Question 3
Where is your church and its confession in the world
before the 16th
century?
There is a glaring reality staring you in the face which
you fail to acknowledge. Your beliefs and opinions
regarding Sacred Scripture are found in no church in
existence before the the 16th
century. Let
me be more specific. You made these claims among others
in your opening statement,
“We have sixty-six books of Scripture.
We reject as authoritative the Apocrypha – those
additional books and parts that are not inspired, but
which have sometimes been called Deuterocanonical. They
are of historical interest – and they are of grammatical
interest, since they are ancient books written in Greek.
Nevertheless, since they are not inspired, they do not
have any more authority than any other human writings.
The Bible is a complete document. It is sufficient. It
contains everything that we need to know for faith and
life in general, in order to glorify God and in order to
be saved. Nevertheless, the illumination of the Holy
Spirit – who persuades us of the truth of inspiration of
Scripture – is necessary for anyone to obtain a saving
knowledge of God, even from Scripture. It is complete –
but it is not exhaustive.
Not all of the teachings of Scripture are equally clear,
but the things necessary to be known for salvation are
clearly taught, so that even uneducated people can
understand them.”
There are more teachings that I can list, but I will use
these for my question. There is no church in existence
before the 16th
century that
ever made these false claims. In fact whether the church
be Syrian, Maronite, Syro-Malankara, Coptic, Ethiopic,
Byzantine, Chaldean, Syro-Malabar or Armenian, they all
reject your 66 book Canon and they all reject Sola
Scriptura. Everyone of these different churches claim and
can historically trace their existence back to the
apostles themselves. They all attest to Sacred Scripture
within Sacred Tradition. All of these Rites exist within
the Catholic Church and in the Eastern Orthodox, and hail
from all over the world, established by different
apostles, yet they all hold to the Catholic teaching of
Sacred Tradition.
We have all of these ancient churches which attest to
Sacred Tradition in their Liturgies, as well as in their
church writings and councils. If your claim of Sola
Scriptura is true, we should see these claims made
somewhere among the ancient churches as well. My question
is, where is your Westminster confession equivalent,
proving Sola Scriptura among any ancient church group
before the 16th
century, and
where is the your equivalent Liturgy of the Eucharist
proving these beliefs in practice. Please do not quote
Church Fathers individually, since all of the Church
Fathers belonged to one of the above groups and all
celebrated one of their ancient Liturgies. Show us where
there is a whole church group professing your Westminster
faith in some documented form in some ancient church
before the 16th
century.
Answer 3 by
Turretin Fan
Question 3
Where is your church and its confession in the world
before the 16th century?
Answer: My church is not defined by walls. Instead, my
church is defined by faith in the Christ of the
Scriptures (as the ECFs taught as already pointed out to
you in my first question). As Jesus said:
Matthew 18:20 For where two or three are gathered
together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
The confession is simply a summary of Scriptural
teachings. It does not replace or substitute the
Scriptures.
MB claimed, “Your beliefs and opinions regarding Sacred
Scripture are found in no church in existence before the
… 16th century.” That assertion is not true. Even if it
were true, however, it is irrelevant to this debate.
That’s not a standard that MB’s counter-plan can stand up
to. Trent’s position on Scripture – or better yet Vatican
II’s position on Scripture – may find partial support in
some early conciliar documents – but nothing that was
written with the object of reflecting the views of an
entire church.
MB then identified the statements from my opening post on
the canon, the sufficiency of Scripture, and the
perspicuity of Scripture. MB acknowledged that, “There
are more teachings that I can list, but I will use these
for my question.” Picking and choosing teachings is an
interesting way to evaluate the matter. Nevertheless,
these are what he picked.
MB continued, “In fact whether the church be Syrian,
Maronite, Syro-Malankara, Coptic, Ethiopic, Byzantine,
Chaldean, Syro-Malabar or Armenian, they all reject your
66 book Canon and they all reject Sola Scriptura.”
It’s interesting that MB tries to use them as a guide.
They cannot agree among themselves on the canon or on
whether the pope’s ex cathedra statements are part of the
rule of faith. They may all wish to add to the Bible in
one way or another (as also others do), but their
testimony is at odds, one with another. Even within
Romanism, there are some who argue that the number of the
books in the canon has not been definitively fixed by
Trent, there are divisions on material sufficiency, and
there seem to be disagreements over perspicuity.
MB acknowledged that, “Everyone of these different
churches claim and can historically trace their existence
back to the apostles themselves.” So can, in the same
sense, every church (including the many Reformed
churches). The Jews (whether Pharisee, Sadducee, or
modern Kabbalist) historically trace themselves back to
Moses. But unless MB wants to say that the apostles were
divided over papal infallibility and the canon of
Scripture, the ability to trace one’s genealogy is simply
a Jewish genetic fallacy.
MB claimed, “They all attest to Sacred Scripture within
Sacred Tradition.” They themselves cannot agree what the
bounds of either Scripture or Tradition are. This
actually undermines the counter-plan. One cannot use this
genetic fallacy that because these churches can somehow
trace themselves back to ancient times, consequently they
are right – because they disagree with one another on the
very issues that MB tries to make important. Likewise,
the exact relationship between Scripture and Tradition is
not defined outside of Romanism by the equivalent of
Trent and Vatican II. And, of course, before the 16th
century there was not even an equivalent to Trent in
Romanism. Thus, the implication that because there was no
pre-Tridentine Reformation council that produced a
document like the Westminster Confession of Faith, is not
an argument that can be made consistently by MB.
MB claimed, “All of these Rites exist within the Catholic
Church and in the Eastern Orthodox, and hail from all
over the world, established by different apostles, yet
they all hold to the Catholic teaching of Sacred
Tradition.” In fact, however, it’s hard enough for
members only of Romanism (whether of the Latin or other
rite) to agree on what the teaching of “Sacred Tradition”
is. It is the height of naiveté to suppose that all of
the listed churches hold to “the Catholic teaching” of
the matter.
MB asserted, “If your claim of Sola Scriptura is true, we
should see these claims made somewhere among the ancient
churches as well.” MB anachronistically calls these
modern churches ancient, and ignores the fact that in
ancient times these churches did not resort to anything
but Scripture as a rule of faith. We have shown that from
the writings of the Early Church Fathers.
MB asked, “My question is, where is your Westminster
confession equivalent, proving Sola Scriptura among any
ancient church group before the 16th century, and where
is the your [sic] equivalent Liturgy of the Eucharist
proving these beliefs in practice.”
That, again, is two questions (and the third of this
round). The answer to the former would include, for
example, the Waldensian Confession of 1120. The answer to
the latter question may be answered by the simple liturgy
of the Waldensians as well. Certainly there have been
some questions raised about the historicity of these
Waldensian documents, but even those who claim that the
Waldensian materials are fake, admit that the Waldensians
existed as a group before the 16th century. Ultimately,
the problem with the question can be seen from MB’s own
caveat:
MB insisted, “Please do not quote Church Fathers
individually, since all of the Church Fathers belonged to
one of the above groups and all celebrated one of their
ancient Liturgies.” It is interesting how quick MB is to
try to silence the testimony of the Fathers, and to make
unsupported assertions regarding their beliefs/worship.
There is no reason for MB to ask that they not be quoted
“individually,” except that MB already knows what their
testimony would be. For example, MB surely knows that
Cardinal Cajetan (writing before Trent’s decree) admitted
that Jerome rejected the Apocrypha as being canonical
scriptures in the strict sense. Furthermore, their
individual testimonies demonstrate that the churches who
claim to trace their lineage back to the apostles do not
follow the teachings of the apostles.
-TurretinFan