, 'who wish to live holily in Christ, suffer persecutions,' we may be strengthened with the spirit of love, and be fortified to overcome all temptations by the perseverance of steadfast faith. Through our LORD Jesus Christ." Pope Leo the Great [regn. A.D. 440-461], On the Feast of Laurence the Martyr, Sermon 85:4 (ante A.D. 461).
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Flatly, the communion of saints and praying to them is not worshiping a creature or created thing, but rather worshiping the Creator and seeing the Creator's work through His beloved children who still live in heaven.
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Saint Grogan
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05/28/2012 00:43 |
Catholica wrote:
“Many people bent on downplaying the Church Fathers make the seeming assumption that the Catholic Church believes either that the Church Fathers were infallible or that we regard their writings as equal to Sacred Scripture. Such is not so. The Church confesses that, in fact, their writings are not inspired or else we would have included them in the canon of scripture, and that the Church Fathers were not infallible.”
I’m glad that we agree on this point. I never made the claim that Rome considered the Fathers to be infallible.
Catholica wrote:
“Reading the Church Fathers can gain one a glimpse into how the apostles actually taught the gospel that can help keep us from applying a blatantly false interpretation to scripture.”
There is no way of knowing for sure what the Apostles actually taught their disciples apart from what is written.
Catholica wrote:
“Irenaeus wasn't trying to directly expound the Trinity, but yet his writings still reflect His belief in the Trinity.”
If you read Irenaeus, you see that he didn’t believe in a Trinitarian God, but rather, he believed in only one true God, that being the Father. He believed that Christ was deity only as being a derivative of the Father. I’ve never found where Irenaeus recognized The Holy Spirit as deity. Even in the quotes you gave me, you cannot conclude that the Holy Spirit is God but, only coming from God. Apparently “being with” God is not the same as “being” God.
“The fallacy, then, of this exposition is manifest. For when John, proclaiming one God, the Almighty, and one Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten, by whom all things were made, declares that this was the Son of God, this the Only-begotten, this the Former of all things, this the true Light who enlighteneth every man this the Creator of the world, this He that came to His own, this He that became flesh and dwelt among us,..” (Against Heresies, Book 1:9:2)
So even if Irenaeus believed in a God who was some triune fellowship in a roundabout sort of way, he is still not correct in his understanding of it. Then there is still his belief that Christ lived to be fifty years of age before He was crucified.
Catholica wrote:
“Anyone can take Irenaeus out of context if they have the will to.”
Both Roman Catholic and Protestant apologists were guilty of this.
Catholica wrote:
None of the quotes that you have included by the Church Fathers are in conflict with Catholic Church teachings. If you see a conflict, then this conflict is not with the teaching of the Catholic Church but rather in conflict with the /misconceptions/ that you believe are the teachings or practices of the Catholic Church.
"Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance, for the LORD is a God who knows, and by him deeds are weighed.” (1 Samuel 2:3)
Catholica wrote:
Flatly, the communion of saints and praying to them is not worshiping a creature or created thing, but rather worshiping the Creator and seeing the Creator's work through His beloved children who still live in heaven.”
It is worship and it dishonors God. The Communion is with Christ, not with one another. Any devotion to given to created things, even departed ones believed to be in Heaven is creating gods of your own making and takes away from the glory which rightly belongs to God.
...”Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” (Matthew 4:10)
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Catholica
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05/29/2012 15:57 |
I read a site today telling the world all about "the Trinity delusion" and quoting Irenaeus left and right. It was quite interesting, however I came out of the quotes with quite a different perspective from the author. It's not that Irenaeus didn't believe in the Trinity, but rather that he was so comfortable with the Trinity that he was able to speak of it in a way that was deeper than most people understand.
I think most Christians would agree that the Trinity is a very hard concept to talk about. I mean, in the Catholic Church, which is very Trinitarian, we have Trinity Sunday (coming up this Sunday, actually) and it is referred to as "the preacher's nightmare". Even for those trained in theology have trouble correctly expounding the Trinity, it is so very deep. When I read Irenaeus, I read genius and deep insight into the Trinity, and comfort with the Trinity even when expounding the scriptures, which themselves don't make the Trinity very clear.
