Nick Fuentes says don't read your bible, just listen to "clergy"
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That's circular, Patrick! What if First Century Bible Church, the parent ministry of Swamp Rangers, is the singular Church which holds the correct interpretation? I've got our apostolic succession around here somewhere. More particularly, Catholics argue exactly the same way.
And you test your experience against your interpretation of the words of Scripture And Tradition. Everyone has the same epistemological lack, which cannot be made up by humans alone but only by God reaching in and delivering regeneration and faith. I do not count on myself to be right but only on God to be right in giving faith to fallible me.
Seems to me nobody can have the whole wholeness, or else all Christians partake of sufficient wholeness. It's very interesting and the debate about circularity has gone on a long time.
What if God is the Flying Spaghetti Monster and we're all wrong?
The answer is simply that it was not the case because we know what the early Church looked like and what they taught based on the Church fathers and Scripture (Acts and Epistles).
No, I appeal to the interpretation of the Church. I don't hold my own interpretation because I'm not the appropriate authority to do that. You can't apply the same critique to systems that have different epistemology and metaphysics. The Orthodox hold that the Church is infallible because it has Christ as its Head and is guided by the Spirit. Individuals within the Church are fallible.
But so do all Protestants, and they hold contrary beliefs to yours. There's no way to arbiter between all those position when you all hold the same epistemological presupposition. How do you justify the belief that one Protestant (or a whole denomination) is true and not the other ones over there?
Can you justify that claim? Historically Jesus established one universal apostolic Church that encompassed all of the Christians so even if you believe the Church was split later on, it logically follows that it was united in it's beginning at Pentecost. Sufficiency is problematic too, because it assumes a criterion for what's sufficient. But that has to be justified too.
Then God would confirm it through the people he appointed using tools like facts, holy writings, logic, and reason, same as if he were anyone else. And spotting those appointed people, well, I can't take the people's word for it because I am still the one making the judgment, so I can only trust God to guide me to the right people using those tools he gave. Logically, Pastafari doesn't claim continuity from Adam, which would be exclusivist and less loving than Yahweh, so Yahweh gets the preponderance and the inference to best explanation.
Orthodox and Catholics often fail to appreciate that the interpretation of the Church must be interpreted by you. Interpretations come in words just like Scripture. If by interpretation you mean some other aspect of relationship, well of course Scripture requires traditional relationships, but I must interpret whether the Spirit's energies are at work in the relationship or not. (My spirit senses the Spirit's energies in you, so I continue; but if I didn't sense them, I would say like Joan of Arc whether I'm right or wrong I trust the Lord to have me right, and not myself.) How else could the Orthodox judge each other and remove heretics except by personal, individual judgment that the Spirit's not in the heretic, since there is no tradition to guide when a new heresy arises, and both sides claim authority from prior tradition? How did we kick out Simon, Hymenaeus, Alexander, Valentinus, Marcion, or Montanus, except by individual Spirit-led judgment of other covenant people without having a word from tradition (plus, their groups died)? And how do we know if the neo-Nestorians or Miaphysites have come around to our way of thinking, except by new Spirit-led judgment that heals the traditional breaches (plus, their groups live)?
And what if I have that epistemology and metaphysics, and hold that the Church is infallible but any candlestick is at risk of being removed if that congregation fails? Rome was pretty big in 1056, and the Orthodox have no problem (like many Protestants) with the idea that all its candlesticks were uprooted completely, but they don't recognize that risk for themselves as opposed to other branches? Why wouldn't it be Rome was right to excommunicate and Byzantium was the one who had its candlesticks pulled because it wasn't the true Church? No offense, but from outside there's no difference I see.
Actually there is, Matt. 18:15-17, and a little pontificating (bridgebuilding). If you're saying your episteme is Trust Church and nobody else's is, I say Rome and all the strong apostolic successions have that so it's not unique. If you're saying my episteme is Trust God and that tempts disunity, I say anything can be occasion to temptation, but I add the apostolic successionists also ultimately must Trust God and do so unconsciously or they will get in the circle of Trust Self too (trusting the self to pick the right church to trust when several say they're the right church). The Protestant says lots of churches are right churches but we recommend our uniquenesses for consideration. The fact that there's not an earthly org doesn't deny the heavenly organism of Christ's body. If two people need arbitration, either they work it out in Christ (such as by Matt. 18) or one or both are revealed not to be in Christ. Man, who made you an arbiter between me and my brother Protestant? (Jesus's words.) If God did, he can make others arbiters too, even the totally unesteemed Protestants. (Paul's words.)
Unity on essentials, liberty on nonessentials, charity on all. If we ever have a true binary disagreement we agree to disagree like Paul and Barnabas, and await God's revelation (e.g. Paul later backpedaled about Mark but it all worked out for good). Sometimes, denominations merge together if all concerns are addressed, just as the Orthodox reach out to groups that are willing to merge if all concerns are addressed. You and I could merge if we worked the essentials out.