Whoever was trying to rip apart Irenaeus had a lot of trouble with the concept of "One God" and "Three Persons" as if One God could not also refer to three persons. Truly the Trinity is a mystery that is above human understanding, and I can fully understand that Irenaeus probably had even more trouble speaking of the Trinity, especially since the language itself had no words to help him describe it, including even the word "Trinity", which is a made up word found nowhere in the scriptures.
I doubt that most Protestants go past just a passing knowledge of the Trinity in its most basic form, which is why Irenaeus' speaking about the Trinity is just too deep for them, and it almost sounds like he is not speaking of the Trinity, but he is.
For example, the following demonstrates that Irenaeus believed that the Holy Spirit was not a created being: He existed _before ALL creation_
I have also largely demonstrated, that the Word, namely the Son, was always with the Father; and that Wisdom also, which is the Spirit, was present with Him, anterior to all creation ~ Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4:20:3
Anterior: something before "anterior to all creation" means "existing before all creation" which means that the other two persons of the Trinity were not created. The only thing not created is God.
Also notice that Irenaeus says the same thing about Jesus (the Word, the Son) and the Holy Spirit (Wisdom) are on the same level: present with Him. Because Irenaeus merely referred to the Word and The Spirit as "present" with Him, does that mean that Irenaeus believes that they are not God? Hardly, because recognize the other quote I made:
"So then the Father is Lord and the Son is Lord. and the Father is God and the Son is God; for that which is begotten of God is God."
Is Irenaeus' point now to exclude the Holy Spirit? No. But he already placed the Spirit and the Word in the same place in the first quote, and so its not hard to see what Irenaeus believed, which was the fact that the Father = God, the Son = God, and the Spirit = God.
Aside from that, it is a rather powerful argument from silence (as opposed to normal arguments from silence) that Irenaeus, in a book which he was addressing every heresy he could think of, would not devote an entire book debunking the Trinity, since it was and has always been the central tenet of the Christian faith.
Basically it's preposterous to say that Irenaeus didn't believe in the Trinity. In fact, his expounding on God demonstrated a rather profound knowledge of the Trinity, divided in parts, even though the language he spoke had no words for him to use to properly explain it in the first place. Even consider the creed:
We believe in the Father... and in the Son... and in the Holy Spirit. The words in between all do their best to describe aspects of truth about God but had to keep insisting One God.
As for the "Jesus was 50" we can go into that as well, as Irenaeus was referring more to the stage of life that Jesus had entered (the age from 30 - 50 which a person qualified to teach) and not that Jesus was actually 50.
Irenaeus is solid teaching. It is our understanding that is lacking, especially when saying something like he didn't believe in the Trinity. Compared to Irenaeus, it is WE who don't believe in the "Trinity"; comparing our knowledge to his understanding is simply no contest, and Irenaeus wins hands down.
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Catholica
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05/29/2012 16:36 |
Here is support for the reasoning why we don't hear much about the Holy Spirit in "Against Heresies":
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4. The Spirit, therefore, descending under the predestined dispensation, and the Son of God, the Only-begotten, who is also the Word of the Father, coming in the fullness of time, having become incarnate in man for the sake of man, and fulfilling all the conditions of human nature, our Lord Jesus Christ being one and the same, as He Himself the Lord does testify, as the apostles confess, and as the prophets announce—all the doctrines of these men who have invented putative Ogdoads and Tetrads, and imagined subdivisions [of the Lord's person], have been proved falsehoods. These men do, in fact, set the Spirit aside altogether; they understand that Christ was one and Jesus another; and they teach that there was not one Christ, but many. And if they speak of them as united, they do again separate them: for they show that one did indeed undergo sufferings, but that the other remained impassible; that the one truly did ascend to the Pleroma, but the other remained in the intermediate place; that the one does truly feast and revel in places invisible and above all name, but that the other is seated with the Demiurge, emptying him of power. It will therefore be incumbent upon you, and all others who give their attention to this writing, and are anxious about their own salvation, not readily to express acquiescence when they hear abroad the speeches of these men: for, speaking things resembling the [doctrine of the] faithful, as I have already observed, not only do they hold opinions which are different, but absolutely contrary, and in all points full of blasphemies, by which they destroy those persons who, by reason of the resemblance of the words, imbibe a poison which disagrees with their constitution, just as if one, giving lime mixed with water for milk, should mislead by the similitude of the colour; as a man superior to me has said, concerning all that in any way corrupt the things of God and adulterate the truth, "Lime is wickedly mixed with the milk of God." ~ Against Heresies, III.17.4
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The heretics and heresies that Irenaeus was addressing "set the Spirit aside altogether". These heresies that Irenaeus was addressing were focused on people dividing Christ, as if Jesus was one and Christ another, or speaking about multiple Christs. So Irenaeus doesn't strongly develop his doctrine on the Holy Spirit, because the attack is not on the Spirit but the person of Jesus, his humanity and his divinity. The Spirit was simply beyond the grasp of these heretics, who were bent on undermining the truth about Jesus.