Well, of course. No individual or organization can have all of the faith content (knowledge) because that would be omniscience. What the mature have in Christ is sufficient faith ("great faith", not the "all faith" hypothetical of 1 Cor. 13:2). Adam only knew the seed of the woman, Dismas only knew the man on the cross, but those were sufficient faiths.
Yes, and what were the covenant people before that? They were as much the Messianic body as they were afterward, they were the family of faith, they just didn't have an incorporation and constitution as Jesus provided to the Twelve. (And in particular God gave the lesson that these would be divided into Israel and Judah didactically.) So I like to be more covenantal than the Orthodox, and see the body throughout all history. The unity has always been spiritual, and occasionally physically manifest too.
But isn't it the Orthodox position that they know about their unity and don't make pronouncements about anyone else's? Obviously if Orthodox "merged in" another denomination (say Armenian), the Armenians become Orthodox, but the Armenians could equally proclaim all the Orthodox became Armenian by accepting all the Armenian traditions too. That's what unity is, just like marriage. So it seems to me it's the Orthodox and a bunch of professing Christians that the Orthodox aren't ready to count as Christian yet. But that problem goes all the way back to Simon Magus, whom Peter wasn't ready to count as Christian (for good reason). There were many strands of Simonians afterward, and some of them repented and rejoined the church (Tertullian?), because the larger church was ready to count them as Christians, and they were ready to count the larger church as Christians, no matter what anyone called them. So Orthodoxy is not, and never was, the heavenly unity of the invisible church (because there are surely a couple wolves among the Orthodox and a couple sheep that haven't found that fold), it's the visible organizational unity on earth; and the visible political system of any subgroup of the invisible church doesn't matter because we trust God to maintain the unity of his Body. The only difference is that Protestants give promiscuous credit.
Not really, it's the same answer. Only God can give sufficient saving faith, and only God can give sufficient knowledge of what sufficient saving faith is. If I'm trusting some earthly system as the whole of my authority or episteme or faith deposit, pfft! Instead I trust God to work through my spirit, the Church, the Word, the sacraments, life, miracles, everything. Any instance of trusting the Church finally because it says it's the Church ... weakens the Church.
I appreciate the time you're taking. I hope it's not belligerent-sounding. I have no problem with the Orthodox commending their Church on its distinctives, but it's a free market and others can claim other commendations. Sometimes there is division to show which are approved (and which not), but sometimes division is just from the Lord for his purposes. So I guess the issue for me is when the standing aside (Biblical meaning of "apostacy"), and the criticism of Protestants, is so strong that it implies no hope, which is hardly evangelistic toward Protestants if they are unsaved. Evangelism is about culture.
So here's an idea. How about you point to the Orthodox writings that teach your theology or episteme and I wrestle with them? I'm usually pretty good at agreeing with patristics. I'm just not convinced they say everything you do. (Change? Is heresy!)
Don't have time rn so I'll answer this only.
Interpretation of the Church is not just written word - it's the teaching of the Church and the living tradition as a whole. For example icons are no less important than the texts. Dogma is very concise for the purpose of conveying the correct teaching. But even the Nicaean creed could be misinterpreted so it is always to be understood within the Church tradition. The crux of the matter is this - Orthodox claim that the Spirit was sent to the Church at Pentecost and provides it with His guidance, making sure the faith is kept
Such judgments are done by the Church, not by individuals. The decision to condemn a teaching as heretical is debated and justified and argumented by the council. We can go over all condemned heresies and look at how the Church came to its judgment in each case and the reasons given. No one argues based on the Spirit because it's question begging - where the Spirit resides becomes apparent by exposing the heresy and the Church successfully keeping the true apostolic faith intact. The verification method is not adding or making up stuff that was not there before - it's that simple.
We'll know that when they abandon their false teachings and come to the Orthodox faith. In fact, the dying away of those movements is a testament to their falsity because the Church will exist to the end of time.
Protestants also rely on living tradition and relationship to help interpret pictures, dogma, and creed; they also claim the Spirit guiding them to ensure the faith is kept as members of the Body. The Church makes and publishes its judgments through individual agents and Protestants have it no differently (granted many of them are promiscuous with assigning agency). So it looks the same to me, no differences seen.
You appeal to our ability to review the Church's judgments and reason, which is exactly what Protestants affirm, the right to review. Perhaps the written decisions of the Seven Councils are as infallible as Scripture? But either way they're individually interpreted in what they say. It'd be interesting if I did find that Orthodoxy as a whole took some late interpretation that could be charged as "making up stuff that was not there before" because it adapted old text to new circumstances. Well, that's interpretation, not quite as bad as Mary's Assumption in Rome, but it'd be interesting to see if it exists.
I agree the dying or living of movements is a testament to Jesus's work among the candlesticks. I don't want to keep saying none of this makes the Orthodox distinctive, just uniquely well-reserved, so I'll close there, thanks.