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Saint Grogan
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06/03/2012 23:39 |
Andre,
You and I could go round and round about Irenaeus until the cows come home. I can provide material that differs from your position but I’m not going to do that here. My goal was to point out that not all the church fathers were correct about everything. This we agree on. As with everything that is extra biblical, I recommend that people exercise discernment when dealing with what the early church fathers taught.
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Catholica
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06/04/2012 16:24 |
I doubt that we could go "round and round" about Irenaeus. Basically you have presented the two "biggest" issues that anyone who tries to undermine Irenaeus has available. I think that we have fleshed out one of them. I am willing to provide arguments about the "50" age issue if anyone cares to hear, but basically Irenaeus was not saying that Jesus was 50 at his death.
The early Church fathers may not be individually infallible, but they are quite reliable, having lived in very close contact with either the apostles or the people who knew the apostles. If one takes them as a whole, then he/she can get a very good picture of what the early Church believed.
Why would anyone want to undermine or obscure the things that the early Christians were teaching or believing? That is the question to ponder here. My belief is that their beliefs are distinctly and undeniably Catholic. But why take my word for it? They are worth a read, so decide for yourselves. I think we'd all like to know the correct interpretation of the Bible, now that have so, so many denominations/beliefs regarding the teachings of Christ existing today, while in the early Church, "All the believers were one in heart and mind." Acts 4:32a
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Lanny Carlson
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06/04/2012 17:18 |
But it's not true that "all the believers were one in heart and mind."
Paul broke with Peter on at least two occasions.
Paul and Barnabas had a falling out.
The Church at Corinth was deeply divided over allegiances to different leaders.
And we all know there were other sects and groups in the early church
whose writings and ideas were ultimately repressed or rejected.
The Church was never as united as we would like to believe,
even though oneness in spite of differences is something for which we strive.
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Catholica
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06/04/2012 22:02 |
Hi Lanny,
Paul opposed Peter to his face, but not because they had opposing doctrine, but rather because Peter was being a hypocrite. The Church has always been composed of sinners who fall short of the teachings of Christ, but that doesn't mean that they didn't strive to live them out. The teachings were defined, and the people's way of living their lives fell short.
The same can be said for the rift between Paul and Barnabas and the Church at Corinth. It was especially clear at Corinth that the teaching of Christ was that there should be no divisions, no one person following Peter, another following Paul, another Apollos, but rather all following Christ. Today it is no different, the only difference is that instead of saying they follow (insert pastor's name here) everyone claims to follow Christ but their interpretation of what Christ taught differs.
Truly there were always heretics trying to undermine the Church, and the gnostics predate Christianity (Irenaeus was addressing gnostic audiences, IIRC) but there was only one teaching of Jesus Christ, and that teaching was found in the Church fathers who were recognized for the fidelity to the teachings handed down from the apostles. People fail; yet the faithful will always assent to believe the truth, even if that means giving up what they once held to be true.
So of course there were ideas who were repressed or rejected; they fell under the banner ofheresy. Christianity a divinely revealed religion, not one slowly figured out by man through analysis of the natural world. I believe that this is where what you believe and I believe part ways, but I could be misinterpreting thing. There is only one Truth, and false beliefs are counter to reality, counter to God who is Truth. False beliefs are destructive and ultimately lead believers astray and toward damnation. A hard line to be sure, but that is what I believe and I find it somewhat important at this moment to just state it.
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Marcie in MO
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06/12/2012 21:49 |
Amen Andre. I greatly admire the way you speak the truth and always with love.
Shalom,
Marcie
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Craig from Illinois
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06/13/2012 09:54 |
I agree with Marci. I enjoy your writings, Andre. They refresh and engage my heart/soul.
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